THE FUTURE OF WAR
A HISTORY
LAWRENCE FREEDMAN Allen Lane, 400pp, £25, Oldie price £14.96 inc p&p
In this book, Freedman, who is emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College, London, ‘examines how ideas about how future wars could be fought have shaped the reality, with usually baleful results’, wrote the Economist’s anonymous reviewer, adding that ‘the one thing that Sir Lawrence is sure of is that predictions of future war rarely get it right’. Freedman ‘cites Dr
Strangelove as the pre-eminent nuclear war anxiety film’, noted
Guardian reviewer Ian Thomson, and his study ‘considers how man’s fear of “push-button” catastrophe influenced the dystopian imaginations, variously, of Wells, Jules Verne, Nevil Shute and, not least, Kubrick. The book’s title is a bit of a misnomer, though, as Freedman nowhere predicts what future wars might look like.’
While praising the author for his ‘immense knowledge and wisdom’,
Sunday Times reviewer Max Hastings thought the book ‘should feed our humility, because it reminds us of mankind’s unlimited capacity for folly; and also of the need to sustain defences against all manner of threats, because the only certainty is that the next peril to confront us will be the one we least expect’. The
Future of War is ‘a bonfire of predictions that catalogues how military ideas have changed’, explained Shashank Joshi in his review for the Financial Times. ‘But rather than laughing at the inept forecasts of the past – as entertaining as that is – Freedman’s purpose in this wise book is to discern patterns in the way we have thought about war’s future [such as the knockout blow, the sudden, overwhelming attack, or technology to the rescue]… Is large-scale war obsolete, or is it just hibernating? Freedman, no alarmist, resists the great pacification thesis. He observes that there were forty armed conflicts in 2014, the most since 1999. He ends with a warning that the very structure of our long peace is at risk.’