The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare - Christian Brose

The Kill Chain is another one of those library holds I only half-remember making. The writer, Christian Brose, was a long-time advisor to Senator John McCain, and in this book extends McCain’s vision for an evolution in military thinking better adapted to current geopolitical threats: namely China. He paints a chilling picture of China’s rapidly advancing military strength, which is due to put it on par or even above American power in the near future if great efforts aren’t made to course correct. His points are clear and well reasoned, though a bit repetitive, and I found most chapters orbiting around the same few arguments, namely:

• America’s post-Cold War military has made assumptions about its capability—namely, that it can outmaneuver and outgun its opponents and will fight exclusively on their territory—that are increasingly untrue given the rise of Russia and especially China.

• Military acquisitions focuses too much on platforms (aircraft carriers, jets, etc) that are expensive and large, rather than a modular force made up of large amounts of more expendable components.

• Communication is far too hampered between forces, limiting their ability to close kill chains effectively (a kill chain being not necessarily about killing, but the operative process of identifying information, communicating it to the right source, and acting on it).

• Artificial Intelligence will play a critical role in the future of warfare by eliminating much of the mental “grunt work” of locating targets, calculating options, etc, presenting commanders with a clear high level picture of the battlefield

While Brose spends most of the book hammering these points, he does offer a more hopeful conclusion wherein he points to how America can cope with military parity with China, and how this could in some ways actually play to our advantage. It was an interesting book, written competently. I trust Brose’ expertise, though his example of the chilling effect of modern warfare—Russia’s capture of Crimea—makes me wonder where this supposed elite fighting force disappeared to during the invasion of Ukraine.

The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane

I’m several episodes into Ken Burns’ documentary on the American Civil War, and it inspired me to revisit The Red Badge of Courage, a book I hadn’t read in decades and barely remembered. It tells the story of Henry Fleming, a young man who leaves his small town to become a soldier in the Union army.

Though it depicts several battles in great detail, much of the book’s action is internal, as Henry struggles with his competing fears of death and cowardice. He spends much of the book’s first section obsessing over how he will fare in battle, by turns certain he will display valor and terrified that he will crumble under the pressure. Rattled by a Confederate charge, he flees, and the middle section finds him fighting on two fronts: a practical one, as he decides whether to desert entirely or slink back to his regiment, and a personal one, as he wallows in self-disgust at his cowardice and jealousy of the wounds of his comrades, which he sees as signs of bravery—or red badges of courage, as the title has it.

The prose is lyrical but dens,e filled with rich detail that can illuminate moments while leaving the broader action somewhat obscured. There is an opacity to the text that may be deliberate, a little like WIlliam Faulkner’s tendency to sidestep key moments and view them only on the periphery. This sensation is further enforced by Crane’s insistent use of descriptions rather than names to identify characters. Henry is referred to almost exclusively as “the youth” by the narrator, his name gleaned by the reader only through dialogue. Othe characters are referred to in the same way, so we get “the tattered soldier,” “the lieutenant,” and “the loud soldier.”

Overall, I enjoyed the book, though some of the passages feel sluggish and overburdened with description. I suspect this “slow motion” effect was deliberate, but even with a novel as short as this one, I couldn’t help but want the pace to pick up a bit at times.

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front is a story narrated by Paul Baumer, a young German man who, a long with his friends, enlists in the German army during World War 1. No jingoist, he is clearly disillusioned at the opening pages, and becomes only more so throughout. His enlistment, we learn, was largely due to social pressure, personified by an arrogant teacher who bombarded his students with stories of false glory.

The story is episodic, with the only overarching narrative e being the course of the war, which Baumer, as a lowly soldier, barely glimpses. We see through his eyes, and what he sees are generally periods of boredom and hunger punctuated with week-long stretches of terror at the front. Stints on leave and at a military hospital broaden the picture further, giving a cross-section of life as a soldier at that time and place.

The descriptions are frank and horrific without being melodramatic. Indeed, the almost casual way in which Baumer details life as a soldier serves to reinforce the horror of the war. However, the prose isn't always plain, and Remarque allows Baumer the odd poetic digression, without going beyond what a young German intellectual might reasonably say.

All told, the book deserves its reputation as a preeminent work of World War 1 fiction. It's interesting to read as a Canadian with German heritage, as I have relatives who fought on both sides of that conflict. Baumer's reflection on the war's futility, and the perversion of killing men who share more in common with you than the generals and leaders who insist you do the killing, is a simple one, but its truth is profound.

Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present - Max Boot

I picked this book up unsure whether I was going to commit to it. I like Max Boot, as I’ve said before, but I’m not a huge fan of military history, which can be a little on the dry side. Luckily, Boot doesn’t bog down his prose with tactical descriptions of battles (I can never follow these anyway), but instead offers a higher level view of overall campaigns.

Invisible Armies is a book about guerrillas. The subtitle pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Though it follows a loose chronology, beginning with ancient Mesopotamia and Rome and ending with modern-day Iraq and Afghanistan, the book’s structure is primarily by theme, rather than time period. Boot covers liberal uprisings of the 18th century, anarchists of the late 19th, communists of the early 20th, through to the Islamic rebels of today. He makes a useful distinction between guerrillas and terrorists, with the former encompassing loose military units that fight largely military targets, while terrorists are smaller and primarily target civilians.

I was disappointed that he didn’t talk about Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who was the man, but despite this omission he covers a lot of ground. There were several people who I’d heard of very vaguely and appreciated learning more about—T.E. Lawrence, Yasser Arafat— as well as I people I hadn’t heard of at all (Massoud). The spreadsheet at the end was a nice little bit of wonkiness. I wonder if he lets people download it as an excel file.