Amazon.com info for 'Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance'

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Back to reviews and details of Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance

Amazon.com reviews:

Rating: 5 Summary: The 1st Brillant Strategy Book on 21st Century Warfare
Comment Ullman and Wade have written the first great book predicting how the course of 21st century warefare is likely to be conducted.

"Shock and Awe" is a strategy poorly named (as its authors have admitted), but simple in its concept; DON'T target civilians, DON'T accept high "collateral damage", DO show a high regard for civilian populations, But, MOST OF ALL...

DO use precision weapons in OVERWHELMING numbers in SHORT periods of time to demoralize the enemies civilian and military decision makers, while sending the message to the enemies footsoldiers -- "You don't stand a chance"....

This strategy worked nearly flawlessly in Iraq, keeping civilian casualties to perhaps the lowest in the history of similar sized engagments, while decapitating the leadership of Iraq, bringing about the amazingly rapid and complete collapse of the much vaunted Iraqi military in record time....(Saddam in 6 months from having 19 fabulous palaces to a hole in the dirt...pretty good "Proof of Concept.)

(Now if only the authors could come up a similar strategy for the "consolidation/rebuilding phase" of the Iraqi engagment?)...

OH, and its NOT directly related to the (...) Blitzkrieg (where civilian casualites where either irrelvant or intentional), anyone that states that either hasn't read the book and/or is pursuing an ideological agenda.

The book DOES require some familiarity with both contemporary military jargon, and current "force concepts" as used by the US military and some knowledge of post-WWII geostrategic concepts.

Rating: 5 Summary: Brilliant
Comment This book is a brilliant analyziz of 21st Century warfare. The argument that Hitler conceived shock and awe has no merit. De Gaulle, not Hitler, conceived the idea of lightning war. The concept was based on the military technology available in the mide 20th Century. By contrast, the shock and awe concept is based on military technology available in the 21st Century. The concepts are compleyely different. The argument that shock and awe is "fascist" also has no merit. Fascism is a political system, not a military strategy. Unlike fascism, the purpose of shock and awe is to decapitate dictatorial regime, cause minimum collateral damage to noncombatants. and install a democratic regime.

Rating: 2 Summary: Bedtime Reading
Comment Though this book is listed as out of print, it is evidently considered public domain and is available for perusal online at both the Department of Defense & National Defense University Press websites.

Hitler and his leaders are not credited with the creation of this military concept. However, I am not sure what "A Reader" from New Orleans means by claiming in his review the Blitzkrieg is *not* depicted by the book's authors as an example of Shock and Awe in action. Nor am I certain how anyone can read this book now without recognizing its current implications. To quote from the book itself:

"Fourth is the 'Blitzkreig' [sic] example. In real Blitzkreig [sic], Shock and Awe were not achieved through the massive application of firepower across a broad front nor through the delivery of massive levels of force. Instead, the intent was to apply precise, surgical amounts of tightly focused force to achieve maximum leverage but with total economies of scale....

"To the degree that this example of achieving Shock and Awe is directed against military targets, it requires skill if not brilliance in execution, or nearly total incompetence in the adversary. The adversary, finding front lines broken and the rear vulnerable, panics, surrenders, or both. Hitler's campaign in France and Holland and the seizure of the Dutch forts and the occupation of Crete in 1940 are obvious illustrations. The use of Special Operations forces in significant numbers is an adjunct to imposing this level of Shock and Awe.

"....The lesson for future adversaries about the Blitzkreig [sic] example and the United States is that they will face in us an opponent able to employ technically superior forces with brilliance, speed, and vast leverage in achieving Shock and Awe through the precise application of force.

"It must also be noted that there are certainly situations such as guerilla war where this or most means of employing force to obtain Shock and Awe may simply prove inapplicable. For example, the German Blitzkreig [sic] would have performed with the greatest difficulty in the Vietnam War, where enemy forces had relatively few lines to be penetrated or selectively savaged by this type of warfare."

(Blitzkrieg is misspelled throughout the book on all but one occasion, so my confidence in the editors at National Defense University Press is not the highest; I have a few doubts about the fact checkers, too.)

The book behind the catchphrase is certainly worth a look, but no amount of Pynchonesque curiosity can change the fact that it's rather queasy reading.

Rating: 4 Summary: Thoughts
Comment How about a review of this book that isn't clouded by ones opinions of the current war in Iraq shall we? Since the reviewer below failed to do this (I suspect he didn't read it at all), I shall try.

Firstly, Shock and Awe is NOT an endorsement of a disregard for civilian casualties. It is an offshoot of the modern US military policy to ensure overwhelming force for any campaign, a tenet of the so called Powell Doctrine. Shock and Awe extends the idea of force to include knowledge of the environment. Technology now allows us almost immediate information about all aspects of the battlefield. This should allow very rapid dominance in such a case. Rapid dominance, in concert with various psychological operations and non lethal weapons used to created confusion (E-bombs), can quickly destroy the enemies will to resist. Indeed, if the appropiate awe is achieved in the enemy very quickly, loss of life for both sides can be reduced.

Now, can it work? I don't know but I think it's very interesting. I do very much suspect that when the conditions are met, less lives will be loss as a result of such an attack. I'd rather have the will to fight completely drained from the enemy by the display of overwhelming force coming from all directions and all at once than have them dead. I certainly would rather have that than more of my own dead. The older model of slow, steady attrition is very brutal and takes a huge toll in loss of life.

Also, as the book points out, the German Blitzkrieg was not an example of shock and awe. It was not a massive offensive against a broad front but rather a narrowly, highly concentrated use of force against weak points in opposing positions.

Rating: 3 Summary: The basis of Hitler's blitzkrieg
Comment Shock And Awe were the foundational concepts put forth by Hitler's military leaders as a new and lethal way of rapidly overwhelming opponents. Setting aside considerations of the violence visited on civilians and non-combatants or the damage done to infrastructure, Hitler suggested that inducing "shock and awe" through his "lightning war" system would lead to rapid military victories. WWII showed that, at least at the level of individual battles, he was right. The authors suggest this is a powerful strategy for any nation that wants to absolutely and rapidly overwhelm its opponents, and doesn't much care who gets killed in the process. Interesting reading, although it rambles a bit and blitzkrieg is often misspelled. Good instruction to any military that wants to undertake fascistic extranational adventures.