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Weapons Don't Make War: Policy, Strategy, and Military Technology (Modern War Studies)
Weapons Don't Make War Policy Strategy and Military Technology - Modern War Studies Author:Colin S. Gray "Weaponry does not equal strategy, argues Colin Gray, but the two are often confused, resulting in such linguistic errors as "strategic weapons." There may be an interactive relationship between policy, strategy, and weaponry but, he contends, policy and strategy always take the front seat. An established scholar in strategic studies and longti... more »me analyst of the U.S. defense establishment, Gray presents in Weapons Don't Make War a powerful statement on the interrelations among policymaking, strategic planning, and military technology. He argues that policy shapes strategy and gives meaning to weapons (not vice versa): that, without clear policy guidance, the weapons acquisitions process degenerates into political arm-wrestling; that military technology is only one of the many servants of defense policy (and by no means the most important); that the "arms race" concept creates more confusion than clarity in studying international security; that the pursuit of arms control is seriously flawed by the belief that international conflict can be reduced to a problem of administration and management; that uncertainty is an essential condition of--not simply a problem for--defense policy; and that nuclear-age history confirm much of the accepted wisdom of modern strategic theory. Always provocative and sometimes controversial, Gray provides a rare, detailed, and multi-angled examination of just how policy and weapons influence--or fail to influence--each other. His arguments in Weapons Don't Make War are not time bound; they hold regardless of the evolution of eastern Europe or of shifts in U.S. policy and strategy. They offer insight into "the basics" of national security not only in the post-Cold War era, but for all time. This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.« less