War: Ends and Means

Garnering effusive praise from such prominent neoconservative figures as Richard Perle and Eliot Cohen, this 1989 work by Codevilla (international relations, Boston U.) and the late Seabury (formerly, political science, U. of California at Berkeley) set out a number of unconventional arguments about war as an end in itself and about the means that are used to fight them. They argue that war is a normal part of the human condition that is often preferable to certain kinds of peace. Victory in war is contingent on the ability to rationally persuade populations to engage in war for rational ends. They also argue that the results of wars are more closely related to the intentions and plans of the warriors than to the destructiveness of their technologies. Finally, they lay out claims about war being essentially conflict between moralities, but caution against allowing politics to substitute for pushing for military victory. Distributed in the US by Books International. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)