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The Future of War
- A History
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
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Publisher's summary
In 1912, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, wrote a short story about a war fought from underwater submersibles that included the sinking of passenger ships. At the time, it was dismissed by the British generals and admirals of the day not because the idea of submarines was technically unfeasible, but because no one could imagine that any nation would be so depraved as to sink civilian merchant ships. The future of war more often than not surprises us less because of some fantastic technical or engineering dimension but because of some human, political, or moral threshold that we had never imagined wanting to cross.
As Lawrence Freedman shows, the future of war has a past and a present. Ideas of war, strategies for warfare and its practice, and organizing principles of war all have rich and varied origins which have shaped the minds of those who conceive the next war. Freedman shows how war can be studied systematically and empirically to provide a firm foundation for enlightened policy.
The Future of War - which covers civil wars to as yet unknown nuclear conflicts, proxy wars (real) to the Cold War (not), fashionably small wars to the War to End All Wars (it didn't) - is filled with insight and fascinating nuggets of military history and culture from one of the most brilliant military and strategic historians of his generation.
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By: Andrew Bacevich
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On China
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Nicholas Hormann
- Length: 20 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book length to a country he has known intimately for decades and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. On China illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and tight line modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, and Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing.
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Another History of China
- By Elton on 09-23-11
By: Henry Kissinger
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On Power and Ideology
- The Managua Lectures
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The arguments are concise, and the information is overwhelming. The first two lectures examine the persistent and largely invariant features of foreign policy, the overall framework of order. The third discusses Central America and its foreign policy pattern. The fourth looks at national security and the arms race. And the fifth examines US domestic policy.
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Eye opening
- By Alex on 08-22-15
By: Noam Chomsky
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America's War for the Greater Middle East
- A Military History
- By: Andrew J. Bacevich
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro, Andrew J. Bacevich
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich, one of the country's most respected voices on foreign affairs, offers an incisive critical history of this ongoing military enterprise - now more than 30 years old and with no end in sight.
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A Key to Understanding the US Need for Perp. War
- By Darwin8u on 05-01-16
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Losing Military Supremacy
- The Myopia of American Strategic Planning
- By: Andrei Martyanov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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This book explores the dramatic difference between the Russian and US approach to warfare, which manifests itself across the whole spectrum of activities from art and the economy to the respective national cultures; illustrates the fact that Russian economic, military, and cultural realities and power are no longer what American "elites" think they are by addressing Russia's new and elevated capacities in the areas of traditional warfare, as well as cyberwarfare and space; and studies several ways in-depth in which the US can simply stumble into conflict with Russia and what must be done to avoid it.
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Mixes Truth with Propoganda
- By Gavin on 02-08-21
By: Andrei Martyanov
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Reconsidering the American Way of War
- US Military Practice from the Revolution to Afghanistan
- By: Antulio Joseph Echevarria
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook challenges several longstanding notions about the American way of war. It examines US military practice (strategic and operational) from the War of Independence to the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan to determine what patterns, if any, existed in the way Americans have used military force. Echevarria surveys all major US wars and most every small conflict in the country's military history.
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Excellent overview of complex subject
- By Joe on 11-25-14
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The Vietnam War: History in an Hour
- By: Neil Smith
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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History for busy people. Listen to a concise history of the Vietnam War in just one hour. War, what is it good for? The Vietnam War: History In an Hour gives a gripping account of the most important Cold War-era conflict, fought between the United States and the Viet Cong, the Vietnam People’s Army and their Communist allies. It was one of the most traumatic military conflicts America has ever been involved in – and provoked a backlash of anti-war protests at home.
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Garbage
- By Michael on 08-06-12
By: Neil Smith
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All Measures Short of War
- The Contest for the Twenty-First Century and the Future of American Power
- By: Thomas J. Wright
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Russia and China are increasingly revisionist in their regions. The Middle East appears to be unraveling. And many Americans question why the United States ought to lead. What will great power competition look like in the decades ahead? What impact will geopolitics have on globalization? And what strategy should the United States pursue to succeed in an increasingly competitive world? In this book, Thomas Wright explains how major powers will compete fiercely even as they try to avoid war with each other.
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Globalist propaganda
- By Anthony Colosimo Jr on 07-10-21
By: Thomas J. Wright
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The Jungle Grows Back
- America and Our Imperiled World
- By: Robert Kagan
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray. In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal would be the worst possible response, based as it is on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down, the world has always been full of dangerous actors who, left unchecked, possess the desire and ability to make things worse.
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Out of date: covid, Trump nobel nominations etc
- By David on 11-13-18
By: Robert Kagan
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The nature of war is constant change. We live in an era of exponential technological acceleration which is transforming how wars are waged. Today, the battlespace is transparent; multi-domain sensors can see anything, and long-range precision fire can target everything that is observed. Autonomous weapons can be unleashed into the battlespace and attack any target from above, hitting the weakest point of tanks and armored vehicles. The velocity of war is hyper-fast.
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Interesting listen
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The Kill Chain
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When we think about the future of war, the military and Washington and most everyone gets it backwards. We think in terms of buying single military systems, such as fighter jets or aircraft carriers. And when we think about modernizing those systems, we think about buying better versions of the same things. But what really matters is not the single system but "the battle network"—the collection of sensors and shooters that enables a military to find an enemy system, target it, and attack it.
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important message but repetitive
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What listeners say about The Future of War
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- Ian R. Graham
- 06-14-18
A good historical review of the progression of war
By understanding the history of war, maybe it is easier to predict the future. Good historical analysis, very brief future analysis at the end.
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- Wray G White
- 06-11-20
Go with cliff notes version!
Save yourself the thirteen hours for something more beneficial and just go listen to Lawrence Freedman talk about this book as a guest with CSIS.
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- jack
- 05-28-20
Long on history but short on insights.
A lot of good history about what happened in the past but no real insight about what that might portend for the future.
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- Christian
- 04-16-18
more history than future. Wikipedia would be bette
Disappointed with this book. It's more history than future. The last few chapters cover the future but it's very lightly coverd.
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- G
- 10-20-22
Academic Meandering
What a disappointing book -- it reminds me of much of the literature I had to read during graduate school; 400 pages that do not really say anything that isn't self-evident, just rehashing Anglo-American history from the late 19th century to present as some sort of set up -- that you don't even get to the "future of war" until the last chapter, and, despite this set up.... to spoil it for you, the closest thing to a conclusion you'll get is that "war is unpredictable and you can't rely on past experiences to predict future circumstances"... is about all you need to know. Even the rehashing is so random and disorganized...after each chapter you're left asking yourself "so what?".
An example of this is one chapter where he goes into minutiae concerning the details about how casualties are counted and how there are discrepancies between the organizations that keep statistics, the methodologies, etc. literally... trivia like such and such organization counted 34.5 Million Soviets dead between 1941 and 1945 but they didn't count those killed due to hunger where as such and such organization estimated 64.2 Million but half of those were estimates based on flawed statistical methodologies..(these aren't direct quotes from the book). If that is important, fine...but he makes no effort to really make it relevant to not only the chapter but the implied theme of the book. If it were a book that just focused on just casualty statistics, there might be something to talk about, but even then he doesn't elaborate much more than to validate that these problems exist. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to know this.
I mean, with that in mind -- there are elements of this book that _are_ original and good and it would have been better if he just renamed the book and concentrated on that -- Throughout the book he randomly writes about the impact of literature (sci-fi, thriller, etc.) has on society's perceptions of war and even how it directly impacts policy. See -- this is a book that I think would be original and relevant.
So that is my main criticism of this book -- it's disorganized and doesn't really come to any real conclusions.
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