Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: This Kind of War
| Author | H. F. Wood |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206401900118 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
RPvIEws
93
the
Rising
Sun
pooh-poohed
by
a
tight-fisted
Congress
and
a
business-
minded
nation
doggedly devoted
to
the
limitation
of
armaments
and
the
outlawry
of
war.
By
contrasting
the Navy's
"scientific"
attitude
and
planning
with
the
public's
insouciant
"emotionalism",
Professor
Wheeler
gives
substance to
some
hitherto
shadowy shapes
in
a
not
altogether
unfamiliar
landscape.
Two
observations
come
to
mind. Should,
as
the
blurb
maintains,
"the
steps
to
Pearl
Harbor
...
be
traced
to
the
years
before
the
Manchurian
Incident
of
1931,
not
from
the
years
that
followed
it"?
If
so,
it
is
difficult
to
see
why
this
should
be
fastened
upon
as
a
singularly
decisive decade;
little,
after
all,
in
the
way
of
ingredients
that
had
not
been
simmering
in
the
days of
Theodore
Roosevelt
and
Wilson
was
added between
1921
and
1931
to
the
witch's
brew
that
boiled
over
in
1941.
The Washington,
Geneva
and
London
conferences
were
at
least
as
much
a
postscript
to
World
War
I
as
a
prelude
to
World
War
II.
Secondly,
to
identify
Japan
as
the
likeliest potential
enemy
and
plan
accordingly was
admittedly
a
correct
decision
but
surely
one
of such
staggering
obviousness
as
hardly
to
require
more
than the
most
ordi-
nary
strategic
gumption.
Besides,
however
"scientific"
its
attitude, the
Navy
was
nevertheless
under the
brooding
influence of
a
more
than
usually
large
number
of
high-ranking
dodos.
In
the
light
of
how Midway
was
fought
and
Okinawa
invaded,
much
of
Professor
Wheeler's
subject
matter
cannot
but
appear
academic-
such
is
the
speed
of
technological
innovation,
once
begun,
in
military
and
naval
organization.
Yet
he
has
written
a
thorough, useful
mono-
graph
dealing
with
that
fascinating
area
of
study
where
military
and
diplomatic
history overlap.
McMaster
University
JOHN
P.
CAMPBELL
T.is
KIND
OF
WAR.
A
Study
in
Unpreparedness.
By
T.
R.
Fehrenbach.
1963.
(New
York:
Macmillan.
Galt:
Collier-Macmillan. xii,
689pp.
$11.50)
This
700-page
book
is
the
latest
work
to
come
from
the
pen
of
an
American
on
the
Korean
War.
The
author
calls
it
a
study in
unpre-
paredness,
and
in
the
process
of
describing
what
happened
to
the
American
Army
in Korea
he
makes
his
point abundantly clear.
The
book
is
written
in
a
free-wheeling
journalistic
style, and
in
reading
the
battle
chapters
one
is
continually
torn
between
admiration
for
an
author
who
has
successfully
established a
mood
and
regret
for the
obvious
compromises
with
fact
with
which
he
achieves
his
result,
such
as
the
memorable
statement:
"A
man
unconsciously
profane,
[General]
Boatner
thought,
Jesus
Christ,
what
a
mess."
The
narrative
abounds
in
U.S.
Army
jargon,
presumably
for
the
sake
of
verisimilitude: Generals
don't
say
"yes";
they "reply
affirmatively".
The
situation facing
the
American
people
over
Korea
was
new
only
to
them;
as
the
author
points out,
"Harry
Truman
had ordered troops
into
action
on
the
far
frontier.
This
was
the
kind
of
order
Disraeli
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