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Ullman, Harlan K., and James P. Wade, with L. A. Edney et al. Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. Washington, D.C.: National Defense Univ., 1996. 199pp. (Available by request)
Sponsored by the National Defense University's Advanced Concepts, Technologies, and Information Strategies directorate, a seven-member study group composed of distinguished scholars and retired general officers has sought to provide the national security community with a radically new military strategy for a rapidly changing world. The result of their endeavor is Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance, a futurist-oriented work that seeks "to explore alternative concepts for structuring mission capability packages . . . around which future U.S. military forces might be configured."
At the outset the authors sound a cautionary note. The military and political leadership of the United States, confronting an uncertain world and an era of rapid technological change, must abandon the current military-industrial structure born of World War II and the Cold War. The authors seek to "replace or complement" the strategy of overwhelming force by exploiting...