Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 9, 1995                   TAG: 9507070093
SECTION: BOOK                    PAGE: F-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY ROBERT HILLDRUP
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ALEXANDER ASKS, 'IS AMERICA READY FOR THE NEXT WAR?'

To his credit, former Richmond newspaperman Bevin Alexander, now turned Bremo Bluff farmer, is crisp and concise in this especially timely book.

But the same can also be said of its liabilities; there's a whole lot more to be said and Alexander should have found room for at least some of it.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has left the United States without a world-class adversary, at least for the immediate future. But does that mean peace? Unlikely, says Alexander, and he is surely correct.

But what types of fights can we expect, and are we ready for them? Limited wars that spoil developing despots' plans for greater evil? (See Iraq.) Or limited wars that impact more directly on our shores and immediate interests? (See Panama.)

Alexander makes the very good point that the United States, particularly in technology as well as in battle studies, is at least preparing to fight the next war instead of the last one, a mistake for which we've been famous. He presents a good analysis of the Boer War, and the lesson it provided in how a smaller motivated force (the Boers) could hamstring a stronger, better armed one (the British). (See also Vietnam.) And here he touches, too briefly, on a matter of importance:

"... the essential challenge in most wars the United States will face will hinge on the resolve or determination of the enemy, not his weapons."

Very true. But what of the resolve and determination of American forces, high though they may be at this time? What will happen when middle and lower class Americans see (as they did in Vietnam), that all the blood is being shed by their sons and daughters while the privileged escape? Key questions not addressed.

Alexander also ignores other questions. How can an increasingly fragmented America keep that fragmentation from spreading to the military? What role does the military play in the face of economic collapse or nuclear or biological terrorism, whether domestic or external? How is the military to address a full-scale national invasion already underway and unopposed, as the waves of illegals from Mexico and Central America testify each day? What is to become of a command structure that gives America, pro rata, 700 times more generals and admirals for a million-man military than it needed for the 14-million servicemen and women who won World War II? What is to be done in the face of an increasingly modernized and militant China and its potential surrogates among the terrorists of the Middle East?

In sum, the huge technological edge America now enjoys in its military hardware cannot be guaranteed forever, and the essentially bloodless wars which America seems to expect can't be guaranteed either. Expensive toys and a handful of elite units aren't enough, particularly when backed by a frequently flawed and ineffective reserve component, as the Gulf War proved.

Alexander, who as a junior officer commanded a military history detachment in Korea, raises some important and timely issues in this book. But in the end, he doesn't explore them adequately.

Robert Hilldrup, a Richmond writer and former newspaper-man, was a private in the Army for six years.