Forty years of confrontation in Europe have produced a complex set of conditioned reflexes in western military thinking. With the ending of the Warsaw pact, planning and analysis specialists have had to look again at the basic principles of war: there is no sure ground any more. The analysis of threat and response has been transformed and new patterns of likely action, such as the Gulf intervention, have been accommodated. In practical terms, this affects what is taught to both new officers and senior officers about to assume command responsibilities. The essays in the Science of War attempt...