Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later by Robert James MaddoxReview by: Eliot A. CohenForeign Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1995), p. 166Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20047322 .

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Recent Books

author is illuminating on a number of

matters, including legislative impedi ments to sound acquisition practices and

trends in civilian technology, which he believes should help undermine the mili

tary specifications that have long made

defense technology outrageously expen sive. An important book, which deserves

attention not only in the Pentagon but, more important, on

Capitol Hill.

Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later, by Robert

james MADDOX. Columbia:

University of Missouri Press, 1995, 200 pp. $19.95 (paper).

The author, a historian at Pennsylvania State University, enters the debate about

the decision to drop nuclear bombs on

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A vigorous defender of the traditional interpretation,

namely, that the use of the bomb was

inevitable in view of the war up to that

point and necessary in view of Japanese internal politics, Maddox brings to bear considerable scholarly research. He is par

ticularly scathing in documenting the

errors of revisionists in handling historical

evidence. A concise and convincing study.

Desert Warrior: A Personal View of the Gulf War by the Joint Forces Commander.

BY KHALED BIN SULTAN. NewYork:

HarperCollins, 1995, 492 pp. $35.00. This memoir, ghostwritten in part by a

journalist with experience in the region, is

a useful contribution to the literature on

the Gulf War. Khaled, eldest son of the Saudi defense minister, at age 42 was pro

moted from his position as commander

of the Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces to serve as Joint Forces Commander?in

effect, the senior Arab military officer in

the coalition against Saddam. Like any

memoirist, he at times inflates his role

and tribulations during the war, and like

many of his American colleagues he dis

regards much of the postwar analysis of

the fighting. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of interesting material in the books

first half on Khaled s education and activi

ties before the war, including negotiating with the Chinese for long-range missiles.

Moreover, his discussion of the intricacies

of coalition politics is extremely (if per

haps unintentionally) illuminating. At the end of one shouting match General

Norman Schwarzkopf, the American

commander, asked his Saudi counterpart, "Should I treat you as a general or as a

prince?" Khaled recalls that he replied, "Both!" a reply that almost makes one

feel sorry for Schwarzkopf.

Savage Peace: Americans at War in the

1??OS. BY DANIEL BOLGER. Novato:

Presidio Press, 1995,368 pp. $24.95. Lieutenant Colonel Bolger, a rising

Army officer with a practiced pen (he has written three books, including one piece of fiction), has produced a popular survey of Americas small wars in the 1990s. The

book begins with a sniper ruminating on

a 168-grain bullet exiting a skull in a spray of bone chips, blood, and tissue, and it

contains many a reference to bloodied eye sockets and dismemberments?prose that becomes gruesomely cloying. There

is also, unfortunately, an undercurrent of

bluster about "armchair strategists" and

"U.N. attorneys" and assertions like "war

power is Americas iron hand." None

theless, Bolger does a creditable job of

describing American military efforts in

Somalia, Lebanon, and Yugoslavia. He

is particularly adept at explaining such

[l66] FOREIGN AFFAIRS'Volume 74 N0.5

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