Disclaimer: the Editor and author of this piece has worked briefly with Dr. Luttwak in the past and should not be considered an unbiased reviewer.

Edward Luttwak’s Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace is a theoretical look at the laws of warfare as they apply in all ages, regardless of technological innovations. In contrast to futurists who see a new world of peaceful coexistence thanks to economic integration, or deadly worldwide warfare thanks to new weapons, Luttwak shows how the same rules of strategy have always dominated conflict and will continue to influence future competition.

The book’s premise is that strategy is fundamentally concrete, and cannot be dealt with in abstract terms. The presence of actions and conscious reactions from opposing sides breaks down linear logic and results in paradoxes. Normally, the best road through mountainous terrain is the widest, flattest, and best-maintained one. In battle, though, defenders are also more likely to be deployed along major transportation lines, and it may therefore be preferable to take the more physically arduous but undefended route.

When defense planners and talking-heads think, they often ignore this rather simple, but key, element of strategy. The crucial question to be asked of any new tactic, strategy, or technology is not: “how will this affect battle?” but “how will the enemy react?” New technologies, especially, are vulnerable to enemy counter-measures.

The effectiveness of strategic measures and counter-measures each reaches a culminating point of success, beyond which they are simply not useful. During the Cold War, the introduction of anti-ship missile systems greatly threatened America’s naval power, which centered on small numbers of large aircraft carriers. The threat was quickly reduced by the introduction of large carrier convoys, including destroyers and attack submarines to patrol the waters and air-superiority fighters to defend the air around the convoy. Logically, then, anti-ship missiles would have little success in attacking a modern carrier. Yet their strategic significance is great. By forcing carriers to move with large convoys, they have redirected defense resources from useful attack capabilities to ship defense. The modern carrier group, with dozens of naval vessels and aircraft devoted to its own protection, only carries a small number of useful attack planes. Thus, naval counter-measures against missile attack have passed the culminating point of success: making them any more effective would only take away a far greater portion of the fleet’s useful offensive capacity.

After discussing the conscious use of paradox in strategy, Luttwak moves on to the levels of strategic analysis: the technical, tactical, operational, strategic and grand strategic. An in-depth consideration of the elements on each level, and their interrelation, would be well beyond the length of this review. Ultimate success in battle and diplomacy lies on the grand strategic level: the total well-being of a nation in economic, military and political terms.

Here again, however, the role of paradox is paramount to Luttwak’s analysis. Advances on one level, however large, may ultimately result in grand strategic losses. The paramount example is Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack crippled America’s Pacific fleet, but to no clear end. The Japanese gained a temporary naval advantage, but not one they could press to grand strategic results. Unable to march on Washington, or seriously threaten the American population, Japan’s attack brought it short-lived strength and ultimate defeat.

The book’s greatest virtue is not its theoretical coverage of paradox and levels of analysis in strategy, but the wealth of concrete examples, taken from all periods in Western military history, but especially from more recent times. Luttwak’s look at the competition between Nazi bombers and British air defenses during World War II covers a variety of technical, organizational and strategic actions and reactions, illustrating how the advances can be concretely analyzed Other side discussions, on tank warfare, the effectiveness of aerial bombardment, and the tension between military and scientific interests, are equally interesting.

The book’s lesson—directed at politicians, scholars, students, and pundits who talk about military and defense affairs without understanding them—is simple: strategy has a logic and a nature of its own. Considering concrete policy choices in abstract terms ignores the complexity of strategic competition and risks making significant errors.