On the Meaning of Victory: Essays on Strategy

by Edward N. Luttwak

Examines the problems and possibilities facing the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, from the threat of nuclear war and the military's strategic thinking, to the interplay of politics, personality, and history

Genres: Military Fiction

315 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Edward Nicolae Luttwak is a military strategist, political scientist and historian who has published works on military strategy, history, and international relations. Born in Arad, Romania, he studied in Palermo, Sicily, in England, LSE (BSc) & at Johns Hopkins (PhD). He speaks five languages. He serves or has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force; he is/has been an adviser to Treaty Allies of the United States. He is chairman of the board of Aircraft Purchase Fleet Limited (APFL), an aviation lessor, and he founded and directs a conservation cattle ranch in the Bolivian Amazon. He is the author of various
books and more articles including: The Rise of China vs the Logic of Strategy, Coup d'Etat: a practical handbook, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, The Endangered American Dream, and Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy. His books are also published in: Arabic, Chinese (both Beijing simplified and Taipei traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian (Bahasa), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (and Brazilian Portuguese) Romanian, Russian, Spanish (Castilian, Spain, in Argentina and in Venezuela), Swedish, and Turkish. Before ever writing of strategy and war, he was combat-trained (Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry) and fought as a volunteer or a contractor in several countries on two continents. He likes Hebrew songs and the Greek & Latin classics. His best article is "Homer Inc." in the London Review of Books.

Reviews

[Mike Glaser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book, especially when you read it years after the essays were written. Great lessons to be learned from the things that Mr Luttwak got right as well as the things that he got wrong. If you are familiar with late 1970’s and the early 1980’s, this book is well worth your time.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Publishers Weekly

On the Meaning of Victory: Essays on Strategy

This is a collection of essays published over the past six years, mostly in Commentary, by the author of the controversial The Pentagon and the Art of War.

Admirers of that hard-hitting ciriticism of the U.S. defense establishment will find this work especially interesting for its broader focus on strategy and military policy in the political context.

In the title piece, Luttwak, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, argues with heavy irony that "The West has become comfortably habituated to defeat. Victory is viewed with great suspicion, if not outright hostility."

In "The East-West Struggle",' an illuminating overview of military balance in 1983-85, the `"inability of the greater powers to impose a modicum of order in world affairs'" is discussed.

The book also includes thought-provoking reviews of Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth, Zbigniew Brzezinski's Power and Principle and Fred Kaplan's The Wizards of Armageddon.