This is one of those reviews that kills me.
Oh boy did I want to like this book. Special Operations history focus from ancient times to present? fantastic! There has to be some conclusions and thread to pick up on here! Of course there are the little blubs on the front and back from the WSJ and General Wesley Clark, Bloomberg, etc. Its a compelling and monumental work they tell you!
No…not remotely. What is it? a 600 page slog through military history that feels like reading an encyclopedia. Want to know where AI is going to replace writers? This is a prime example. There is nothing here other than a laundry list of historical military adventures of a varied nature. Does it bring up obscure events that you might not have heard of? Sure. So does that aforementioned encyclopedia. That doesn’t make either very valuable to a reader who isn’t just looking for a dictionarial reference book. The endless pages of citations for each event lends itself to viewing the work as simply a regurgitation of history cribbed from elsewhere.
Not only that…but the work contains a number of errors of fact and omission. Example…we are told the American supplied Stinger missiles in Afghanistan were immediately turned to downing three “Mig-24 helicopters”…uhhhhhhh…the Mi designation does not mean “Mig”. Another example are the numerous quotes that the author purposefully leaves unattributed when critiquing current military leaders causing the reader to go off and try and Google for them to find out who said them…or the author’s statements of a famous special operator who, according to him, ended up in a Florida nursing home before his death but fails to mention that individual’s arrest and persistent issues with diddling little boys and his young male Korean reports during that war. His prose is also horrid in nature with no flow or ease. Each sentence requires re-reading in order to comprehend as the author just loves a cadence that brings the reader to a halt yet the sentence carrying on.
If you need an encyclopedia of military history that isn’t tabbed or easily searched so as to find that one unusual anecdote that is long since forgotten…great. Otherwise, obtaining works that contain actual analysis, conclusions, and focus would serve much better.