Book Reviews

Men, Ideas and Tanks: British Military Thought and Armoured Forces, 1903–1939. By J. P. Harris, Manchester University Press, (1995) ISBN 0 7190 3762 (hardback) £40.00 or ISBN 0 7190 4814 (paperback) £14.99

Fighting for Ireland. By M. L. R. Smith. London and New York: Routledge, (1995) ISBN 0–415–09161–6.

The Fundamentals of British Maritime Doctrine (BR1806) HMSO London (1995) ISBN 0–11–772470‐X £9.50

Regional Conflicts: The Challenges to US‐Russian Co‐Operation Edited by James E. Goodby SIPRI: Oxford University Press 1995 ISBN 019‐S29–171X, £30.00

SIPRI Yearbook 1995 ‐ Armaments, Disarmament and International Security Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995. ISBN 019–829–1930, £60.00.

Drug Trafficking in the Americas Edited by Bruce M. Bagley & William O. Walker III Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, (USA), 1994 ISBN 1–56000–752–4.

Raglan: From the Peninsula to the Crimea By John Sweetman, Arms & Armour 1993. ISBN 1–85409–059–3. £19.00.     

Book reviews

Security and Arms Control in Post-Confrontation Europe. By Jenonne Walker, SIPRI, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1994), ISBN: 0-19-829176-0, £20.00

Arms Export Regulations. Edited by Ian Anthony. New York: Oxford University Press (1991) ISBN 019-829-1582 £25.00

The Causes and Prevention of War (second edition) By Seyom Brown. New York: St. Martin's Press (1994) ISBN 0333618505. Price £11.99     

‘All Innovation Leads to Hellfire’: Military Reform and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century

The debates on the pace, scope and nature of Ottoman military reform tend to be dominated by domestic and/or cultural explanations. Issues of military competition and efficiency, embodied in Neorealist perspectives, might appear to have little to offer as an explanatory tool in the Ottoman context. This article argues that this view is mistaken. First, despite their value, there remains an indeterminacy about domestic and cultural explanations that limits their usefulness as single-cause explanations. Second, Neorealism does generate valuable insights into the dynamics of military reform in the Ottoman Empire; issues of military competition and efficiency do matter in explaining the nature of Ottoman military reform during this period. Ultimately, domestic, cultural, and Neorealist perspectives are complementary, and mono-causal explanations of eighteenth century developments in the Ottoman military are likely to be too simplistic.     

The limits of covert action: SAS operations during ‘Confrontation’, 1964–66

This article evaluates the performance of the Special Air Service (SAS) during secret cross-border raids conducted as part of Britain’s undeclared war against Indonesia from 1963–1966. The analysis reviews the existing debate on the SAS’ performance during this campaign; it looks more closely at how military effectiveness might be defined; and it then examines, using the SAS’ own operations reports, the nature of their activities and their success or failure. This article concludes that critics of the SAS’ effectiveness during Confrontation are right; but for the wrong reasons. SAS operations did indeed have less effect than orthodox accounts would have it. But the reasons for this lay not in their misuse but in the exigencies of British strategy. This article demonstrates an enduring truth – no matter how ‘special’ a military force might be, tactical excellence cannot compensate reliably for problems in strategy.