by Admiral William Owens, Naval Institute Press, 184 pp, $27.95, 1995

That's admiral with four stars, folks, as in Vice Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff. It's a relatively new billet, designed to remove some of the load from the nation's top-ranking military officer. That made Admiral Owens' (recently retired) our second-highest ranking military officer. I met him on a junket, and was briefed by him on how the War Room works (cool stuff!). He immediately impressed me as an extremely intelligent and experienced officer, obviously at home in literally the highest councils of the military and the government.

With all that said, you can imagine how high my expectations were when I opened this book. I was hoping for insights into how decisions are made in the military and the government and how naval forces might be used in crises around the world. The navy's new Littoral Warfare Doctrine has changed a lot of the rules, and as the highest-ranking naval officer in JCS (the Chairman of the JCS is Army) Admiral Owens had a chance to give us his view of the new doctrine and how he would actually implement it.

Instead, it's a systematic, almost pendantic study of the uses of military force. I believe that in his efforts to be thorough in covering the topic, especially in view of the rapidly-changing international situation and the state of naval technology, he's abstracted the issues until they are almost irrelevant.

He addresses force planning, but this is a pretty shaky subject, with the threats and the tools we use to deal with it changing faster than the planners can change the viewgraphs. He has two chapters at the end, "Force 2001" and "Force 2010." The first is a useful summary of what the Navy will look like in five years. There is very little prediction involved with this chapter, since the decisions for this Navy were made years ago. The chapter for Force 2010 is more speculative and less useful.

I wanted to like this book, but I do not believe that it is worth the money or time required to read it. I wish I could recommend another work, but Admiral Owens' unique position means that only he could have given it to us.

BT