In the future as in the past, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu will undoubtedly have a lot to offer.

Never' is too much of a word. Nothing lasts forever.

I want to put any number of assorted 'ists' - such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists - firmly in their place.

Except when war is waged in a desert, noncombatants, also known as civilians or "the people," constitute the great majority of those affected.

It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight.

A world without war is not in the cards.

The combination of professionalism and technology may also result in narrow-minded specialization more suited to a debating society than to an organization whose task it is to cope with, and indeed live in, the dangerous and uncertain environment of war.