A well written (for a specialized book) account of the small war inside Pentagon. The central question of the book is: what constitutes better military hardware? The examples detailing the squabbles around the question in this book are about A10 and Bradley. The author believes that real effectiveness measures and combat capabilities should be used to judge weapons systems, instead of budget considerations, future promotions, hype, etc. Of course the real crux here is this: what if Burton is wrong in assuming that military hardware is built for military purposes? what if it is part of the implicit assumption of the system that US will never face a military power of strength required to deploy this hardware? what if the system is not and evil corrupt bureaucracy painted by Burton, but rather a pragmatic organization trying to educate Burton, as gently as it can on it's true goals and mission?
*carefully remove aluminum hat and place on the shelf* ( )