Modern Warfare, Intelligence and Deterrence: The Technologies That Are Transforming Them

The Economist

By: Benjamin Sutherland

Narrated by: Chistopher Oxford

For those who want to be smart about our ability to wage war and to protect ourselves - and where much of the world's billions of dollars on defence spending goes. The Panzerfaust-3, a German shoulder-fired heat-seeking antitank missile, can punch through a metre of solid steel-far more than any armoured vehicle could carry. The MPR-500, an Israeli precision bomb, can hammer through several storeys of a building and explode on a chosen floor. These and myriad other military and intelligences technologies are changing the world.

This Economist book describes these emerging technologies and places them in the larger context of today's politics, diplomacy, business and social issues. It shows how efforts to win wars or keep the peace are driving enormous and multifold technological advances. Broadly speaking, defence technologies will continue to provide enormous advantages to advanced, Western armed forces.

The book is organised into five parts: "Land and Sea"; "Air and Space"; "The Computer Factor"; "Intelligence and Spycraft"; and "The Road Ahead", which examines the coming challenges for western armies, such as new wars against insurgents operating out of civilian areas. Comprising a selection of the best writing on the subject from The Economist, each part has an introduction linking the technological developments to political, diplomatic, business and other civilian matters. For anyone who wants to know just how smart the global war, defence and intelligence machine is, this will be revealing and fascinating reading.

©2011 Benjamin Sutherland (P)2013 Audible Ltd

eye opening and in some ways terrifying

a great if dry, collection of articles detailing how technology is radically changing war, reducing personal privacy and freedom, while making conflicts more sterile and less costly, hence likely more common.

dated

moderately interesting but by 2022 it's dated material. in 2010 or so it would be more relevant

Fantastic book

Absolutely love this book some of the data is from say 2014 2009 but it’s just says interesting and timely today you will not be disappointed in this book if you call military nerd.

Dated but interesting

With a bit of updating and organizing it could be much greater.
So much is changing...

Navigation is weird

Generally I found this book fascinating, being a military history buff for a while. Narration was engaging, as was the writing. However, my only complaint is the table of contents. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’ve noticed that the headings seem to be repeating.

Best Way To Be Informed

The best way to be informed on a subject is to research multiple perspectives on the same subject & that's exactly what this presentation accomplishes with numerous articles by various authors. Having just completed Cyberspies by Gordon Corera I was looking for other perspectives on the latest in technological defense development.

This book helped solidify a more thorough grasp of how others see the same issues & also introduced many new projects not present in other books. Very helpful, worth the time if you're objective is to understand & discuss intelligently the scope & dynamics of modern day national defense developments.

Outdated material

Would you try another book from Benjamin Sutherland and/or Chistopher Oxford?

No

Would you ever listen to anything by Benjamin Sutherland again?

No

What does Chistopher Oxford bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He was fine....the material was the outdated info was the problem

What character would you cut from Modern Warfare, Intelligence and Deterrence: The Technologies That Are Transforming Them?

N/A

Any additional comments?

The book was simply a reprint of OLD articles on "modern" warefare. The information was from 4 to 7 years old. When writing about "current" warfare the book being sold should be "current".