Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 144

military conflicts. Riza surmises that since these lethal
unmanned weapons have not had a measurable or significant impact in ending current military operations, it
violates “the probability of success” principle associated
with just war.
The book is effective in addressing the moral issues
associated with powerful nations, such as the United
States, engaging in military operations in less developed
sovereign countries around the globe with impunity and
without risk of life, while less developed nations shoulder the burden of losing human life and the collateral
damage that often ensues. The author believes that more
debate is needed on the morality and ethics of using
robots on the battlefield, especially since the computing
power and role of these systems will most likely progress
in the future and potentially lead to unintended adverse
actions.
Killing Without Heart critically examines the major
ethical and practical issues associated with employing robots, such as armed unmanned systems, during military
operations. M. Shane Riza challenges the reader to weigh
the pros and cons of using these systems. This book is a
worthwhile read for those who are interested in examining or debating the major moral, ethical, and legal issues
associated with the use of robotics in current and future
military operations.
Lt. Col. Fredrick Sanders, U.S. Army, Retired,
Fort Belvoir, Va.

WAYS OF WAR: American Military History from
the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century
Matthew S. Muehlbauer and David J. Ulbrich,
Routledge, New York and London, 2013, 560 pages

T

his work provides an informative narrative
of how the United States has approached
and waged warfare throughout its embattled
existence. While rapid transitions through the expanding republic’s inexorable march of campaigns render it
inadequate for advanced scholarly endeavors, the text
instead provides a survey of American martial efforts
within an interconnected narrative that emphasizes
evolving approaches to armed conflict. Consciously
embracing traditional military history methodology,
Muehlbauer and Ulbrich eschew revisionist trends and
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institutionally critical narratives. Intent on establishing
a broadly defined framework, they generally succeed in
capturing “the complexities of American military history over the centuries.”
Already adopted into the U.S. Air Force Academy’s
core curriculum, Ways of War serves as an excellent
primer for officers, noncommissioned officers, and
federal civilians seeking understanding of how American
warfare has evolved between the colonial period and the
2010s. Beginning with an introduction to analytics that
defines the field of military history, the authors explain
commonly accepted types and levels of war, varying
thematic approaches, and the way-of-war concept that is
central to the book’s construction. The work then follows
the nearly 300-year arc of American military development across 15 chapters that are either period- or
conflict-centric.
While some chapters encompass longer timelines
by exploring intermittent conflict during early republic and cold war eras, others pursue deeper analysis of
more condensed periods, such as the Civil War and the
World Wars. The text concludes with discussion of
the complexities of American adventurism and nation
building in the post-Cold War era with predictions that
the superpower will continue to “adapt to new ways of
war” in the face of terrorism, cyberwarfare, and weapons of mass destruction proliferation. Muehlbauer and
Ulbrich employ accessible writing that is enhanced by
both strategic- and operational-level maps and diagrams, as well as illustrative photographs and pictures.
They also include judicious placement of text boxes
to draw the reader’s att