ISBN 0-02-921585-4
354 pages

Notes; About the Contributors; Index.

   "Short of the costly and perilous audit of war itself, the problem of estimating the likely performance of one's armed forces against one's potential enemy is the most intractable problem of defense planning. The process is not new—at least in its unstructured form—but in Western parlance it has now become known as "net assessment".
   Net assessment—in its structured form—is defined here to include gathering information about potential allies and enemies, processing that information and comparing it to one's own strengths and weaknesses, and providing comprehensive, reliable information for decision-making at the national policy level. Paul Kennedy summarizes it as perceptions, process, and product.
   As Murray and Millett—who have collaborated as editors of several books with similar structure, including the three volumes of Military Effectiveness—admit early in their introductory chapter, few of the major powers possessed a formal net assessment organization on the eve of World War II. In that sense this book is predominantly about how the powers functioned without net assessment.
   Unfortunately, that sometimes means the chapters here fall back on merely describing the course of international events as seen from a national perspective. As each chapter (and each one covers one of the WWII powers—the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, the USSR, the United States, and Japan) was contributed by a different author, there is also some unevenness in presentation from country to country.
   Overall, though, each national chapter offers interesting insights into how each nation judged the worldwide balance of power and intentions in the period when peace gave way to war. Here are some notes on each of the chapters.

United Kingdom: Paul Kennedy

   The state of British net assessment was, along with France, the most sophisticated at the time (and, while still comparatively primitive, most closely resembles today's formalized net assessment apparatus). The British government maintained effective intelligence organizations, a multi-tiered structure of committees and sub-committees, and a collaborative system of deliberation and decision-making far advanced from most of its potential friends and adversaries.
   As Kennedy shows, that sophistication did not, however, preclude inaccurate conclusions and uninspired choices by national leaders.
   In the course of his analysis, Kennedy also puts an interesting twist on the relationship between London and Paris.

   Behind everything, one suspects, there was a subconscious resentment at France because of the fact that it tied Britain to the Continent of Europe, whether or not there was any formal treaty of assistance. At the end of the day, the British knew that they could not let France fall; geography and strategy determined that. But this constraint did not foster warm feelings toward the French, the more especially when France's own obligations and treaties bound it (and by extension Britain) to the fate of countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. Much of the British energies expended during the 1938 crisis were devoted to detaching France (which had to be defended) from Eastern Europe (which was negotiable).

Germany: Williamson Murray

   Unlike Britain's elaborate net assessment organization, that of Germany tended very much to start and end with Adolf Hitler and his intuition. Despite the formal organizational structure of intelligence agencies, economic departments, and so on, little mattered beyond the Fuehrer and his immediate entourage.
   In his early years as leader of the Third Reich, Hitler continued to confound his military and diplomatic advisors by proving wrong their pessimistic assessments as he blatantly disregarded and broke the terms of the Allied-imposed treaties and generally thumbed his nose at the erstwhile victors. By the eve of World War II his position was so enhanced and his power so strong that no one dared stand up to him. He reinforced this state of affairs by ensuring that lines of responsibility and authority remained murky and that only he held in his hands all the threads of information and assessment.

   Throughout those crucial years, Hitler rejected efforts to provide a more coherent and organized effort to assess the international environment. He fully understood that such bureaucratic assessments would limit his room for maneuver and his ability to make the decision for peace and war. His system of government from the moment of his appointment as Chancellor aimed to destroy the ability of the bureaucratic system to provide independent judgment on the strategic environment. Ironically, the intellectual perceptions and training of most of those in the diplomatic, the intelligence, and the military bureaucracies were all too close to Hitler's preconceptions. Their attitude made possible, in a direct sense, the triumphs of Hitler's early years and the catastrophes of the later years.

Italy: Brian R. Sullivan

   Italian net assessment did not revolve quite so much around a single autocratic leader, but the difference was only one of degree. Fascist Italy may have retained more of the trappings of a liberal Western democracy than did Nazi Germany, but the intrusion of the Fascist party into every governmental office and military headquarters devalued an already weak assessment system. Sullivan points out how many of the highest ranking officials failed to speak the truth even on those few occasions when it was apparent to them.

   Mussolini repeatedly changed his mind and surrendered to his burning desire to lead Italy into war. If he could not attack France, he believed he might take advantage of the crisis to invade Yugoslavia or Greece. News of the Nazi-Soviet Pact raised his hopes that it might deter Franco-British action. Behind Ciano's back, [Army Chief of Staff] Pariani argued in favor of Italian intervention in the impending conflict. At the same time, both Mussolini and Pariani were aware of the glaring deficiencies in the army yet simultaneously denied the truth to each other. [Air Force Chief of Staff] Valle engaged in the same game with Mussolini in regard to the air force. Italian net assessment had ceased to involve rational calculation and had come under the sway of wishful thinking—at least as far as Mussolini was concerned.

   Certainly by the time Germany invaded France, the intricacies of net assessment—perceptions, process, product—had ceased to count for much: "Over the next few days, the irrational side of Mussolini's nature won out in his thinking. Thereafter he judged the situation primarily according to Fascist mysticism."

France: Steven Ross

   Although French net assessment machinery was, with the British, the best of the nations surveyed in this book, the conclusion might almost be that the better the net assessment structure, the more likely that leaders will be unable to make the right decisions. France was another example of outstanding assessment that nevertheless reinforced the resolve of the decision-makers simply to avoid war no matter what the costs.
   With a populace slow to show any interest in the danger growing across the border, generals (Maurice Gamelin comes off very poorly here) and admirals alternately alarming the civilian leaders and then failing to take steps to improve the defense posture, and governments more concerned with staying in power than showing backbone in the international arena, there was probably no other outcome possible no matter what the efficiency of the net assessment.

   The unacceptability of war, however, overshadowed all other considerations. Unfavorable shifts in the strategic balance were less important to French leaders than the overriding need to avoid a new round of hostilities. Political leaders were in tune with popular sentiment when they chose the path of appeasement and accommodation rather than resistance, and popular opinion until the spring of 1939 supported rather than constrained French leaders in their resolve to avoid conflict with Germany. The post-Munich change in public opinion did not force the government's hand since the Republic's leaders were themselves reluctantly concluding that a change in policy toward German expansion was necessary. The argument that governments must lead and educate the public and not simply reflect popular moods may well be correct, but it goes well beyond the issue of net assessments and their influence on national policy. That a government has all the necessary information upon which to base decisions does not constitute a guarantee that the government will make the correct choice.

Soviet Union: Earl F. Ziemke

   While it's safe to speculate that Soviet net assessment was controlled at least as tightly by Stalin as German net assessment was by Hitler, based strictly on a comparison of the material by Murray and Ziemke it also appears that—murderous despot though he was—Stalin was more prone to accept reasoned advice from competent subordinates. (Although that view can certainly be challenged by some highly competent historians as well as survivors of those executed without trial simply for disagreeing with the Boss.)
   Nevertheless, the structure and process of net assessment within the Kremlin is less well documented than in the capitals of the other powers.

   The Soviet net assessment process cannot be directly observed. Like a dark object in outer space, its probable nature can be discerned only from interaction with visible surroundings. Fortunately, its rigidly secret environment has been somewhat subject to such countervailing conditions. ... The resulting continuous stream of publications has yet to emit steady light, but it has intermittently given off illuminating flashes. Although those are closely regulated, they give some substantive information and more indirect guidance.

   Despite the limitation of this indirect approach, Ziemke manages to shine some of these flashes into dark corners and uncovers some hidden information, such as the secret chancellery of the "Special Sector" for coordinating foreign and domestic intelligence. One element not mentioned here, by the way, in the fairly detailed discussion of how Soviet wargames affected policy and planning, is the secret February 1941 kriegspiel session featured prominently by Fugate and Dvoretsky in Thunder on the Dnepr.

United States: Calvin L. Christman

   Franklin Delano Roosevelt was—by most accounts—not an autocratic despot, but his approach to bureaucratic infighting, alternative lines of communication, and overlapping areas of authority and responsibility was not unlike Hitler's. Roosevelt similarly positioned himself as the only authority with full access to all streams of net assessment input, and thus was able to say with justification that only he was in possession of all the facts and aware of all the ramifications of strategic decisions. The chief feature of American net assessment according to this account would seem to be presidential intuition.
   This chapter is more of a summary of Rooseveltian politics and diplomacy than net assessment per se. Such an approach is understandable given General Sir John Dill's estimate of American defense and net assessment structure in January 1942: "The whole organization belongs to the days of George Washington."

Japan: Alvin D. Coox

   The chapter on Japanese net assessment focuses for the most part on the decision-making process of the interlocking committees of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Imperial Japanese Army, and Foreign Ministry as they grappled in mid-1941 with formulating national policy.
   Following Hitler's unexpected non-aggression pact with Stalin in 1939, Tokyo negotiated its own non-aggression treaty with Moscow. With Germany's equally unexpected invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Japanese government found itself caught between its alliance with Berlin and its pact with Moscow.
   As German armies drove deeper into Russia, the Japanese leadership convened a series of meetings in which they attempted to reconcile the "go north" strategy (of those—primarily Foreign Minister Matsuoka—who wanted to attack the Soviet Union and take part in the Axis victory there) with the "go south" strategy (of those who saw Japanese economic independence in the European colonial possessions of Southeast Asia).
   Coox's description of the process is very well done, including that of two of the protagonists who nearly come to blows over the wording of the policy paper. Much energy is expended debating the proper moment to enter the war. Eventually, there is compromise "on the vague principle of the 'ripe persimmon'" on the issue of when and if to strike.

   The metaphor about persimmons was much in vogue in Tokyo at the time, though interpretations of the exact meaning varied widely. An impatient person might knock persimmons off the tree with a pole when the fruit started to ripen. Others might say that persimmons were ripe only if they fell when the tree was shaken. Still others meant that persimmons should be picked off the ground only after they had fallen of their own weight.

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   Thanks to The Free Press for providing this review copy.