Measuring National Power
WOYTINSKY, W. S.
Measuring National Power The War Potential of Nation By Klaus Knorr. Princeton. 310 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by W. S. Woytinsky Author, "World Population and Production,'' "World Commerce and...
...But there is also the possibility of a protracted contest of arms with ultimate victory determined by the war potential of the belligerents...
...It is possible that a country engaged in war will not need or will be unable to bring the weight of its war potential to bear and will rely only on ready military power...
...The author is on the defensive in pointing out that the development of nuclear weapons and the possibility of an atomic war that might be decided within a few hours after its outbreak have not made the idea of war potential obsolete...
...The record of one of the oldest censuses in human history is Numbers, the fourth book of the Pentateuch, which opens with the Lord's instructions to Moses to count all males "from twenty years old and upward . able to go forth to war in Israel...
...At the beginning of his highly enlightening book, the author declares that the concept of "war potential" as a device to guide our insight into what makes a nation militarily strong has only a short history of less than half a century...
...As long as any army consisted of a crowd armed with clubs and stones, war potential could be measured by the number of men able to carry and use such weapons...
...To my mind, however, this concept goes back as far as the earliest attempts of people to count themselves, wage wars and discuss economics...
...This flashback into the past serves to simplify the statement of Professor Knorr's problem and to strengthen his position...
...It is a question of semantics whether these procedures should be described as a component of the war potential or as a method for increasing and managing the aggregate of these components, but what the book has to say-on this subject is instructive...
...The concept of war potential is very old and has changed little through the past three or four millenniums, but change in technology has caused continual adjustments in methods of measuring the ability of a nation to wage war...
...When Napoleon established the first permanent statistical service in Europe, he was thinking of statistics as a tool for measuring war potential...
...The substance of the book is a systematic analysis of numerous factors which affect a nation's reserves of military power...
...The extensive experience of the author, his familiarity with the vast international literature on the subject and his balanced judgment on controversial issues make this book a valuable contribution to better public understanding of the problem of war potential...
...It deserves attention the more because the question it analyzes has always been of vital importance and is now more important than ever...
...He did not define the last concept because Moses was supposed to know what "an army" meant in his time...
...With progress in the technology of war, measurement of war potential acquired new dimensions...
...Mankind has to live with the threat of war in decades to come, without knowing when and where the fire will break out and what the scope and character of the military operation will be...
...It begins with a survey of moral and political factors that determine the will of a nation to fight and to accept the sacrifices in human life, wealth and comfort that are demanded of them...
...Next, he scrutinizes the administrative procedures used to mobilize the moral and material resources of a nation at war...
...All other factors of military power are examined in detail under the heading of economic capacity for war...
...As if foreseeing that the economists of our time would not realize that this enumeration was undertaken as a means of ascertaining the war potential of Israel, the Lord spoke further unto Moses: "Thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies...
...The analysis is as exaustive as it can be in a book designed for general readers rather than technicians...
...Reviewed by W. S. Woytinsky Author, "World Population and Production,'' "World Commerce and Labor" The War Potential of Nations...
...This term also covers the factor of population—its growth, composition by age and distribution by industry...
...We find a concern over war potential at all times—in ancient Greece (in the famous funeral oration of Pericles), in Rome, in the essays of William Petty on the threshold of the new era...
...The author shows that there is no technical substitute for the morale of the masses of the people...
Vol. 40 • February 1957 • No. 8
