Now these activists, still determined torndefend Roe at all costs, find themselvesrnJohnny-come-latelies to street-level politicsrnpracticed on the doorsteps of abortionrnclinics in Wichita and Buffalo.rnAdmirers of Brown and advocates ofrnRoe liave, in Rosenberg’s opinion, simplyrnoverestimated the effectual importancernof these two decisions by the SupremernCourt. Brown was not implemented untilrnthere was an almost nationwide improN’ementrnin race relations, while todayrnthe backers of Roe v. Wade find themselvesrnoverextended, fighting for Roe notrnonly in the Supreme Court but in all 50rnstates, locality by locality. Rosenbergrnconcludes that activists’ money, time,rnand talent would be better spent attemptingrnto mold public rather than judicialrnopinion if sustained social reformrnis their goal. “Social reformers, withrnlimited resources, forgo other optionsrnwhen they elect to litigate. Those optionsrnare mainly political and involvernmobilizing citizens to participate morerneffectively. . . . [W]hile such exercisesrn[as Brown and Roe] may make for finernreading constitutional-law textbooks,rnthev seldom bring reform any closer.”rnObviously, this is a lesson that hasn’trnbeen lost on Operation Rescue.rn]im Christie is a staff writer for thernCalifornia Republic.rnWar and thernSocial Lifernby fames ThorntonrnThe Conduct of War:rn1789-1961rnby Major-General ].F.C. FullerrnNew York: Da Capo Press;rn352 pp., $14.95rnBritish Major-General John FrederickrnCharles Fuller is rememberedrntoday as one of the great strategists andrnniilitarv historians of this century. Alwaysrncontroversial, he is renowned forrnsuch works as The Generalship of UlyssesrnS. Grant (1929), Grant and Lee: A Studyrnin Personality and Generalship (1933),rnthe monumental A Military History ofrnthe Western World (three volumes, 1954-rn56), The Generalship of Alexander thernGreat (1958), and Julius Caesar: Man,rnSoldier, and Tyrant (1965). So prolific arnwriter was he that before his death inrn1966 he had completed and publishedrn45 books and innumerable essays andrnarticles.rnGeneral Fuller’s fame as a strategistrnis such that he is sometimes called thern”20th-century Clausewitz.” One of thernfirst to understand the significance ofrnthe tank and to anticipate accurately thernupheaval that this invention would engender,rnhe became an eady and uncompromisingrnadvocate of mechanization.rnIn some respects, his ideas were the logicalrnoutgrowth of his service as commanderrnof the Royal Tank Corps duringrnWorld War I. Yet Fuller was not a conventionalrnBritish officer. A isionary ofrnsorts and possessed of an extraordinarilyrnagile mind, his thoughts leaped decadesrnbeyond those of other military men.rnThe war of the future, he predicted inrnthe 1920’s, vould be one of movementrnand fluidity and would not be a repeatrnof the bloody stalemate of 1914-1918.rnDuring the period between the tworngreat Furopean wars, the general staffs ofrnboth Britain and I’Vancc not only failedrnto grasp these theories but took pains tornridicule them.rnFuller was undaunted and continuedrnhis provocative writing. The cumulativernweight of his blunt criticism yvas finallyrntoo much for the military establishmentrnto bear, and he was retired inrn1933. It is typical of the man that hisrnautobiography, published in 1936, hasrnas its motto a quotation from Heraclitusrnprinted boldly on the title page:rn”Asses would rather have refuse thanrngold.” This was a parting shot at thernhidebound obstinacy of the ImperialrnGeneral Staff, since for them and forrnthe French nothing changed after 1914.rnFrance, as we know, opted for the ultimaternin trench warfare, the MaginotrnLine, which Fuller at the time dubbedrnthe “tomb of France.” Despite suchrnwarnings, strategic thinking among thernAllies remained imbedded firmly—andrndisastrously—in the past. German militaryrnplanners, however, were not sornslow-witted. Men such as Gudcrian andrnRommel understood what Fuller wasrntalking about. Thirty thousand copies ofrnFuller’s manual on armored warfare werernpublished in Germany. In contrast, thernFnglish published only 500 copies. Ofrncourse, when the Blitzkrieg overwhelmedrnPrance in an avalanche of steelrnin 1940, Fuller’s theories were at last recognizedrnas sound.rnThe Conduct of War is part of a seriesrnof reprints of General Fuller’s mostrnvaluable contributions to military history.rnIt was written when the author wasrnover eighty years old and represents arncareful distillation of his lifetime ofrnstudy.rnHe begins by noting that ArnoldrnToynbee was once perplexed by the factrnthat with the birth of democraticrngovernment war had suddenly becomernmore ferocious than ever before, thoughrn(in Toynbee’s view) democracy’s rootsrnwere fed by notions of Christian lovernand brotherhood. I low, with these antecedents,rnwas it possible for democracyrnto act in so antisocial a manner? Toynbee,rnit seems, was never able to satisfactorilyrnsolve his enigma.rnFuller maintains that Toynbee’s questionrnis legitimate, “because the understandingrnof the problem of war isrnwrapped up in its correct answer.”rnFuller insists that this answer may bernfound not in abstractions but in the yer-rnnature of the human being, who at bestrnis only partly civilized and who, with arnminimum of prompting, will quickly revertrnto his primitive was. Moreover,rndemocracy is not rooted in Christianrnlove. On the contrary, the idea is “asrngreat a myth as Rousseau’s ‘noble savage.'”rnInstead, he tells us, “the motivernforce of democracy is not love of others,rnit is the hate of all outside the tribe,rnfaction, party or nation. The ‘generalrnvs’ill’ predicates total war, and hate is thernmost puissant of recruiters.”rnThe foregoing reveals much about thernleitmotif oi this volume, which is thatrnthe French, Industrial, and Russian revolutionsrn(such a peculiar embodimentrnNOVEMBER 1992/37rnrnrn