Chapter 8 analyzes the thinking of Harry Summers, especially his critique of the Vietnam War. Summers was an outspoken military practioner who exposed the harmful effects of applying academic (and untested) strategic theories in Vietnam. He believed most armed conflicts would be fought below the nuclear threshold and hence he maintained the principles of war, which he regarded as timeless, were still sound guides for crafting military strategy. This chapter discusses his model of war’s nature, which retreated somewhat from that of Eccles and Wylie because it paid less attention to war’s sociocultural dimension. It did, however, bridge to the modern model by reemphasizing the importance of the concept of Clausewitzian friction.

Chapter 1 analyzes the ideas of the naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. It describes his life and his "America," which was socially and politically at war with itself. This chapter also discusses how the core principles Mahan borrowed from the Swiss military theorist Jomini – concentration, offensive action, and decision by battle – were brought from the nineteenth century into the twentieth. It ends with an explication of the traditional model of wars nature, which saw armed conflict as an extension of the competitive side of human nature.

Chapter 2 analyzes the ideas of the airpower theorist William (Billy) Mitchell. It describes his life and his "America," which in the words of period novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was "careless and confused." Mitchell, like his America, pursued his goals aggressively regardless of the consequences. This chapter also discusses how Jominian first principles – concentration, offensive action, and decision by battle – figured in Mitchell’s thinking. It ends by explaining how Mitchell’s model of war’s nature was essentially the same as Mahan’s, the traditional model.