Inside this disjointed and confusing book is a finer and smaller work waiting to be properly edited into existence. According to the authors, the book is intended to fill a void in the literature documenting military communication systems in textbook form. “It is written for the practicing engineer and for military personnel, as well as for the student . . . [and] has been structured around the theme that state-of-the-art communications systems can provide the force-multiplying effect necessary for U.S. forces to be a vibrant, fast-reacting, effective military power. . . .:” This is a worthy theme; unfortunately, it is never actually addressed. After an initially bland introduction that doesn’t really set the stage for the remainder of the book, the discussion commences with a chapter on the requirements for military communications, a good choice of starting point that gets lost much too quickly. By the end of the chapter on requirements for military communications in general, we are at a level of detail that discusses the 250 Kbps rate limitations of unspecified terminals for the Army’s Air-Land battle concepts. Having paid extremely short shrift to defining the full scope and hierarchy of military communications requirements, the book proceeds into separate chapters on NATO, the US services, and then satellite communications systems. No explanation is provided for the separate breakout of satellite communications immediately following chapters oriented to specific services and environments, rather than specific technologies. Nor are subsequent chapters technology-specific. Following satellites, there is a brief chapter containing some interesting communications theory and military operations research results, followed by a chapter on the economics of defense spending for communications. The book concludes with a look at future technologies that will have an impact on military communications.

This is a disappointing book. There is, in fact, a fair amount of useful information in it; but the signal-to-noise ratio is very poor, and there are stylistic irritants that are difficult to ignore. Where the work is strongest is in the detailed discussion of various, specific communications systems. But it is not as comprehensive as a Jane’s-style volume, and it has aimed at much loftier goals. These it has failed to achieve.

The book is completely unsuitable as a text for students at any level. Despite a good, comprehensive glossary of acronyms, the work presupposes far more knowledge of military organizations and operations than can be found in any typical student body. Discussion of the connectivity required for EAC (Echelon Above Corps) command centers (p. 24) will mean nothing to a student who does not know what a corps is, what its responsibilities are, and what communications it needs. Referring students to (generally classified) Army tactical field manuals is not enough. If the reference was to material peripheral to the principal purpose of the book, it would be acceptable; but these “functional relationships” are central to understanding communications requirements. It may be that the amount of precursor material required would defeat any attempt to provide a student text on military communications; it has certainly defeated that goal of this particular effort.

For the communications engineer looking for an overview of military communications systems, the book is not sufficiently comprehensive: In the interests of brevity, entire levels of communications systems have been intentionally omitted, and within an area, not all relevant systems are discussed. Again, this book is not intended to be a reference work. In that case, however, a communications engineer would look to this work for more insight into the special needs and circumstances of military communications systems. The chapter on requirements for military communications systems would be a critical starting point for such a reader. In this chapter should be found definitions and discussions of the different types of military communications, tactical and strategic, for example, or operational and logistical. A discussion of clear versus encrypted communications, and the military factors involved in their selection, would be a help to the nonmilitary engineer. One would also like to see a discussion of how military communications aids in achieving the goals of a “vibrant, fast-- reacting” force. Chapter 2 (on requirements) starts with a nice discussion of some basic principles of military operations but it is not sufficiently well developed nor is it exploited as the backdrop against which subsequent discussion of specific systems takes place. How does increased bandwidth contribute to mobility, for example? If it doesn’t, what features of communications systems do increase mobility? What specific attributes of specific systems discussed later in the text help achieve greater mobility of forces? By not consistently and thoroughly addressing this class of question, the book significantly reduces its utility to a communications engineer seeking to improve his understanding of military communications and its contributions to the “vibrant, fast-reacting” military.

For the military professional looking for an understanding of the impact of technology on military communications, the book provides erratic coverage. A statement like, “[i]n the area of switching, the word ‘distributed’ is finding favor with architects and planners[,]” should lead to a definition of “distributed” and a discussion of how it can assist in achieving the military’s goals. No such discussion is provided. Several hundred pages later, in a section on TRI-TAC’s CSCEs, there is one sentence on distributed control as an aid to survivability. That one sentence would provide a fine start for the missing, earlier discussion of “distributed” systems. If the military professional is assumed to know the benefits of distributed systems, the fact that it is becoming a popular term will presumably also be known to him. If he or she is assumed to be unfamiliar with the concept, more discussion should have been provided; an introduction to the nature and benefits of distributed communications systems would be precisely the sort of material a military professional might expect to find in a book intended to improve his understanding of the effects of technology on military communications. The discussion of spread spectrum communications in Chapter 8 is a good example of what is needed uniformly throughout the book, whenever major topics are mentioned. It provides a brief description of the nature of the technology followed by a concise but comprehensive discussion of what advantages this technology brings to military applications. But such discussion is not consistently provided. The entire chapter on satellite communications systems fails to provide as much insight into the basic importance of satellites as just a few pages did for spread spectrum techniques.

There are serious stylistic difficulties with this book. While acronyms are an inevitable part of any discussion of military systems, their purpose is to abbreviate and simplify. There comes a point, however, when having too many acronyms on a page becomes daunting rather than simplifying. This text passes that point consistently. Worse, the authors have a habit of introducing a term such as “unimpaired tactical effectiveness” followed by an acronym (UTE), and then never using the acronym again. Another problem is in the figures. The prolific use of graphics is commendable; but the effect is considerably reduced by excessively busy figures, loaded with irrelevant acronyms. Alternatively, there are some frustratingly vague figures, hinting at potentially interesting topics never discussed. The very first figure in the book, Figure 1.1, includes representations of intelligence and stress as factors relating to military communications; they are, unfortunately, never mentioned again. Stylistically, the tone that is taken toward the reader is highly variable. In the Preface, we are treated to a footnote defining the concept of Achilles’ heel, yet the reader is assumed to know the military definition of stress. Such inconsistencies are irritating. A more serious failure is the lack of inclusion of the military system identification conventions. The AN/XYZ-nn nomenclature is used repeatedly, but there is no discussion of its conventions. There is a great deal of description buried in those letters (X, Y, and Z), and even the most experienced of us do not remember all the codes. The less experienced reader would flounder completely, never knowing that there was method to the madness.

The authors have aimed high at an admittedly difficult target. They wish to cover a great deal of material for several diverse audiences. On the positive side, they have provided a wealth of detailed information. The glossary is complete (and in an acronym-heavy subject, that is an important achievement), the references provided at the end of each chapter are well chosen, and the extensive use of figures is an aid to comprehension. But the consistent difficulties in style make reading the book a frustrating experience, and, overall, it does not achieve its goals. There is not sufficient coverage of individual systems to allow this work to be thought of as a reference book (nor was that its intent), and by aiming at many target audiences, the authors have missed them all.