“Paper tiger.” That's how Mao Zedong famously derided the United States and its military muscle, including its burgeoning nuclear arsenal, during the 1940s and 1950s. There was no denying the devastating force of atomic power – and the Chinese leader was even then attempting to replicate it by enlisting scientific and materiel assistance from the Soviet Union to create a comparable inventory for Beijing. But Chairman Mao recognized that military tools alone were inadequate; even the most overwhelming weaponry can provide no guarantee of success on the battlefield or meaningful control over global political affairs.

The intervening decades have reinforced that message, repeatedly demonstrating that superiority in armaments – as valuable as it may be – hardly suffices to ensure victory, peace, stability, or even survival of a regime. From the jungles of Vietnam to the sands of Palestine to the collapse of the U.S.S.R., qualitative dominance in sophisticated military hardware has failed to translate into effective control of the situation on the ground and has left putative global or regional superpowers frustrated and hamstrung, if not outright defeated.

This book examines that conundrum – and the latest American efforts to overcome it. The focus here is on the ongoing U.S. quest to develop weapons that are more “useable” – weapons that would not merely adorn an arsenal and impress an audience, but that could actually be employed with telling effect on a modern battlefield.