Book Review: The Transformation of Europe’s Armed Forces: From the Rhine to Afghanistan

The premise of Anthony King’s book, The Transformation of Europe’s Armed Forces, is that Europe’s armed forces "are being turned into deployable reaction forces, capable of rapid intervention" (p. 7). By providing "a historically specific interpretation of European military innovation through the analysis of the practices, interrelations and hierarchies of the armed forces," the book traces ‘‘the realities of military development today" and describes the fundamental features of Europe’s new military, including how Europe’s armed forces "conceptualise, plan, command and train for military operations" (pp. 6, 12–13).