Taiwan

Ryan ensures the readers do not lose the human factors. Friction, uncertainty, fear, and exhaustion beguile the characters on the ground throughout the campaign. The taxes these characteristics impose on each of the military actors are ever present in the text. Perhaps more critically, Ryan pulls on his voluminous knowledge of military history to offer compelling notional instances by which the miscalculation of senior leaders can lead rational actors to make decisions that, in hindsight, are anything but rational.