The Staff College at Camberley is an international focus for new thinking in the likely development of military operations, and The Science of War: Back to First Principles is the response of serving officers to this pattern of change.

Forty years of confrontation in Europe produced a complex set of conditioned reflexes in western military thinking. With the end of the Warsaw pact, planning and analysis specialists have been compelled to look again at basic principles. The analysis of threat and response has been transformed, and patterns of likely action such as the Gulf intervention have been accommodated. In practical terms, these developments affect what is taught to both new officers and senior officers about to assume command responsibilities.
The essays in "The "Science of War will foster a better understanding of the factors that operate at the higher levels of war. The contributors provide a penetrating study of the operational level of war from a general and speculative vantage point which integrates military theory and historical experience. As a whole, the book provides a theoretical basis for the principles of the planning and conduct of war at the operational level, without linking it to a specific formation or scenario.
The Staff College at Camberley has become an international focus for thinking in the development of military operations, and this book is the response of serving officers to this pattern of change. Their authoritative review of topics central to the study of war in the modern world provides an assessment of the possible shape and location of future wars.