The sarcasm with which he describes the naive and undifferentiated anticommunism of the Kennedy years, his loathing of politicians who allowed America's elites to avoid military service, and his contempt for "slide-rule prodigies" mark this section of the book with a deep bitterness: "Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world." This theme — a dichotomy between theorists, politicians, and thinkers on the one hand and men of affairs such as himself, who deal with things in practice, on the other — pervades the book. There are few complimentary references to thinkers as opposed to doers here, and those in the former category are addressed primarily to fellow soldiers.
—Eliot A. Cohen, "Playing Powell Politics," Foreign Affairs, November / December 1995