"Shock and Awe"

[Imran Ghory]

On Sat, 22 Mar 2003, Fred Shapiro wrote:

> "Shock and awe" seems likely to be the ADS "Most Outrageous" term for this
> year.  Barry Popik said it was used in the first Gulf War, but searches on
> Nexis, ProQuest/Westlaw, Google Groups and JSTOR turn up nothing before
> Harlan K. Ullman & James P. Wade's 1996 book, Shock and Awe - Achieving
> Rapid Dominance.  Does anyone have evidence of any pre-1996 usage?

According to http://www.dodccrp.org/shockIndex.html the book was
published in December 1996.

The following was said by Lord Kennet on 30th Oct 1996,

'British governments--this one or the next--will have to decide whether we
really want to go ahead with these post-cold war visions of US global
hegemony. One is the three year-old counter-proliferation programme which
could provide all the sensors and all the practical gear for disposing of
all the US-defined "rogue states". Now there is a new doctrine called
"Shock and Awe", or "Rapid Dominance", which is being elaborated in the US
National Defence University. These are doctrines which, with consequent
policies and consequent expenditures, leave no room for the United Nations
or for any international rule of law, or indeed for democratic or civilian
control of the military. They will also be extremely expensive, and the
world has better things to devote its resources to than ever greater
militarisation.'


Imran Ghory
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran