War Games

The human brain is hard-wired with a primal aversion to killing. Amid the horror of war even the best-trained soldiers can forget their training. Vast effort and countless sums have been spent in the attempt to keep our men fighting. Military psychologist Leo Murray argues that the real question is: 'How do we make the enemy stop fighting?' Weaving together intense first-hand accounts of combat with the hard science of tactical psychology, Murray offers a compelling insight into how war affects the human mind. War Games is both a powerful glimpse through the eyes of our soldiers and an urgent reminder that the future of modern warfare lies in understanding how the enemy thinks. Fascinating and often chilling, this is the story of how psychology wins wars.

Leo Murray is a military analyst and former soldier who has spent half his lifetime studying the psychology of armed combat. He has interviewed hundreds of war veterans, young and old, and worked with some shady collections of staff officers and war geeks. With a few exceptions, he has only ever been shot at by accident or under carefully-controlled laboratory conditions.