8vo. 452pp. Original publisher's red cloth, lettered in black to spine, pictorial dustwrapper. Minor shelf-wear, dustwrapper a trifle marked. Family copy, ink inscription to half-title: 'To my dear daughter Olga with / all my love. / Daddy / (?) / 29. 1. 1972.'

The first edition of Austrian-born army officer and military theorist Ferdinand Otto Miksche's (1904-1992) monograph on the competitive acquisition of military capability between nations.