The initial historical context of such sf was provided by the Korean War, where the intervention of UN troops embodied a new philosophy of military action and responsibility but doubts about the role played by US forces were subsequently amplified in no uncertain terms by the progress of the Vietnam War. It was most aggressively carried forward through the 1970s by Jerry Pournelle in such novels as A Spaceship for the King ( 1973), The Mercenary ( 1977) and Janissaries ( 1979) the latter led to 1980s sequels in collaboration with Roland J Green. Other important early contributors to this tradition include Poul Anderson, as in The Star Fox (fixup 1965). The foregrounding in Starship Troopers of military service (though not necessarily in combat) as a qualification for full citizenship and voting rights is interestingly anticipated in another precursor: Rudyard Kipling's didactic Utopia of a militarized England, "The Army of a Dream" (15-18 June 1904 Morning Post in Traffics and Discoveries, coll 1904), which also denies social security ("poor-relief") to non-volunteers. The latter began the long-running Dorsai series, which aspires to offer a serious commentary on the evolution and ethics of militarism and was still being extended through the final main-sequence Dorsai novel completed in Dickson's lifetime, The Chantry Guild ( 1988). Notable early examples are Robert A Heinlein's Starship Troopers (October-November 1959 F&SF as "Starship Soldier" 1959) and Gordon R Dickson's The Genetic General ( 1960 exp vt Dorsai! 1976). Precursors of this subgenre include Space Cadet ( 1948) by Robert A Heinlein and Star Guard ( 1955) by Andre Norton.
In this context a new tradition of militaristic sf grew up in the 1950s and 1960s.
Complementing such extravagance, there grew up a more disciplined and more realistic notion of the kind of armies which might fight interplanetary and interstellar wars, and the kinds of Weapons they might use. The melodramatic excesses of Space-Opera warfare faded with the pulps, although they were never to die out entirely. War and especially Future War are enduring sf themes.
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