Short on action, long on polemics and soap-box oratory in praise of war and militarism. While writing this, RAH must have suffered a severe case of nostalgia for his time at the US military academy. The value and meaningfulness of the military, the virtue of peacefulness vs. aggressive self-defence are important issues every society must grapple with. Interweaving them more into the story could have been more effective - the long philosophical discourses only distracted from the meagre action and made the book seem more like a newspaper editorial than a science fiction classic. The military logic is convincing to a point but goes too far and is not confirmed by experience.
Some points of view are quite extreme.
To imagine and idealize a society governed only by veterans of wars ignores history and examples like Nazi Germany. Also a good morale building, empowering statement for military types.