The idea of "mathmatical ethics" was pretty funny. There is a certain amount of logic that can be applied to ethics, it is not however amiable to formal expression as mathmatics. But I think his real point in that part of the book was about MIAs. The book was written right after the Korean war, and rumors of US MIAs being held in North Korea where common. The point he hammers there is that risking another war to recover one soldier is worth it.

And much of the book was a direct counter point to the overly idealistic science fiction of the period that talked about future civilizations that had gotten past all warfare and or that it is possible to negotiate your way out of all violence. It just doesn't work like that, there are times when war is both unavoidable and necessary.

Even more interesting is how good a job he did of creating a coherent and sensible system for his powered armor troopers. He was one of the first to grasp that in a scifi system where orbital bombardment is easy, the only reason to send in the foot troopers is to occupy something you want to capture intact.

Jay