Download or read book Old Myths New Myths Renewing American Military Thought written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Army is worn-out. Not in the ordinary sense of being physically tired: on the contrary, units in the field are making it happen with an astonishing energy that comes from having good troops and dedicated, well-intentioned leaders. Rather, what's worn-out is our thinking--the fundamental ideas that give the Army its character and inform its basic policies. As used here, the phrase "fundamental ideas" suggests nothing so transitory as doctrine or organization or management systems. It refers to the assumptions or beliefs that define the constants in the Army's style of managing its peacetime affairs or fighting its wars. These beliefs do little to explain the differences between the Active Defense of the 1970s and the AirLand Battle of the 1980s. Of far greater importance, however, they help us understand why such doctrinal change, supposedly so far-reaching, has had such a negligible effect on the Army--why, in the eyes of those of us tracing our service back to the 1960s, when so much has supposedly changed, so much remains the same. The historian William A. McNeill has labeled such fundamental ideas "myths," emphasizing their elusiveness as well as their persuasive power. According to Professor McNeill, myths playa large role in determining the behavior of any complex institution. In referring to such ideas as mythic, McNeill is not suggesting that they are false or mistaken. Instead, he is acknowledging that such myths are not subject to empirical proof. Seldom factual, such myths nonetheless reflect in broad terms what a majority of the institution's members "know" to be true.
Download or read book Parameters written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book US Intervention Policy and Army Innovation written by Richard Lock-Pullan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: US Intervention Policy and Army Innovation examines how the US Army rebuilt itself after the Vietnam War and how this has affected US intervention policy, from the victory of the Gulf War to the failure of Somalia, the Bosnian and Kosovo interventions and the use of force post 9/11. Richard Lock-Pullan analyzes the changes in US military intervention strategy by examining two separate issues: the nature of the US Army as it rebuilt itself after the Vietnam War, and the attempts by the US to establish criteria for future military interventions. He first argues that US strategy traditionally relied upon national mobilization to co-ordinate political aims and military means; he subsequently analyzes how this changed to a formula of establishing militarily achievable political objectives prior to the use of force. Drawing on a vast body of material and on strategic culture and military innovation literature, Lock-Pullan demonstrates that the strategic lessons were a product of the rebuilding of the Army's identity as it became a professional all-volunteer force and that the Army's new doctrine developed a new 'way of war' for the nation, embodied in the AirLand Battle doctrine, which changed the approach to strategy. This book finally gives a practical analysis of how the interventions in Panama and the Gulf War vindicated this approach and brought a revived confidence in the use of force while more recent campaigns in Somalia, Kosovo and Bosnia exposed its weaknesses and the limiting nature of the Army's thinking. The legacy of the Army's innovation is examined in the new strategic environment post 9/11 with the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Download or read book Air University Library Index to Military Periodicals written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Who Will Fight the Next War written by Martin Binkin and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Persian Gulf conflict was the first major combat test for U.S. military forces since the nation ended conscription two decades ago. As hundreds of thousands of American troops were dispatched to the Middle East, the nation realized, seemingly for the first time, that the composition of its armed forces was far removed from any that the nation had previously sent to war. The deployment of unprecedented proportions of minorities and women and the prominent role of reserves and national guard troops aroused considerable interest, widespread debate, and some worry. The prospect that African Americans could bear a disproportionate share of military casualties generated a socially diverse debate that threatened to reopen old racial scars; the reality that American women were exposed to perils from which, by long and deep tradition, they had previously been shielded inspired calls for them to be admitted to combat specialties; and controversy surrounding the readiness of the Army's combat reserves led to an internecine struggle over the future shape of the U.S. Army. In this book, Martin Binkin addresses each of these issues in order to provide a better understanding of the composition of America's fighting forces, to prompt an assessment of attitudes toward who should fight in future wars, and to delineate the choices for influencing the social distribution of peril. Binkin argues that the time for public involvement is now, while the memories of the Persian Gulf conflict are still reasonably fresh and while a fundamental rethinking of the post-cold war military is under way.
Download or read book Small Wars written by Michael Gambone and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Small Wars is unique in its complexity and breadth. This book would be of great interest to both military and diplomatic historians, and those that teach Recent America.” —Nancy Gentile Ford, author of Issues of War and Peace Today, conventional fighting waged by massed, industrial armies is nearly extinct as a viable means of warfare, replaced by a broad and diverse array of conflicts that consume the modern American military. Fought in sprawling urban areas of the underdeveloped world or in desolate border regions where ethnicity and tradition reign, these “small wars” involve a vast and intricate network of operations dedicated to attacking the cultural, political, financial, and military layers that surround America’s new enemies. In this intriguing study, Michael Gambone explores America’s approach to small wars since Vietnam, providing a fascinating analysis of the basic goals, missions, conduct, and consequences of modern American conflict. Going beyond a simple comparison of Vietnam to the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gambone thoroughly tracks the continuous evolution of U.S. intervention between these events, revealing a dramatic shift in the role of the American military to covert operations that require fluidity, creativity, and ingenuity. He examines in detail the many different forms of military intervention that America has taken in the last forty years, including actions in Central America in the 1980s, the first Gulf War, airstrikes in Kosovo in the 1990s, and the war on terror, as well as the Iran-Contra affair, the drug war in Columbia, and the role of private military contractors such as Blackwater. After the Cold War, Gambone shows, American military missions served a wide variety of tasks—peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, counterterrorism—that significantly departed from conventional missions, a trend that continued and expanded after 9/11. By exploring the history and assessing the effectiveness of the small wars fought since Vietnam, Gambone reveals the importance of these smaller actions in modern military planning and operations and clearly traces the development of American warfare from the massive military machine of World War II into a complex hybrid of traditional and innovative techniques. MICHAEL GAMBONE, a professor of history at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, is the author of The Greatest Generation Comes Home: The Veteran in American Society and editor of Documents of American Diplomacy: From the American Revolution to the Present.
Download or read book The Journal of Military History written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Handbook of Defence Politics written by Isaiah "Ike" Wilson III and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-03-28 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues of defence politics and policy have long been at the forefront of political agendas and defining of international affairs. However, the dramatic changes to the global system that have taken place since the end of the Cold War and parrticularly since the terror attacks on the USA on 11 September 2001 have amplified the world's attention toward political and policy issues of national, regional and global security. The focus of this volume is on examining the fundamental causes of, and defence policy responses to this new 'post-9/11' security environment. Edited by Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III and James J. F. Forest of the US Military Academy, West Point, USA, this volume is international in scope, with pieces written by experts in the field, offering a collection of up-to-date and balanced insights on key contemporary issues of concern to defence policymakers. The book will be an invaluable reference tool for academics and students, researchers in international relations, policymakers, media professionals and government officials.
Download or read book Current Military Political Literature written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Government Reports Announcements Index written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 1132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Decisive Force written by F. G. Hoffman and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1996-05-30 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The existence of a national style of warfare, an American Way of War, has been used to characterize fundamental elements of American military strategy. During his tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell became the proponent for a strategic framework to guide the consideration of how military forces should be used to support national policy objectives. His framework was reflected in the Chairman's National Military Strategy published in early 1992 after Desert Storm under a concept titled Decisive Force. This book traces the development and evaluates the merits of a New American Way of War embodied in the Decisive Force concept. Military attitudes and lessons about the utility of force are drawn from four recent conflicts.
Download or read book International Affairs Fellowship Program 1967 1990 Directory written by Council on Foreign Relations and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Quarterly Strategic Bibliography written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Arms Control Today written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Writings on American History written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Writings on American History a Subject Bibliography of Articles written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Recently Published Articles American Historical Association written by American Historical Association and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
