Published Airpower Journal - Winter 1997
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read.
—Mark Twain
Peacekeeping: Outspoken Observations by a Field Officer by James H. Allan. Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, Conneticut 06881, 1996, 200 pages, $55.00.
Since the end of the cold war, the United States has become progressively involved in a number of United Nations (UN) peace missions. Because there is ample potential for the United States to continue to be a critical component of such operations, American policy makers, commanders, and service members are well served by garnering the lessons learned from previous efforts. James H. Allan, a retired Canadian colonel, has contributed substantially to our understanding of United Nations peace operations with Peacekeeping: Outspoken Observations by a Field Officer, which draws on his experiences while wearing the blue beret in Cyprus, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, and Iraq.
Allan’s Peacekeeping is not another memoir; instead, it is a compendium of case studies and hard-hitting observations on peacekeeping, past, present, and future. This book is unique with its perspective into the daily events and relationships which are germane to peacekeeping. While reading academic works or policy proposals, a person can easily forget the dirt or mud, heat or chill, boredom, and human friction inherent to peace missions but these facets are central to Allan’s easily read volume.
At the core of Allan’s observations is the understanding that peacekeeping does not bring about long-term conflict resolution. Whereas Americans may be obsessed with quick solutions to problems and are not overly concerned with historic enmities, other cultures can be enthralled with ethnic hatred and fear of their neighbors. Peacekeeping essentially provides a respite from war by maintaining truces, but it does not furnish a conclusion to conflict. Only when it is politically and economically advantageous to the opposing belligerents do conflicts become resolved. This ambiguity must be grappled with by those involved in peace operations.
Though loyal to his fellow peacekeepers, Allan lambastes the UN as a dysfunctional, self-perpetuating bureaucracy. He tromps the UN’s civilian leadership located in New York and points to the chief administrative officer (the senior civilian responsible for logistical, supply, and administrative matters) billet as the Achilles’ heel of every peace mission he participated in. Allan also notes that the UN lacks an effective institutional memory, failing to learn from past problems, and that the inability to provide accurate and detailed maps is just one of the frequently repeated tactical snags.
Allan relates there are many requirements in the trenches for peacekeeping. Tough-mindedness, humor, and calmness are crucial for those interposing themselves between belligerents. Peacekeepers must be effective ombudsmen and be patient and tolerant while confronting truce violations. They must also be firm, though shrewd enough to impose their will without causing either of the opposing sides to “lose face.” He clearly advises the reader that the people in positions of local power on both sides are likely to have gotten their rank by zealotry, not open-mindedness or intelligence, and that such individuals are not well-suited to cooperate, compromise, or be truthful.
Allan also lists three key characteristics of successful peacekeeping operations—acceptance, impartiality, and minimum use of force. The first includes political and financial responsibility by contributing UN members, acceptance of the peacekeepers’ presence by the belligerents, and acceptance by the peacekeepers of their nonwarfighting role. The second is strict impartiality. The third characteristic is the absolute minimum use of force. Defusing a crisis with violence places the peacekeepers on one side or the other. This in turn destroys impartiality, as well as acceptance by the opposing parties, and makes the peace-keeper part of the conflict instead of a promoter of peaceful methods of overcoming difficulties.
For Allan, peacekeeping is more apt to be successful, in its limited way, when it stands between two sovereign states rather than between intrastate forces. In his view, civil wars and failed states are not the place for UN peacekeepers. He believes that the UN should delegate peace enforcement and humanitarian operations to regional organizations such as the Organization of African Unity. In addition, he strongly opposes a standing UN force for peace missions. His disenchantment with the civilian administrative system of the UN leads him to believe that a UN version of the French Foreign Legion would be inefficient and corrupt beyond measure.
Overall, Peacekeeping is an insightful, carefully worded work with only two glitches: its excessive price and its mention in passing of Germany as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Without a doubt, Allan’s fine book will prove to be a superb benefit to any scholars, soldiers, or policy makers searching for a no-holds-barred assessment of UN peacekeeping by a well-experienced practitioner of such operations. It is highly recommended.
Capt Jeff Kojac, USMC
Camp Pendleton, California
Elements of Military Strategy: An Historical Approach by Archer Jones. Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881, 1996, 264 pages, $24.95.
Military historian Archer Jones uses history in Elements of Military Strategy in two ways: for a source of ideas about military strategy and for examples illustrating the elements by showing their application to specific campaigns and for understanding the role of strategy in military operations. The focus is on American military land, sea, and air campaigns from the English colonists’ warfare against the Native Americans in the middle 1600s to the Gulf War in the early 1990s.
An unusual historical perspective defines the parameters for examining each campaign. The objective for military strategy is depletion of an adversary’s military. Armed forces have the strategic means available for depletion of combat (combat strategy) and depriving the opponent’s armed forces of supplies, weapons, recruits, or other resources needed to function (logistic strategy). Four possible combinations make up the strategic means: combat and persisting, combat and raiding, logistic and persisting, and logistic and raiding. The strategy of any military operation is almost certain to fall into one of these combinations.
Areas also effect operations—from either within a base area, from a remote base area, or a mixture of base area access. For most of warfare’s history, armies have obtained the bulk of their supplies, especially food, from the area in which they campaigned. An example is the US Army in the 1876–1877 Great Sioux War. Forces operate from a remote base area if they remain long in one place, as in sieges, or are too large for the region to support. They include land forces dependent on distant bases and sea and air forces, which generally need a remote base. The 1940–1945 commerce-raiding war in the Atlantic illustrates this. A profound example of operations with a mixture of base area access is the American involvement during the Vietnam War.
In examining the nature of military operations, Jones strives to show how the role of strategy employs Aristotle’s ancient analytical tool of the four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. In a military operation, the material cause is the armed forces. Tactical doctrine, the base area, and other logistic arrangements constitute the formal cause. The efficient cause is the military organization, and the final cause is the objective of the battle, campaign, or war.
The case study applied the most is the US war against Japan in World War II, because it furnishes excellent examples of independent and interdependent land, sea, and air operations. All the case studies, some more so than others, contribute to the author’s distinctive historical methodology, notable for original conceptualization.
If there is a weakness, it lies in the lack of visible documentation and sources. Although the book is obviously well researched, there is no tangible evidence as proof.
While Elements of Military Strategy can be difficult to wade through in certain spots, this should not deter true students of military history and strategy. Readers interested in the subject will enjoy thinking about a historical approach that is different and challenging at the same time.
Dr. Frank P. Donnini
Newport News, Virginia
The Transition to Democracy in Latin America: The Role of the Military by Bruce W. Farcau. Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, P.O. Box 5007, Westport, Connecticut 06881-5007, 1996, 200 pages, $55.00.
The post-cold-war era has produced a surprisingly excellent spate of books on national security issues and the military institutions of Latin America. Author Bruce W. Farcau is a career foreign service officer, US Department of State, with career assignments in Bolivia, Ecuador, Spain, France, and the Dominican Republic. His present work is a detailed analysis of civil-military relationships and a survey of professional values and military-to-military relationships.
The book has a strong historical section on military regimes in Latin America: their genesis, main trajectories, and demise. Farcau’s dynamics are verifiable; his arguments are compelling. Next comes the strongest part—a section each on the specific dynamics of civil-military and military-to-military relations within the army officer corps in Bolivia and Brazil. From long years of study and experience in this sector, I recognized a previously unpublished gold mine on this delicate topic.
The summary portions of Farcau’s meticulous study are less clear. He recognizes the acceptance of democratic values but is unwilling to predict strong adherence to constitutional obedience. He suggests that the post-cold-war army officer in his two subject countries will not revert to coups d’etat that proclaim a long-term modernizing strategy, as happened in the 1970s. Rather, he sees the military officer possibly playing the role of temporary peacemaker and power broker, should the civilian politicians once again revert to the destructive bick- ering—bordering upon abdication—that brought the soldiers out of the barracks in times past.
Two other items merit attention. The scope of the book is overtitled, for it really contains two superb case studies on emerging military values in two key South American nations—not an even coverage of democracy’s pathway throughout the region’s military leaders. The airpower student might well remember that air force officers in the two subject countries tend to profess a less politicized values system closer to the engineering model—a tendency shown from variant positions by John J. Johnson’s The Military and Society in Latin America (1964) and by Roderic Camp’s Generals in the Palacio: The Military in Modern Mexico (1992).
The military forces of Latin America are over-studied as a political pathology—a condition produced by residual vestiges of the Black Legend, portraying all things Hispanic as innately violent, cruel, and cowardly, and by the merger of radical Protestantism with neo-Marxism in US academic circles during the latter half of the cold war. Bruce W. Farcau’s carefully researched work is a welcome and major contribution to the cognitive side of the literature.
Dr. Russell W. Ramsey
Fort Benning, Georgia
“Good to Go”: The Rescue of Capt Scott O’Grady, USAF, from Bosnia by Mary Pat Kelly. Naval Institute Press, 118 Maryland Avenue, Annapolis, Maryland 21402-5035, 1996, 337 pages, $27.95.
In early June of 1995, the nation held its breath waiting to discover the fate of Air Force captain Scott O’Grady. The Bosnian Serb surface-to-air missile (SAM) that destroyed Captain O’Grady’s F-16 began a series of events culminating in O’Grady’s successful rescue by members of the United States Marine Corps. This story is brought to life in Good to Go. A blow-by-blow account by the actual soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines involved in the rescue moves the reader from the relative “peace” of the Deny Flight operation, through the realization that we had lost an F-16 and its pilot, to an intense rescue of Captain O’Grady and a hair-raising flight back to freedom through the SAM- and antiaircraft-artillery-filled Bosnian countryside.
All of the accounts in the book are taken from interviews conducted with the primary players, including Adm Leighton Smith, who was commander in chief of US Naval Forces Europe and Allied Forces Southern Europe, as well as Marine Corps corporals who were on the helicopters that rescued Captain O’Grady. Their personal stories and accounts of these events bring the seriousness of the situation quickly into focus. On every page, one finds the total dedication, commitment, and determination to bring O’Grady out of Bosnia alive.
Organizing the events chronologically, Mary Pat Kelly allows the reader an unobstructed view not only of the players but also of what information they had and didn’t have when they made their decisions. Crisis planning is never easy, especially with the ever-present fog of war. By comparing times and locations, we gain better understanding into this kind of stress-filled situation in which so few of us participate yet need to be prepared to handle. Good to Go is a well-written account of an important lesson in cooperation and teamwork. Mary Pat Kelly has given us a valuable tool that we should use again and again—and not just read once and place on the bookshelf.
Capt Chris Golden, USAF
Yakima, Washington
So Many, So Much, So Far, So Fast by James K. Matthews and Cora J. Holt. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20318, 1995, 318 pages.
Since the end of the Gulf War, much has been written about the hundred-hour ground war and thousand-hour air war; unfortunately, little has been written about the ten-thousand-hour logistics war. So Many helps fill this void with an excellent analysis of the strategic air, land, and sea deployment of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm from the perspective of US Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM). Written by the command’s historian and director of its research center, Dr. James Matthews, and its Freedom of Information and Privacy Act officer, Mrs. Cora Holt, this book does for strategic lift what Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s It Doesn’t Take a Hero did for the Desert Storm ground war.
The authors use primary historical sources, interviews, extensive research, and their actual experiences to describe in layman’s terms the herculean effort of USTRANSCOM from 7 August 1990 to 10 March 1991 in moving and then sustaining over 540,000 US troops, their equipment, and supplies from hundreds of locations throughout the world to Southwest Asia. This effort equated to moving all the residents of Wyoming and their personal belongings to the Persian Gulf in just five months. The reader quickly realizes that this enormous movement didn’t just happen but was made possible by years of planning, analysis, and the existence of USTRANSCOM.
Matthews and Holt clearly describe how the strategic airlift system created aluminum “air bridges” over the North Atlantic, Europe, and Southwest Asia in minimum time but not without major problems. Every six weeks throughout this war, active duty, guard, reserve, and allied aircraft, as well as the Civil Reserve Airlift Fleet (CRAF), flew the equivalent of one 19-month-long Berlin airlift. The authors note that Iraq may have been deterred from pushing into the strategically crucial and oil-rich Al Jubayl–Dhahran area of Saudi Arabia because of Military Airlift Command’s (MAC) ability to fly in 30,000 troops in less than two weeks and the ability of prepositioned ships located at Diego Garcia to “marry up” with these troops in only seven days.
Chapters on sea lift, overland transportation, and containerization provide equally detailed analysis. The authors skillfully juxtapose detailed statistics with often entertaining anecdotes that describe how everything worked or, in some cases, did not. The sea lift was so enormous that at one point there was one ship every 50 miles between the continental United States (CONUS) and Southwest Asia. Further, heavy use of containers (along with the 463L pallets used for the airlift) created a critical shortage worldwide.
Several themes run through this book, the first of which is the importance of joint and multinational operations and the critical role of USTRANS-COM in orchestrating the entire strategic lift. Through its three components—MAC, Military Sealift Command (MSC), and Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC)—USTRANSCOM quickly evolved into a war-proven command. Second, thousands of dedicated people—active duty, guard, reserve, and civilian—met the challenge despite grave risks to themselves. Matthews and Holt note how CRAF crews flew into airfields without adequate chemical warfare training and how C-141s, C-5s, C-130s, other aircraft, and merchant marine shipping never stopped their missions despite Scud missile attacks and the constant threat of chemical weapons.
A third theme comes out distinctly: Carl von Clausewitz’s concept of friction (what can go wrong, will) and the ways that USTRANSCOM’s people and components successfully worked around problems such as C-141 structural cracks; ineffective command, control, and communications; and poorly prepared deploying units. The authors spare no criticism of this operation and clearly state how USTRANSCOM used this experience to lay the groundwork for years of improvement.
A fourth theme is that a worldwide Defense Transportation System (DTS) doesn’t just happen but requires extensive planning, significant funding, well-trained and dedicated people, modern equipment, and proven leadership. Due in part to the enormous success of USTRANSCOM and the stark revelations of many DTS shortcomings, plans for long-overdue improvements have finally been getting increased funding. The final theme is the critical importance of strategic mobility to US defense strategy—especially in view of the current reliance on “swinging” huge forces in just weeks between two Gulf War–sized major regional contingencies (MRC).
So Many is an invaluable contribution to military studies in general and to joint/multinational operations in particular. The authors have produced a highly detailed and fascinating book about the biggest strategic lift of modern times and its crucial role in defeating the forces of evil in Southwest Asia. I strongly recommend it to all operators, planners, and logisticians, as well as all students in professional military education schools and others who are interested in learning how military operations really work—as opposed to learning how they appear to work according to Hollywood. This is a book you should not miss.
Maj Philip A. Bossert Jr., USAF
Scott AFB, Illinois
A Yankee Ace in the RAF: The World War I Letters of Captain Bogart Rogers edited by John H. Morrow and Earl Rogers. University Press of Kansas, 2501 West 15th Street, Lawrence, Kansas 66049, 1996, 259 pages, $24.95.
In the introduction to A Yankee Ace in the RAF, Earl Rogers—who edited the work with Prof. John H. Morrow—writes, “Most letters are written by ordinary people.” Letters and diaries, two of the greatest pillars of historical research, were indeed written by men or women who never considered themselves out of the ordinary. Those who find themselves in a war want to record their experiences and thoughts. This is the great value of this book. Capt Bogart Rogers recorded his wartime experiences and was insightful as well as articulate. The reader is treated to a view of the Great War that is stripped of its popular romanticism.
The air war over the trenches was anything but romantic, and the pilots and observers who flew were not the last vestiges of chivalric knighthood. They flew in flimsy planes without parachutes, facing horrible death from incineration or from crashes that were almost always fatal. Like the infantrymen in the lice-infested, mud-filled trenches, the men in the air faced death, disease, and suffering. What separated them from their comrades on the ground was that they made the battlefield three-dimensional. They did not enter mortal combat by “going over the top”; instead, they flew into battle from an airfield.
Bogart Rogers, from Los Angeles, was a student at Stanford University when the United States declared war in April 1917. Like many young men, he was anxious to get into the war, and this led him to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). Rogers started training in Canada, and he began a series of lengthy letters to his sweetheart, Isabelle Gibson Young, who also was at Stanford.
The war in the air was a young man’s war, and from Rogers’s letters, one sees his transition from callow youth to mature air-war fighter. In a letter written on 4 September 1918, Rogers describes his reaction to the death of a popular comrade who was shot down in flames. On 6 September 1918, he tells Isabelle about a fight in which he believed he downed two German aircraft. He describes the death of a friend and the shooting down of a German observation aircraft with the detachment of a veteran pilot. Indicative of his veteran’s status, Rogers is never pleased with the training and preparation of the new “young” pilots sent to his squadron. Rogers himself was only 21 years old in 1918. His letters also address the officers’ mess, billets, the countryside, and the devastation of war.
On 11 November 1918, Rogers wrote to Isabelle, “People can prate until judgement day about war being the salvation of nations . . . but I know that it will never be worth the sacrifice. It’s all wrong.” In May 1919, Rogers returned to California, and a year later he married his sweetheart from Stanford. He went on to have a successful, event-filled life.
Fortunately, Isabelle preserved all of his letters. They have been skillfully edited and annotated by Earl Rogers—Captain Rogers’s son—and John H. Morrow, professor of history at the University of Georgia and noted scholar of World War I aviation. Their book provides great insight into the life of an American who became an RAF ace. Because of the quality and quantity of Rogers’s letters, the reader has the rare opportunity to look into the life of a man who fought the world’s first war in the skies. A Yankee Ace in the RAF is a serious contribution to our growing understanding of the Great War.
Dr. James J. Cooke
Oxford, Mississippi
Eisenhower versus Montgomery: The Continuing Debate by G. E. Patrick Murray. Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, P.O. Box 5007, Westport, Connecticut 06881-5007, 1996, 202 pages, $59.95.
While concentrating on the arguments over Ei-senhower’s “broad front” theater strategy following the Normandy breakout, Eisenhower versus Montgomery offers many useful insights into problems of logistics, coalition warfare, senior command, and, perhaps above all, use of memoirs. The focus in the book—the primary basis for its organization—is the chronology of postwar publications on the debate, rather than the events, concerning the design and execution of the strategy.
The result is an interesting survey of many relevant publications of participants and historians but a disjointed and unconvincing assessment of the issue itself. Accordingly, the book’s major sources are the books and articles produced by interested parties, their defenders, and historians. Although the bibliography claims use of a substantial volume of archival materials in the United States and Great Britain, one sees little evidence of that. Primarily, Murray evaluates the accounts of the participants (and their motives) rather than the decisions they reached. This approach is less serious than might otherwise be the case, however, since the book achieves its main purpose.
The author seems inconsistent in his evaluation of the issues, clearly siding with what became the American point of view and referring to the “myth” that Eisenhower had failed to grasp a chance for quick victory in 1944. Yet, in his conclusion he states that the broad front was a political necessity, while the single-thrust idea was “an operational necessity.” Political necessity triumphed, says Murray, because Eisenhower was a coalition commander and because the forces of each nation had to play a role in Germany’s defeat.
Eisenhower versus Montgomery is useful, primarily for its many insights into the strengths and weaknesses of Eisenhower and Montgomery as se-nior commanders. Raised in very different traditions and with very different lifestyles, they almost never had any face-to-face contact and rarely even spoke to each other. Murray concludes that Montgomery visited Eisenhower’s headquarters only once during the entire war and that Ike visited Montgomery a mere 15 times. (Of course, Kay Summersby could not accompany Eisenhower on these visits, since Montgomery banned women from his 21st Army Group.) By way of contrast, Bradley and Eisenhower met at least 47 times. Further, Ike spoke to Bradley on the secure phone constantly but rarely called Montgomery. In fact, at one point during the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower was even unaware if Montgomery possessed a secure telephone line. Readers should also note Murray’s distinction between the dual questions of strategy and command in considering the strategic options of 1944. This included, but was not limited to, the question of whether Eisenhower himself should be the ground-forces commander as well as theater commander, or whether he should have either Bradley or Montgomery assume direct overall control of the land campaign.
Finally, this useful volume should stand as a word of caution to people who rely upon memoirs. For many years, the Eisenhower-Montgomery debate centered around personalities and cold war politics as much as the issues themselves. All things considered, this well-written little book has many points to recommend a careful reading. It is too bad that the price is so high.
Dr. Daniel J. Hughes
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age by Keith B. Payne. University Press of Kentucky, 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008, 1996, 168 pages, $26.95.
Success can be a dangerous thing. In the minds of most military and political leaders, the collapse of the Soviet Union and consequential end to the cold war meant a complete validation of nuclear deterrence through mutual assured destruction (MAD); indeed, the entire subject of nuclear strategy, so “hot” just a decade ago, now appears passé. Dr. Keith Payne, editor in chief of Comparative Strategy and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, has written a brief but refreshingly original book that serves as a much needed wake-up call for people who believe that nuclear strategy can now be safely placed on the back shelf in this post-cold-war world while we focus our attention elsewhere. The truth is, the deterrence challenge has gotten far more complex.
Nuclear strategy has usually been characterized by the division of the defense community into bipolar camps: people either believed in maintaining parity/superiority in strategic forces and were known as hawks or in MAD (as Payne calls it, “assured vulnerability”) and were known as doves. Payne goes beyond this either/or thinking, insisting that we need a new synthesis from both viewpoints to develop an effective strategy in this Second Nuclear Age. Although he recognizes that the use of deterrence is and always has been “the acme of skill” (to borrow from Sun Tzu), his central thesis is that “there are virtually no grounds—other than intuition or hope—for making sweeping claims about the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence throughout the Cold War, or to predict how future challengers will behave in response to familiar deterrence policies under various hypothetical conditions.”
Payne convincingly substantiates his position with historical references to World War II as well as the Persian Gulf War, which show the difficulty of wielding the deterrence tool, so simple in theory, in a crisis. For example, the Iraqis were (apparently) deterred from using chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction by their mistaken perception of a nuclear response, even though the American government internally dismissed such a possibility out of hand. Oddly, had the American government made its position clearer (that the response would be conventional in nature—not nuclear) the Iraqis might well have acted otherwise.
Dr. Payne’s masterful analysis concludes with a reexamination of ballistic missile defense and a discussion of why a limited defense system is an essential ingredient of America’s future security. Military officers and senior civilian leaders involved in the formulation of nuclear strategy and war planning have a compelling need to read and think about this book.
Lt Col Michael H. Taint, USAF
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
The Vietnam, Victory Option by Norborne Robinson III. Gram Press, P.O. Box 1825, Middleburg, Virginia 22117, 1996, 248 pages, $35.00.
The title of Norborne Robinson’s book led me to believe it would provide a serious discussion of an alternate strategy to achieve the national objectives of the United States in Vietnam. I expected the author to propose this strategy and then support his rationale with research and sound documentation. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Instead, the book devotes most of its 248 pages to background information, focusing only partially on Southeast Asia. Although some of this information is pertinent to our involvement in Vietnam, much of it is not. My other major concern is the limited amount of scholarly documentation, which made it difficult to distinguish the author’s opinion from fact. I might have accepted this approach had the author provided a detailed biography identifying his background and qualifications to draw these conclusions. This information, however, was too general to be helpful.
So what was the victory option? The proposed strategy called for airpower to destroy selected dikes on the Red River in North Vietnam. Breaching these dikes would devastate North Vietnam’s rice production, which was highly dependent upon the dikes to control the river during flood stage and to provide water for rice cultivation. The strategic objective was destabilization of the Hanoi regime and its capacity to wage war. By collapsing the war effort in the North, the war in the South would come to an early halt. To avoid starving the North’s population, the South Vietnamese government would provide food by means of coastal relief stations established with US assistance through a series of amphibious landings.
Robinson promulgated this strategy in 1967 via an unofficial document known as the “Linchpin Memo,” distributed on Capitol Hill. Concerned that such a strategy might draw direct Chinese intervention, President Johnson did not accept this strategy or similar proposals for escalating the bombing campaign. The author does make the valid point that the potential for Chinese intervention was not seriously studied.
The book also suffers from a number of flaws, ranging from typographical errors to notes that do not correspond to the referenced text. Further, the single black-and-white map of Southeast Asia was of poor quality and offered little detail; there is no bibliography; and the index lists only individual names, not specific subjects. In short, the book’s format and documentation do not mea-sure up to what one expects from a serious academic work. Consequently, I do not recommend The Vietnam, Victory Option to readers of Airpower Journal.
Lt Col Chris Anderson, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
American Army Doctrine for the Post-Cold War by John L. Romjue. Military History Office, US Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia, 1996, 160 pages.
In today’s age, the United States Army has no immediate concern for a Soviet-backed attack against the Fulda Gap and Western Europe. No longer is it necessary for the Army to stave off a smashing T-72 attack across West Germany’s borders in the hopes of airlifting American troops and equipment to resupply and counter Soviet land gains. How has Army doctrine changed after the fall of the Soviet Union and the threat of an all-out conventional war with the Warsaw Pact nations? John L. Romjue presents an interesting, but somewhat vague, look at the US Army Training and Doctrine Command’s (TRADOC) current views of the doctrine of the Army in dealing with post-cold-war threats.
Romjue provides an outstanding background of the process to change the cold war doctrine, known as AirLand Battle, into the doctrine of today. This was the foremost doctrine to last the Army until the end of the cold war, basically from 1982 to 1993. AirLand Battle doctrine provided the Army with its rules and instructions for such conflicts as the Persian Gulf War. The main thrust of the doctrine was the “deeper view of the battlefield,” meaning to attack the enemy’s advance combat units and his follow-on echelons, therefore disrupting his ability to arrive at the battle. This doctrine was rightfully rethought as the Soviet Union had become a gaggle of independent states. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) fear of the European conventional invasion of Western Europe became defunct around 1990–1991, and with that change, the AirLand Battle thinking needed adjustment.
What bothers me in the post-cold-war rethinking is that the leaders of the 1990s’ military doctrine decided to remain consistent with the National Military Strategy and apply doctrine to combat in large land campaigns as well as operations other than war. There are far fewer chances for the United States to become involved in such an enormous war—requiring a large land battle—other than on the Korean peninsula or in the Middle East if the rogue nations of Iran and Iraq get anxious and land hungry. The most important aspect of the post-cold-war doctrine is the necessary importance of operations other than war.
In the final formulation of the new doctrine, an Army-Navy doctrinal meeting was held as an indication of the “growing reorientation to support of the land warfare mission.” This is a surprising development, as the Air Force was somehow left out of the meeting. The Air Force was not even slightly mentioned in Romjue’s book as the prime mover of rapid deployment forces to any potential areas of conflicts. The Navy has no rapid response to regional conflicts other than prepositioned supply ships, for example, in Diego Garcia. This type of Army-Navy meeting of doctrinal issues is clearly a “nonjoint” perspective in the sense that the Air Force had no representation to influence the formulation of new ideas for doctrine at this meeting.
Despite what small disagreements I may have with the formulation of this doctrine, TRADOC introduced FM 100-5, Operations, on 14 June 1993. Based on this new doctrine, the Army’s post-cold- war fundamentals included more than just general, conventional conflict. Included in the new doctrine are such obvious operations as peace enforcement, support to insurgency, antiterrorism, counterdrug operations, disaster relief, and noncombatant evacuation operations.
Besides the operations noted above, nine principles of war were expressed as foundations of Army operations: a defined, obtainable objective; exploiting the initiative; massing overwhelming combat power; economy of force; maneuver; unity of command; security against unexpected enemy advantage; surprise; and simplicity of plans and orders.
Above all in this new Army doctrine is the ability of the Army to help enhance US strategic power projection capability. Force projection is important in every operation and deserves highly detailed consideration in planning measures such as intelligence, mobilization, deployment, and logistics difficulties. Some of these various measures do have their own manuals and are too numerous to be discussed in this review.
John L. Romjue presents a thorough view of the new Army doctrine in American Army Doctrine for the Post-Cold War. This is a good overview of the history, the making, and the explanation of the doctrine. Based on the National Military Strategy and the National Security Strategy, this doctrine could easily relate to all services in their force considerations and structures and also in their operational fundamentals of the post-cold-war era.
1st Lt Barry H. Crane, USAF
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
U.S. Civil-Military Relations edited by Don M. Snider and Miranda A. Carlton-Carew. Center for Strategic and International Studies Books, 1800 K Street NW, No. 400, Washington, D.C. 20006-2202, 1995, 224 pages, $18.95.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) cosponsored a symposium on civil-military relations in September 1994. This book, edited by Don Snider—John M. Olin Professor of National Security Studies at West Point—and Miranda Carlton-Carew—senior research analyst at CSIS—is an anthology of that conference. The views presented in this extraordinary book represent some of the best and most current thinking in the civil-military relations arena.
There is a feeling that today’s US military is very different from that of 1989. The future of the armed forces has been anything but certain, the military having undergone a major demobilization coupled with changes in mission. This, according to the editors, is the result of four trends that are “straining” civil-military relations: changes in the international system and our US strategic response, the rapid drawdown of the military, the increased role of nontraditional missions for the military, and domestic demands on the military’s and society’s cultural imperatives.
Many of the contributors are concerned with the concept of cultural imperatives as regards today’s civil-military relations. Some of these imperatives are expressed by authors who adamantly oppose the current administration’s policy of “interfering” in military matters. They believe that the top military professional, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should have an even stronger voice in articulating military matters. Others have no doubt that the military must be curbed because it is too vociferous and intrusive in politics.
The contributors almost totally agree that the study of civil-military relations has changed little since the publication of Huntington’s The Soldier and the State and Janowitz’s The Professional Soldier. Throughout the cold war, the task of confronting the Soviet threat and operating in the nuclear age kept the military focused on containment strategy while the industrial complex built the appropriate weapons and the civilian leadership financed the cost. Change began with the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, the demise of Soviet-US competition, and the increased use of the military in domestic and international humanitarian operations. Although the contributors do not believe that the military is out of control, they do call for a fundamental examination of where civil-military relations are heading and an examination of how “joint” the military services have become.
David R. Segal, professor of sociology and government at the University of Maryland, doesn’t particularly subscribe to the “crisis” notion, believing instead that the balance of influence in government has shifted in favor of the military. What many academicians did not see, according to Segal, was the “sociological” impact of Goldwater-Nichols, which requires the services to cooperate rather than compete for budget dollars and weapons systems. The “conquer and divide” technique, formerly used to ensure that Congress had another means to control the military, now has much less impact. Many of these intellectuals did not foresee that making advanced graduate degrees all but mandatory for promotion in the officer corps would result in a military that was more politically astute when dealing with civilians and legislators in matters of budget and policy. Finally, many scholars did not realize that by 1994—when four out of five legislators, the commander in chief, the secretary of defense, and other key administration officials would have no military experience—these civilian leaders would be susceptible to undue influence by the military.
U.S. Civil-Military Relations not only encompasses current thinking about a very important subject but also traces the historical and cultural roots. Further, it serves to remind military members that pressures to reduce spending, increase mission requirements, and expand demobilization will continue. The divergent and well-reasoned perspectives of the contributing authors make this book a must read for military members in both the active and reserve components.
David G. Bradford
Orlando, Florida
Military Leadership: In Pursuit of Excellence, Third Edition edited by Robert Taylor and William Rosenbach. Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, 1996, 235 pages, $59.00 hardback, $19.95 softcover.
Following in the best traditions of the first and second editions, the third edition of Military Leadership: In Pursuit of Excellence is a valuable contribution to the military leader’s toolbox. Both our officers and enlisted professionals should add this book to their personal library. The book is logically divided into five major sections. The first section, titled “Leadership in Perspective,” is designed to accomplish two major objectives. One is to “level the playing field” so that all readers will understand the context of the remaining sections. The second is to help the reader define leadership, a word and concept that all but defies any true definition. Armed with these two building blocks, the reader can use the remaining sections as the resources they were meant to be. The second section, “Lessons from History,” tries to prove to the reader that the problems and challenges we face day-to-day as leaders are not new. Leaders throughout history have struggled with the very same challenges and their solutions might be applicable today. Even if we cannot gain insight from historical solutions, those who thought critically about leadership and put those thoughts to paper prove to us that we may just be “reinventing the wheel.” The third section deals with a subject that is too often neglected in our learning about leadership: followership. Remember, it makes no difference what our position is in the Air Force—from the day-one basic trainee to the chief of staff—we are all followers; we all report to someone. To wrestle with issues of followership in a book devoted to military leadership is a breath of fresh air. Too often we overlook followership as an important trait in our subordinates and in ourselves. Yet, as the Air Force evolves into a leaner, more capable force, good followership will be essential to allow decision making at the lowest level and initiative to try new approaches to old problems, freeing up our bosses’ time for the activities they should be focused on. The fourth section deals with the “Climate, Culture and Values” of the leadership environment. The issues of how your people interact with each other and with those outside of your organization, how well the mission is understood and internalized, and how you set and enforce standards are all covered under the umbrella of climate, culture, and values. The nation trusts us with its most valuable treasure, its sons and daughters (and some very valuable monetary and equipment resources as well). How we develop an environment for effective mission accomplishment and the required personal growth of our future leaders may be the most important job military leaders have. The fifth section is entitled “The New Realities” and focuses on some of the current leadership dilemmas and how one might approach them. Issues such as women and gays in the military and exchanges between industry and the military for mutual growth and development are just two of the topics brought into the light for candid discussion. Should the military be used as a vehicle for social change? The answers to these questions and others are directed at military leaders of all levels.
This book provides a wealth of information for military leaders, but not as a single reference. Military Leadership: In Pursuit of Excellence makes a wonderful beginning to any warrior’s quest for knowledge about leadership, but it cannot and should not be the end to any leadership development program. There is no end.
Capt Chris Golden, USAF
Yakima Training Center, Washington
Future War: An Assessment of Aerospace Campaigns in 2010 by Col Jeffery R. Barnett. Air University Press, 170 West Selfridge Street, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 36112-6610, 1996, 169 pages.
Future War proposes that Pax Americana will be short-lived. In 10 to 20 years, niche competitors will threaten US interests. In 15 years, a peer competitor may emerge with power comparable to that of the United States.
Barnett postulates that warfare will focus on basic precepts that constitute a revolution in military affairs (RMA). Future wars will focus on information, both obtaining it and denying it to an adversary. Centralized command, control, coordination, computers, and intelligence (C4I) is the wave of the future. Signature reduction, mass, shock, and speed are vital to penetrate enemy defenses, which should then be attacked in parallel. Target discrimination and precision munitions will be fundamental in warfare.
The author provides a road map for military success—unfettered resources and boundless access to technologies. He also presents a recipe for total economic defeat by failing to grasp the social and political cost of fielding systems such as stealth bombers while also moving new programs into the force structure. No nation can afford such a dream without tremendous social dislocation and political upheaval. No nation could develop, manufacture, and integrate a full spectrum of novel systems in 20 years. Although Barnett is correct in saying the battle for space will be a feature of future wars, he is wrong to suggest that money, technology, or time is available to build space programs in 20 years.
Barnett postulates a “high-end” war against a similarly equipped adversary. The future does not hold such a threat. Many theorists suggest that future conflicts will be low intensity engagements, operations other than war, involving enemies other than traditional nation-states. “Goldplated” weapons are not the most efficient response to guerrillas or terrorists.
Future War paints a strategic vision, but it fails on other fronts. Barnett suggests that commanders separated from their staff and troops constitute an effective control technique. C4I is a useful command tool, but leaders must be involved directly and in person to assess the morale of their troops and feel the pulse of the battlefield. This is a time-tested and proven concept. Commanders must lead from the front, or they are doomed to a bunker mentality and failure. The author fails to consider an enemy’s ability to attack or respond, hoping that the overwhelming shock effect of a single attack would drive an enemy to surrender. Barnett presents an alternative future of some merit. The United States must pursue key technologies and weapons aggressively. He provides valuable thoughts on novel employment concepts and serves notice that information, C4I, penetration, and precision target identification and engagement are essential concepts in future conflicts. Further, he provides some operational areas worthy of examination, including space-based warfare, battlefield awareness, and leverage-of-decision loops. But he fails in his understanding of political-economic realities.
With no peer or even viable niche competitor on the horizon, the nation is unwilling to dedicate more money for defense. Without public support, Congress will not fund costly and risky undertakings such as the militarization of space. Barnett does not understand research, development, and acquisition processes. It takes time and money to move from basic research to production of sufficient numbers of a weapon system to make a significant difference in battle. It takes time to develop employment doctrine and train on new equipment. One need only review the future defense plan, service modernization programs, and the Department of Defense budget to realize that the bulk of the author’s vision is a pipe dream. The national will, the manufacturing base, and the funding levels of military research and development all work against the dawning of a new era of warfare in the next 20 years. His awe of technology overwhelms his knowledge of application of this technology. The mere fact that an emerging capability exists does not translate into a full-fledged ability to incorporate it into war.
In conclusion, Barnett seems to advocate that the United States prepare itself for the wrong war with unnecessary weaponry at the expense of tested principles of war and at an unacceptable cost to the people of the nation.
Raymond R. Lutz
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Future War: An Assessment of Aerospace Campaigns in 2010 by Col Jeffery R. Barnett. Air University Press, 170 West Selfridge Street, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 36112-6610, 1996, 169 pages.
This book offers a peek at the little-explored subject of conflict in the twenty-first century. What will conflict be like? What does it matter? In Future War, Barnett explores the answers to these questions as they apply to aerospace forces in a state-versus-state conflict. Already widely pub-lished in newspapers and military journals, he brings a wealth of academic and operational experience to this effort.
Aiming squarely at Air Force officers, he describes an ongoing revolution in military affairs (RMA)—one being underwritten by advances in technology but yet to spawn the doctrinal changes necessary to take advantage of them. He describes the technological advances and then proposes doctrinal changes that must occur if the United States—and the Air Force in particular—are to survive.
The author holds that to be successful in the future, the United States must prosecute “parallel war,” the simultaneous attack of enemy centers of gravity across all levels of war, at rates faster than the enemy can repair and adapt. Barnett borrows the term from Col John Warden, with whom he worked in the Checkmate planning cell during the Gulf War. Although he acknowledges that it is not a new theory, he argues that only recently has technology allowed execution.
Four developing areas will forever change the way wars are fought. Advances in information will permit rapid gathering, fusing, and analysis. Advances in command and control will permit near-real-time decision making over a broader scope. Advances in penetration, primarily due to stealth, will make even the most robustly defended targets vulnerable to attack. And advances in precision will permit large-scale attacks on both fixed and mobile targets.
Importantly, the United States will not be the only state using these advances. The author concludes that over the next 10–15 years, two classes of adversaries will take advantage of these technologies and rise to challenge US interests. “Peer competitors,” capable of militarily challenging the United States, would have as their goal capturing a vital interest of the United States and then defeating the US military response. “Niche competitors,” on the other hand, would be incapable of defeating the United States on a broad scale. Instead, their goal would be to make the cost of US involvement prohibitive. The author paints a picture of these adversaries owning thousands of stealthy cruise missiles (which peers could manufacture and niches could purchase). Against that backdrop of what the future will be like, the question “What does it matter?” suddenly becomes clear.
Barnett argues that doctrinal changes must occur to take advantage of this technological revolution, and he makes several proposals in the context of the four technological areas. He warns that these will be hard-fought changes since they will “challenge career paths, hard-won modernization programs, professional military education, and a host of other facets crucial to success in war.”
Because of the book’s focus on the future, it is necessarily light on research and heavy on deduction. Unfortunately, the author stumbles here. For example, technology advances will allow the joint force air component commander (JFACC) to operate from the continental United States (CONUS) but apparently will not be sufficient to allow the-ater-based access to CONUS databases or to enable operations while deploying. He argues for a multitheater JFACC with a consistent concept of operations but does not tackle the sticky problem of what happens when the JFACC is also combined force air component commander (CFACC). His arguments for a JFACC operating closer to planners and targeteers imply that such operations will occur at Headquarters Air Force, and they fly in the face of joint operations mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act. Further, his arguments for centralized execution of air-defense assets ignore the fact that this is the key vulnerability in an air-defense system, not to mention that it runs counter to Air Force doctrine. Still, these inconsistencies affect only the author’s specific recommendations; they do not undercut his basic thesis.
You should read this book. Its real value lies neither in the accuracy of its projections nor in the efficacy of its specific proposals, but in opening the door to serious future debate. Ultimately, USAF leaders must either make doctrinal and organizational changes or procrastinate and risk defeat from a competitor who does not make the same mistake.
Lt Col Kevin E. Curry, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
The First World War: A Complete History by Sir Martin Gilbert. Henry Holt and Company, 115 West 18th Street, New York 10011, 1996, 615 pages, $19.95.
At least a dozen one-volume histories of the First World War have been published since 1950. This book is a useful, if limited, addition to that collection. Gilbert, Winston Churchill’s official biographer and author of 20 other major histories (as well as a dozen historical atlases), attempts a more detailed look than other authors, while trying to convey the immense scope of the conflict. He draws from a rich variety of sources, weaving his narrative through every front and campaign, however obscure. Much of the book is given over to anecdotes of the famous, or those who later became so. Churchill is prominent here, as one would expect, but so are many of the war poets, authors, painters, musicians, philosophers, and others who gave us the war’s rich literary and artistic heritage.
The book also contains a great wealth of factual detail. Here readers can find (if they look very closely) the number of German U-boats in service and sunk during the war, the name and fate of each major surface combatant taking part in the first naval assault on the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915 (including the exact number of sailors drowned on each ship sunk), the names of each Irish guardsman killed at Loos on 27 September 1915, the exact number of horses and mules killed at Gallipoli, and on and on. Indeed, the wealth of detail is the book’s great weakness. Facts bombard the reader like an Allied rolling barrage, and to much the same effect: the ground is muddied, but the objective is not attained. The reader becomes bogged down in a mass of picayune details and loses sight of the grander scope of the war.
Part of the problem here is in the writing: other books have told the story better and have better conveyed that grander scope. Gilbert’s workaday prose suffers in comparison with the likes of Cyril Falls’s elegant The Great War (Putnam, 1959) or S. L. A. Marshall’s splendid World War I (American Heritage Press, 1964—a minor masterpiece of the military historian’s art and arguably the best single-volume history of the war). There is so much here that the book often reads like a travel diary or a clerk’s tally sheet. The narrative often devolves into a bland catalog of facts, with no attempt made to provide insight into why an event happened or why a leader made a given decision.
Note, for example, Gilbert’s description of the taking of Riga in 1917, an event that marked the Germans’ first use of experimental infiltration tactics on a large scale (a fact noted by almost all the other one-volume histories): “During the first week of September [1917] the Germans achieved two victories at the extremities of the Eastern Front. On September 3, after a massive bombardment with more than 100,000 gas shells, German troops drove the Russians from the Baltic port of Riga. On the Roumanian front, at Marasesti, the Germans advanced five miles on an eighteen-mile front, taking 18,000 prisoners.” And that’s it—another item in the catalog, a few statistics, and no insight. Too much of the book is this way.
Nevertheless, the book does have its strengths. The thread of lucid narrative emerges in the last two chapters, which concern the postwar environment and memorials of the war. Much of the outstanding poetry written during the war is excerpted here, as are substantial passages from wartime memoirs. Gilbert also attempts to trace the wartime evolution of certain ideas and ideologies through the lives of prominent advocates. Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, nascent Fascists, Zionists, German Spartacists, Irish nationalists, and pacifists are all here. Five sections of excellent photographs supplement the text. The book also boasts a good set of maps, but these are placed inconveniently, at the end of the narrative, and not close to the relevant text, as in Gilbert’s The Second World War: A Complete History.
In sum, there is nothing new here, and much of what is old is hard to find within the vast clutter of facts. This book is not the best choice for the general reader looking for a solid, easily read account of the war. It may, however, be a useful addition to the library of a professional military reader or historian seeking to supplement one of the better-rounded histories.
Maj J. P. Hunerwadel, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Frontline Airline: Troop Carrier Pilot in World War II by John R. Lester. Sunflower University Press, 1531 Yuma, Manhattan, Kansas 66502-4228, 1994.
Frontline Airline is an interesting and enjoyable account of an airlift pilot in the Pacific theater. The author, Lt Col John R. “Bob” Lester, USAFR, Retired, uses his personal experiences recounted after 50 years to create a well-written memoir about a crucial but often ignored piece of military history—airlift.
The book begins with Lester’s receipt of his “call to duty” in February 1943 and progresses through basic training, flight school, and finally action in the Far East. Lester recounts in often vivid detail milestones in his transition from civilian life to becoming a first lieutenant in command of C-46s and C-47s. Most of this book consists of copies of his orders, letters home to his parents and wife, and personal anecdotes. Lester skillfully organizes these with historical background.
The author’s odyssey continues with basic training in Atlantic City, New Jersey, long before casinos arrived. He establishes several basic themes in the book’s first chapter. The first is his fond recollection of an America that was “united in purpose, supportive of its military, and accepting with firm values.” The second theme concerns an America that was a sleeping giant, quickly awakening to its potential as it fought the battles of World War II. The third addresses the inevitable growing pains of a peacetime military suddenly expanding enormously to meet imminent threats. The fourth theme, repeated in thousands of other wartime books, is the journey of a young person through military training, courageous combat, and back to civilian life. Lester uses effective and colorful “war stories” to illustrate these four themes throughout his book.
His two months in basic training were marred by frequent hazing incidents, profane language by drill instructors, and midnight exercises of questionable value. One interesting memory featured Lester’s belief that the most dangerous aspect of basic training was exposure to disease; he was hospitalized for measles for two weeks, and several other cadets died of meningitis. Later in the Pacific, malaria would take its toll.
After basic, Lester completes preflight and primary flight training, experiences that proved to be very similar to modern-day undergraduate pilot training (UPT). Classroom study alternated with classes in physical fitness and actual flying in PT-23s, PT-9s, and AT-29s. Washing out and getting killed were always on every cadet’s mind, and the author recounts how the Army Air Corps lost almost as many in flight training as it did in actual combat. He also states how washing out was a “fate worse than death.”
Finally, after completing advanced flying training, Lester gets his silver wings, a commission as a lieutenant, and an assignment flying C-47s in Troop Carrier Command. The primary purpose of this command was to “put paratroopers and gliders into combat behind enemy lines.” As Lester finishes his final training in the C-47, he gets married. As a sign of the times, he makes a point of recounting how he had to get permission from his and his fiancée’s parents before the wedding. Another example of American values from that era involves the treatment that he and his crew received when they flew cross-country to gain flying time. Almost always, they were treated like royalty, with restaurants, businesses, and others going out of their way with hospitality. Often, this goodwill resulted in many evenings of heavy drinking and late evenings on the town.
Finally, he gets orders to deploy. From this point, the book gains momentum as Lester is finally thrust into action in the Pacific, and his cache of war stories begins to grow quickly. His first stop in a combat zone was on the island of Biak in northern New Guinea. On their first day, Lester and his crew attempt to rescue a downed Australian pilot. They use a PBY flying boat even though they know it is unsafe to fly, proceeding despite being hung over from drinking scotch. Unfortunately, the Japanese have killed or captured the downed pilot, and Lester and his crew barely make it back to Biak without killing themselves. This war story shows how attitudes towards safety and heavy drinking have changed dramatically in the Air Force over the decades, but it also shows how courage has not changed.
Although Lester and his crew saw little combat, they did not escape the horrors of war. They flew numerous aeromedical evacuation flights from Leyte to Manilla, witnessing B-29 and B-32 crews making emergency landings at their base after attacking Japan. Ironically, botulism either killed or made seriously ill the entire crew of one bomber, while another bomber barely landed with heavy battle damage and half the crew dead or seriously wounded.
Lester recounts both serious and humorous memories of his time in the Pacific, doing so with emotion and historical accuracy. He describes an open-air Easter mass in April 1945 that brought tears to the eyes of most of the men. According to Lester, this event reaffirmed the statement that “there are no atheists in foxholes.” These poignant and often moving stories are balanced by many humorous ones, such as his being the first American seen by the citizens of a Japanese village during the postwar occupation. He walks into an elementary school, and the children are petrified of him because of all the wartime propaganda that depicted Americans as evil. Lester simply tells the kids they have the day off—which breaks the ice and tension in both the school and the entire town.
Lester’s accounts of postwar Japan bring the book to a close but not before he gives his opinions on the morality of war and the impact of the war on him. He strongly supported the atomic bombings as a way to lessen casualties in the long run, and he clearly has no regret about the devastation the war brought to Japan. Indeed, estimates predicted that an invasion of Japan would have resulted in the destruction of at least 30 percent of Air Corps transports.
Frontline Airline is a well-written, concise memoir of an airlifter who served his country with distinction and pride. John Lester accomplishes what he set out to do: provide the reader with an accurate account of his service as a C-46 and C-47 pilot. By weaving together numerous war stories, both humorous and deadly serious, he creates an interesting read that is a true contribution to the very small number of books on airlift. For people interested in air mobility, I highly recommend Frontline Airline. In fact, I even recommend it to the fighter pilots who read books.
Maj Phil Bossert, USAF
Scott AFB, Illinois
Dominant Battlespace Knowledge: The Winning Edge edited by Stuart E. Johnson and Martin C. Libicki. National Defense University Press, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C. 20319-6000, 1995, 149 pages.
The authors of this monograph examine what has been billed as the third revolution in military affairs—namely, information warfare. However, even that term does not adequately describe what battlefield dominance encompasses. The ability of sensors to work with precision weapons to strike at a wide range of targets before the enemy can react is the essential goal of battlefield dominance. However, achieving this revolution in military affairs requires significant developments in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; command, control, communications, computer applications, and intelligence; and precision force. Merging our increasing capacity to continuously gather real-time, all-weather information with our ability to process and make sense of this voluminous data builds the realm of dominant battlespace knowledge.
Utilizing contingency scenarios (Southwest Asia and Korea), one chapter points out that this new capability permits the shifting of war-fighting assets from strategic to more immediately effective tactical targeting; flattening hierarchies; and changing the planner’s role from strategic allocator to resource assembler. Operating inside the enemy’s decision-making loop is the key to dominant battlespace knowledge.
Examining the concept of dominant battlespace knowledge from all aspects, the authors explore the changes the United States might have to undergo and the degree to which the enemy can adapt or attempt to subvert this new strategy. Although no foe is capable of doing so at present, the authors argue that the United States must push forward in this revolution and bring about the technological and strategic innovation necessary to ensure that it remain a world leader. The book is thus also an argument that the military continue to receive the investments necessary to achieve these goals. As the revolution continues, formal changes in the structure and training of the US military will have to occur. It is here that institutional resistance causes military revolutions to pass to other countries, since some cannot realign themselves to take advantage of certain changes.
Dominant Battlespace Knowledge is a must for any strategist and information warrior. It illustrates that there is more to information warfare than computers and that structural changes to allow the United States to exploit these changes and revolutions in military affairs are very far reaching. New acronyms and concepts that require some background knowledge make the book slow reading. The importance of dominant battlespace knowledge, however, requires military officers to grasp and implement this concept.
Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF
Melbourne, Florida
Troubled Partnership: A History of U.S.-Japanese Collaboration on the FS-X Fighter by Mark Lorell. Transaction Publishers, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903, 1996, 469 pages, $24.95.
The last decade has seen the growth of cooperative weapons-development ventures between nations as a means of sharing the cost of expensive weapons development. The FS-X, a program between Japan and the United States, grew out of Japan’s desire to develop a “modern Zero of the Post-war era” and the US attempt to kill or control the program. Mark Lorell’s Troubled Partnership takes a detailed look at the FS-X program, focusing on technology transfer and the long-term implications of cooperative development programs for the American aerospace industry and US security policy. The book is the result of a RAND research project from the early 1990s and is intended to guide “US government officials in formulating better policies and strategies for effective military technology collaboration with Japan and other allies.” As such, this book is not intended for casual reading.
Japanese industry and the defense establishment wanted to develop an indigenous fighter to reduce their reliance on other countries for the design of military weapon systems. They obtained some experience through licensed assembly of various US aircraft, including the F-15, and through building the Mitsubishi F-1. The FS-X was the next step forward. Eventually, the program came to the attention of the United States. US industry perceived a shrinking market for military aircraft and feared increased competition from Japan and Israel (the Lavi aircraft). Additionally, the US government was concerned about the widespread proliferation of sophisticated weapon systems. The United States wanted to persuade the Japanese to purchase or license-produce an F-16 or F-18 variant, arguing that it would save money. Advocates in Japan resisted since they wanted to gain experience and know-how by building their own fighter. Due to US pressure applied to Japan’s political leadership, the Japanese agreed to joint development.
Lorell points out that the United States lacked a coordinated “game plan,” while the Japanese knew exactly what they wanted. Both sides made mistakes. The United States underestimated Japanese technological development, while the Japanese underestimated the difficulty of systems integration and the associated costs of development. The US Congress became concerned about the program when it was portrayed as a threat that could destroy the US advantage in commercial aviation. The author correctly points out that Japanese industry gained more from building components for the Boeing 777 than from the FS-X.
Eventually, the F-16 was adopted as a baseline for the design, with Japan doing most of the development in composites, avionics, and flight-control systems. According to Troubled Partnership, Japanese industry redesigned nearly 95 percent of the standard F-16. Japan met most of its original goals for developing an indigenous fighter without the high cost. The United States gained insight into Japanese technology and industrial processes, including the process for producing a cocured composite wing. Several of these processes were later used by Lockheed Martin on the F-22.
Mark Lorell does an admirable job of using primary source material, interviews, and periodicals to accurately portray events and their relevance. The book contains a good overview, and each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of the program. Lorell leads the reader through the maze of commissions and agreements that defined the program. The final chapter is an excellent summation of the lessons learned. Unfortunately, Troubled Partnership concludes prematurely. Did the final product justify the pain and agony that all sides went through? If Lorell had continued the story, the reader would have discovered that the first prototype flew on 26 March 1996 with test pilot Maj Teruyoshi Miwa at the controls. The fourth prototype, which had the cocured composite wing box built by Lockheed Martin, first flew on 24 May 1996. The Japanese cabinet approved the purchase of 130 aircraft and designated the production aircraft the F-2 support fighter. Troubled Partnership should be on the reading list for every policy maker and action officer.
Maj Raymond L. Laffoon Jr., USAF
Dyess AFB, Texas
The New Tug-of-War: Congress, the Executive Branch and National Security by Jeremy D. Rosner. The Brookings Institution, Department 029, Washington, D.C. 20042, 1995, 118 pages, $10.95.
Collective Insecurity—U.S. Defense Policy and the New World Disorder by Stephen J. Cimbala. Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881, 1995, 240 pages, $59.95.
Nuclear Proliferation: Diminishing Threat? by William H. Kincade. Institute for National Security Studies, US Air Force Academy, 2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 5D33, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80840, 1995, 56 pages, free.
Strategic Views from the Second Tier—The Nuclear Weapons Policies of France, Britain, and China edited by John C. Hopkins and Weixing Hu. Transaction Publishers, Rutgers—The State University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903, 1995, 279 pages, $21.95.
The United States, Japan and the Future of Nuclear Weapons edited by Rosemarie Philips. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2400 N Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20037, 1995, 179 pages, $12.95.
The cold war justified the possession and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. Over the decades, concern about these weapons grew to the point that some nuclear-weapon nations created the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and most of them agreed to its provisions. However, after signing the NPT, these same nations quadrupled their inventories. Now that the cold war is over and one-time adversaries are “partners for peace,” many parties feel that the five nuclear powers no longer need their very large nuclear arsenals. However, these nations argue that (1) they have to keep them because others have them, (2) they need them to defend against strategic uncertainties, (3) they cannot be sure that Russian democratization and marketplace reform will work, and (4) they need to ensure that rogue states like Iraq and North Korea do not develop nuclear weapons and pose a threat to international peace and security. The five books reviewed here counter these arguments with answers, solutions, and information that increase immeasurably the small number of facts regarding the role of nuclear weapons within national security dimensions.
In The New Tug-of-War, Jeremy Rosner, special assistant to President Clinton from 1993 to 1994, makes a detailed analysis of post-cold-war changes on national security policy between the National Security Council (White House) and Capitol Hill. Because the Hill believes that nuclear warfare is no longer inevitable, it is paring budgets, shifting security spending, and decreasing deficit pressures accordingly. Rosner contends that Congress is intent on dominating the budget and is not likely to relinquish control again. Therefore, the more savvy members of the executive branch (especially the Department of Defense [DOD]) should pay close attention to upcoming budget battles because they are likely to be contentious and could lead to a feeling of insecurity in a nation obsessed with global security.
Collective Insecurity is one of Prof. Stephen Cimbala’s better works. He offers an excellent analysis of where US nuclear warfare strategy has been, up to the demise of the Soviet Union, and then describes in superb detail the major problems of nuclear disarmament in a time when nations professing to abhor nuclear weapons are proliferating them. Chapter 7 offers an excellent synopsis of the book, with its description of nuclear realism, a concept that helped to stabilize a bipolar world but now—for all the same reasons—threatens to destabilize the post-cold-war international environment of multipolarism.
Cimbala also addresses what the military’s coercive capability has become and will continue to become with the elimination of nuclear weaponry. “Military persuasion” is the use of armed forces for purposes other than destruction, and these armed forces use either “coercive” or “basically noncoercive” actions to carry out their missions. Coercive actions include blockades, ultimatums, maneuvers accompanied by threat, and faits accomplis, while noncoercive actions run the gamut from civic actions to military diplomacy (confidence-building measures). Regardless, nuclear warfare is a thing of the past. Future warfare, according to Cimbala, is “likely to be marked by a mixture of high technology equipment and low technology strategy.”
William Kincade, associate professor at American University in Washington, D.C., discusses in Nuclear Proliferation: Diminishing Threat? how the pace of nuclear-weapons testing and deployment has slowed in recent decades while nuclear knowledge has increased. This knowledge illustrates a point neglected in much nonproliferation literature: the crucial demarcation line in the current phase of the nuclear era lies between nuclear-weapons initiatives and viable, deployable nuclear forces. Kincade calls for a new mind-set in the examination of nonproliferation opportunities and techniques for ending nuclear weaponry, but he urges a very different perspective.
The Clinton administration has already adopted this attitude by discarding the Bush administration’s threat-based approach in dealing with former Soviet republics that possess nuclear weapons. Clinton used a conciliatory policy with the Ukraine that proved successful in eliminating that country’s nuclear weapons. The administration’s approach to North Korea’s drive to build a nuclear weapon, emphasizing rewards rather than punishment, has met with mixed results so far. Only toward Iraq has the administration kept up the pressure, using the stick every time Saddam gives only partial or temporary compliance. According to Kincade, any way of handling nonproliferation by an administration will cause problems until we can improve the outdated mind-set of the cold war.
Strategic Views from the Second Tier, edited by Dr. John Hopkins and Dr. Weixing Hu, is a collection of papers presented in June 1993 during a research conference that explored the new strategic environment that “second tier” nations (France, Britain, and China) now find themselves in following the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their roles as independent deterrents in international politics have either been neglected or taken for granted. For example, France, Britain, and China account for less than 10 percent of the nuclear strength of the United States and probably 7 percent of that of the former Soviet Union. However, as the former Soviet Union and America draw down their nuclear stockpiles, this percentage gap will narrow considerably—to about 50 percent by the year 2000. This ratio, according to the authors, will influence future nuclear strategies and arms control. These three countries will have to be considered in all future negotiations if global nuclear disarmament is to become a reality.
Strategic Views from the Second Tier is a very important book, not only for examining nuclear-weapons policies of second-tier nations but also for understanding their rationale, deterrent strategy, and arms control policies. Because there is very little literature on these subjects, this work makes a significant contribution.
The Future of Nuclear Weapons presents the June 1993 conference report of the US-Japan Study Group on Arms Control and Nonproliferation after the Cold War. The purpose of the meeting was to deepen the understanding between the United States and Japan on sensitive arms control and nonproliferation issues since many people feel that Japan will go nuclear to protect itself as the US withdraws its presence from Japan, Korea, and Okinawa. Both sides wanted to head off potential conflicts by identifying opportunities for constructive partnership in promoting progress toward a nuclear-free world.
The group addressed seven key issues, the first of which entailed the desirability of eliminating nuclear weapons. The group concluded that such a proposal “is a plan for making the world safe for conventional warfare.” A nuclear-disarmed world would be inherently unstable because, at the first sign that one state might be in noncompliance, the others would follow suit, lest they acquire or reacquire nuclear weapons too late.
The second key issue dealt with the future of the NPT. Since neither nation could agree, the study group urged that the nuclear powers give nonnuclear countries some consideration by concluding a comprehensive test ban treaty and further reducing nuclear weapons. Issues three through six addressed overcoming obstacles to a comprehensive test ban, dismantling and disposing of nuclear weapons, cutting off exports of weapons-grade fissile material, and understanding the role of civilian plutonium production in the context of global and regional energy needs and nonproliferation concerns.
The seventh issue dealt with arms control and the reduction of tension in East Asia. Japan is eager to use the regional forums of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to discuss issues of tension reduction. The United States has always been cool to the idea of regional security dialogues, viewing them as a potential threat to the role of US security in the region. However, that attitude is changing, and some progress is being made to expand the dialogue and reduce the nuclear-acquisition needs of nations in the region.
These five books make an important contribution to the issues of nonproliferation and the reduction and final elimination of nuclear weapons. Each postulates a world in which nuclear warfare is not an option. Whether this assumption will make operations other than war (OOTW) the wars of the future or will make conventional wars like Desert Storm the norm, no one knows. However, all the books stress that the day of deterrence is quickly coming to an end. Some of the books entertain the possibility of a new wave of nuclear-weapons acquisition by countries who would challenge American military power. A retired Indian army chief of staff who was discussing lessons of the Gulf War allegedly said, “Do not fight the Americans without nuclear weapons.” Such statements do not augur well for the future of warfare. Policy planners should take note of these books and use their well-thought-out ideas to help determine whether the threat of nuclear warfare can really be put to rest or whether it will continue to be the sword we cannot sheath.
Lt Col D. G. Bradford, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur by Geoffrey Perret. Random House, 201 East Fiftieth Street, New York 10022, 1996, 663 pages, $32.50.
After reading and enjoying Geoffrey Perret’s previous works—There’s a War to Be Won and A Country Made by War—I approached this book with great anticipation but wondered how he would make the switch from narrative history to biography. I had one more reason to read this book. Perret’s last book, Winged Victory, was a one-volume history of the Army Air Forces in World War II, and I was curious to see if the author would incorporate airpower into his new work. I was not disappointed. Some readers will consider Old Soldiers a standard biography of a great general. If they look carefully, however, they will find a discussion of airpower hidden within these pages. Airmen should read this book because Perret shows an unknown side of the icon-warrior of the Pacific. General MacArthur was as pro-air as one could get—something MacArthur’s other biographers allude to but not as strongly. Perret describes the general’s doubts as to the efficacy of airpower, his education at the hands of Gen George C. Kenney, and his final conversion to the true faith during World War II.
Perret describes the key role airpower played in MacArthur’s Pacific strategy. Once Kenney proved the effectiveness of airpower in New Guinea, MacArthur structured his ground campaigns around it. Until the invasion of Leyte in October 1944, Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific advanced no further than the range of Fifth Air Force fighters. MacArthur paid heavily for that leap. When Navy carrier air departed, leaving the ground troops vulnerable, the general vowed never to carry out another operation without land-based airpower.
It is not necessarily the fact that Perret relates MacArthur’s love of airpower—all of MacArthur’s biographers have stressed the importance the general placed on airpower and the close relationship he had with Kenney—but the way he tells it. For instance, note the way D. Clayton James, in volume two of The Years of MacArthur, relates the story of what happened when land-based airpower finally arrived in Leyte on 27 October:
Monsoon rains and frequent Japanese air attacks during the week following the capture of Tacloban airfield made it difficult for the engineers to lay the 2500 feet of steel matting for a runway for the waiting Fifth Air Force fighters on Morotai. . . . When the first two squadrons of P-38s landed at the field on October 27, MacArthur and Kenney were waiting to greet the pilots as they stepped down from their fighters. (P. 568)
James’s recounting of the episode does emphasize MacArthur’s interest in his airmen. But compare James’s passage to Perret’s:
Two days later MacArthur was having lunch when he heard a familiar sound, the engines of P-38s being throttled back. Kenney had ordered half the 49th Fighter Group to fly up from Morotai. . . . MacArthur called for his car and headed for the airfield to greet the thirty-four fighter pilots. He shook hands with the first three as they descended from their planes onto the half-finished strip. One of them was the AAF’s top scoring ace, Major Richard Bong, with twenty-eight victories to his credit. “You know how glad I am to see you,” he told them, beaming. He turned to the journalists who were clustering around. “The Fifth Air Force has never failed me.” (P. 429)
These are slight, but significantly different, ways of telling the same story.
Perret weaves airpower vignettes throughout Old Soldiers. Some of these are subtle. For instance, when MacArthur attended a strategy conference in Hawaii in 1944, he arrived, Perret points out, wearing his A-2 flying jacket (p. 403). That A-2 is captured for posterity. A statue of MacArthur with his A-2 draped across his arm overlooks the Plain at West Point. At other times, Perret is more direct. Once, after reading a biography of Robert E. Lee, MacArthur told Kenney, “Lee’s . . . last words were ‘Bring up A. P. Hill’s light infantry.’ If I should die today, tomorrow, next year, anytime, my last words will be, ‘George, bring up the Fifth Air Force.’ ”
Besides explaining how MacArthur wove airpower into his campaigns, Perret explains that in late 1942 and early 1943, MacArthur, thrown out of the Philippines and fighting two wars (one against Washington for resources and one against Tokyo), relied on airpower to carry the war to the enemy. While Australia and the United States were busily raising and preparing troops for battle, Kenney’s air forces performed all sorts of missions, from airlift to close air support. More importantly, however, this is a biography of a good joint commander. Although intimately involved with strategy, MacArthur left the execution of the war to his ground, naval, and air commanders.
Old Soldiers Never Die is the best one-volume biography of one of this nation’s greatest generals and would be a welcome addition to anyone’s bookshelf. From a “jointness” perspective, Perret provides many lessons on how to fight wars correctly. Airmen will appreciate the emphasis MacArthur placed on airpower.
Capt Jim Gates, USAF
Washington, D.C.
World Military Leaders: A Collective and Comparative Analysis by Mostafa Rejai and Kay Phillips. Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881, 1996, 185 pages, $55.00.
This book is a study of military leaders—not of leadership. The authors attempt to answer two interrelated questions about military leaders: Who are they? and What impels them into leadership positions? Rejai and Phillips theorize that psychological predisposition, although important, is insufficient. An appropriate situation—including such factors as war, unrest, and family military or leadership tradition—is necessary to propel leaders to the fore.
To test their theory, the authors use collective biography, a methodology used in but a few previous studies and those limited by region or time. World Military Leaders examines leaders from four continents and four centuries.
The sample is admittedly selective, and lack of data forces the omission of such leaders as Charles Cornwallis, Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, and Lavr Georgievich Kornilov. Adequate biographical information exists for the selected 45 leaders from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. The men come from developed, semideveloped, and undeveloped countries. Approximately two-thirds of the sample is from the United States or Great Britain.
Having selected the 45 subjects, the authors examine more than two hundred biographical sources for 58 socioeconomic, situational, and psychological variables. Presumably, men of similar psychological and socioeconomic circumstances will, in environments with similar opportunities, rise to similar positions. The authors expect their analysis to reveal leaders who are middle-aged (forties and fifties) on attaining highest rank, urban reared or exposed, of mainstream ethnicity and religion, and members of the middle or upper class. They should come from stable and tranquil backgrounds with many siblings (and should be either the eldest or youngest). Also, they are highly educated, apolitical, and cosmopolitan, and their fathers have prestigious occupations. Other elements are strong egos, relatively strong deprivation of love or emotional support, economic need, and a tradition of military service. Most critical is an element of opportunity, such as rising nationalism or military crisis.
Biographical sketches comprise the bulk of the study. Ranging from less than a page to nearly four, short biographies provide opportunity for autho-rial bias in the selection of facts. Here, one must assume the innate integrity of Rejai and Phillips.
Having set theory against evidence, the authors conclude that a military leader should be a native-born male, of a military family, born in a military town or garrison, deprived of relatives or love, vain and egotistical, and nationalist or imperialist. As expected, most leaders lack one or more of the qualifications. Happy childhoods, wealthy parents, no military tradition, and overwhelming modesty are present among the leaders. What the study reveals is that the probability of becoming a leader is greater with the right combination—not that it is inevitable or exclusive.
World Military Leaders is the authors’ fifth collective biography. By now the methodology is pat—as it should be. The book is clear and compelling, definitely worth examination, but not sufficiently startling to justify a prominent place on a nonspecialist’s bookshelf.
Dr. John H. Barnhill
Tinker AFB, Oklahoma
Cessna Warbirds: A Detailed and Personal History of Cessna’s Involvement in the Armed Forces by Walt Shiel. Jones Publishing, Inc., Iola, Wisconsin 54945, 1995, 328 pages, $29.95.
Cessna Warbirds is a true military aviation enthusiast’s delight—an in-depth look at a heretofore neglected topic. In this one volume, the reader not only gets thorough coverage of Cessna aircraft used by militaries throughout the world, but also an examination of the Cessna Corporation. The author, former Air Force pilot Walt Shiel, has been in the military or associated with the military aviation industry for over 25 years. Eighteen hundred of his four thousand flying hours have been in military Cessnas. During his spare time, he has done freelance aviation writing for various magazines, which helped provide the genesis for Cessna Warbirds—likely to be the reference on military Cessnas for years to come.
The book opens with a short but comprehensive chapter about the origins of the Cessna Aircraft Corporation and the company’s bid to stay solvent in the 1930s by competing for both civil and military contracts. It is interesting to discover that Cessna—now a predominantly light-aircraft manufacturer—did make forays into the commercial airliner market, did (and still does) subcontractor work for many commercial aircraft manufacturers, and has commercial-to-military sales ratios similar to those of aviation giant Boeing. After this interesting opening chapter and another short chapter on aircraft nomenclature and numbering, Shiel provides 15 more chapters that examine Cessna aircraft used by the world’s military services. These chapters include full coverage of the T-50 Bobcat, Bird Dog, T-37 Tweet, LC-126, U-3, U-17, DC-6 Series, O-2 Skymaster, A-37 Dragonfly, T-41, YH-41 Seneca, T-47A, and the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS)/CitationJet.
Two other chapters describe early (pre–World War II) Cessna designs and forward air controller tactics. Each chapter is highly readable and can stand alone, enabling the casual reader to proceed at a leisurely pace without detailed review. Shiel provides aircraft specifications for each type of Cessna, as well as personal anecdotes from pilots who flew them. He also documents use of the various aircraft by the US Army, Air Force, Navy, and other world air forces, along with developmental issues. In short, the author provides a fairly comprehensive account of each Cessna military design.
While Cessna Warbirds is well written and will quite likely become the standard reference on military Cessna designs, the book’s softcover binding does not appear to be very robust. Perhaps a future edition will come out in hardcover. These concerns aside, I recommend Cessna Warbirds without reservation to anyone interested in Cessna aircraft in military service. It should appeal to military pilots, historians, and model builders.
Lt Col David Howard, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Wild Bill and Intrepid: Donovan, Stephenson, and the Origin of CIA by Thomas F. Troy. Yale University Press, P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-9040, 1996, 259 pages, $30.00.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officially began with the National Security Act of 1947. The story behind the development of a national intelligence organization began a decade before, as related in Thomas F. Troy’s Wild Bill and Intrepid. In this outstanding, thoroughly researched account of the origins of an intelligence organization, Troy analyzes the beginnings of the Office of Coordinator of Information (COI) and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Troy interviewed such key players as William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan and William S. Stephenson—the legendary “Intrepid.” Stephenson’s role in establishing an American intelligence organization comes under much scrutiny, especially his ties with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), starting in 1939. At that time, Britain was fighting the Germans in World War II while simultaneously entertaining the idea of gradually bringing in the United States, a neutral party. How did the United States come up with the idea of starting a central intelligence organization with proposed British involvement?
Before answering that question, let’s examine the Interdepartmental Intelligence Conference (IIC), created to provide a semi-informative gathering of the agencies and organizations responsible in some way for America’s intelligence information. Chaired by J. Edgar Hoover, the conference included the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Army’s Military Intelligence Division (G-2), the Office of Naval Investigation (ONI), and the State Department. The IIC got word that the British Purchasing Commission wanted to set up an intelligence service in the United States. Stephenson enters the picture in 1940 with his selection to the position of British passport control officer in New York City. Troy implies that this position carried the underlying job title of British intelligence and security systems chief in the Western Hemisphere. Another of Stephenson’s jobs was nurturing the relationship between the FBI and SIS, the particulars of which came to light much later and are still questionable.
Citing the need for an office to coordinate the American intelligence effort, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the COI on 11 July 1941. At the helm was Major General Donovan, America’s intelligence idealist and possibly a “good friend” of Stephenson. In 1942 the COI was restructured into the OSS. On 1 October 1945, the OSS was abolished, leaving only a few organizations of the American intelligence establishment to become the foundation for the CIA in 1947.
Troy, a retired CIA analyst and staff officer, examines the relationship between Donovan and Stephenson during the creation of the American intelligence effort, as well as many other controversies surrounding that main issue. In later chapters, Troy touches on reports of a British offer to run the FBI and accusations that Donovan was a British spy.
Wild Bill and Intrepid is truly an intelligence treasure. Rich in information about World War II, declassified documents, and charismatic personalities, this book is recommended reading for World War II buffs and intelligence aficionados alike. It should be studied as a classic in the history of the beginnings of American national security.
1st Lt Barry H. Crane, USAF
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
Killing Ground on Okinawa: The Battle for Sugar Loaf Hill by James H. Hallas. Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881, 272 pages, $24.95.
In spite of being the bloodiest land battle of the Pacific war, Okinawa has often been overlooked in history. Other momentous events in 1945 such as the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the surrender of Germany, the employment of the A-bomb, and the end of World War II have overshadowed this campaign.
James Hallas sheds some light on a portion of the Okinawa campaign by recounting the actions of the 6th Marine Division as it fought to capture Sugar Loaf Hill. As hills go, Sugar Loaf is somewhat nondescript, being only 50 feet high and approximately three hundred yards long. As the title suggests, Sugar Loaf did indeed become a killing ground, as the 6th Marine Division suffered over two thousand casualties in seven days of fighting. The story is told for the most part from the perspective of the survivors, pieced together from interviews and written memoirs of marines who fought there.
Hallas—the author of Squandered Victory: The American First Army at St. Mihiel (Praeger,1995) and The Devil’s Anvil: The Assault on Peleliu (Praeger, 1994)—begins by setting the stage for the battle of Okinawa. He reviews command structure and strategies for both Japanese and Allied forces. As the Allies drew closer to Japan, Okinawa became increasingly important. Its location made it the ideal staging base for attacks on the Japanese homeland. After the amphibious landing on Okinawa, US forces rapidly captured the northern and central portions of the island. The toughest fighting was yet to come as US forces approached the southern end of the island, where the Japanese chose to mount their defense.
Sugar Loaf’s significance lay in its strategic position at the western end of the Japanese defensive line on Okinawa. Any breakthrough would expose the Japanese flank to attack. Sugar Loaf was only one, but perhaps the most critical, of a series of hills that made up the southwestern flank of the Japanese defensive line. The Japanese designed the defensive fires so that capturing only one hill would prove meaningless, since it would draw effective fire from surrounding hills. Consequently, all hills had to be captured almost simultaneously. Japanese artillery fire was deadly accurate and accounted for most of the casualties. The Japanese had used this area as an artillery training ground and knew the terrain extremely well. Further, they were well aware of the strategic importance of Sugar Loaf and defended it tenaciously.
Most of the book details the 11 attempts from 12 to 18 May 1945 to capture Sugar Loaf. Written from the individual marine’s perspective, Killing Ground on Okinawa is a no-holds-barred, face-in-the-mud description of desperate foxhole-to-foxhole fighting. Heroic actions were commonplace, and casualties were extremely high. Hallas has done an excellent job of piecing the action together from individual accounts, a feat that was probably even more difficult because many of the officers and NCOs did not survive to contribute to after-action accounts.
My only criticism concerns two areas that were not well covered—specifically, the enemy leadership’s perspective of the battle and the impact of Marine and Navy airpower. My guess is that the enemy information is simply not available since so few Japanese survived the battle, but information about airpower’s impact would make for a more well-rounded analysis.
Despite the neglect of airpower’s role, the book appears to be well researched. Hallas lists 96 individuals who provided interviews, written memoirs, or other material. The book includes numerous unpublished works and official special-action reports, as well as published books and periodicals. The author makes good use of maps and charts to clarify the fighting and provides 17 pages of black-and-white photographs.
I recommend Killing Ground on Okinawa to people interested in the war in the Pacific. I believe that Hallas has done a great service by shedding some light on this battle and the brave marines who fought it.
Lt Col Chris Anderson, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Monty: The Battles of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, first condensed edition, by Nigel Hamilton. Random House, 201 East 50th Street, New York 10022, 1994, 653 pages, $30.00.
Monty: The Lonely Leader, 1944–1945 by Alistair Horne with David Montgomery. HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53d Street, New York 10022, 1994, 381 pages, $25.00.
Nigel Hamilton and Alistair Horne have placed two more entries in the burgeoning library of World War II historiography as we celebrate the Air Force’s 50th anniversary. Both authors took as their subject a man who perhaps was the Allies’ most controversial general officer. Hamilton’s entry is the condensed version of his official three-volume biography of Bernard Montgomery. The other, written by historian Alistair Horne with the assistance of Monty’s son David, is an entirely new work.
The condensed version of the official biography is based on personal diaries, notes, letters, interviews, and official messages. In addition, Hamilton had access to all of Montgomery’s personal papers, which the field marshal sold to Hamilton’s father after the war. This account reveals a vengeful, brilliant, but boastful man who, it seems, could rarely—if ever—get along with his superiors. Nevertheless, his troops adored him. In his preface to this edition, Hamilton captures the essence of Montgomery:
His legacy to the Allied armies endures today: training, rehearsal, and professionalism in the handling of men and women in a democratic cause—guided by the demand for simplicity, clear aims, frontline leadership and care among commanders to preserve human life as far as possible. Often on the border of madness in his determination to see the right military decision prevail, he was venerated by his troops but often maligned by his allies. . . . Arrogant, vain, boastful, boorish, and bigoted, he wanted to win, in his subsequent celebrity, all the battles he had lost as a child. Lacking magnanimity, he went to his grave embattled, lonely and haunted.
Montgomery was all of these things and more.
Hamilton presents a brief overview of Monty’s early and later years in this version but quite properly spends nearly the entire book examining the field marshal’s conduct during World War II. Perhaps the book’s only failing—as is the case with many condensed books—is that at times the story seems somewhat jerky and disconnected due to the brevity of some of the episodes. However, the author did not intend to write a second edition of his masterful three-volume biography; instead, he sought to bring the full story of this interesting character once again into the public eye.
Horne’s chronicle of Montgomery concentrates upon perhaps the most important year in the field marshal’s life—1944–45—the last year of the war, from the invasion of Normandy to the surrender of the Third Reich in May. Written as a supplement to earlier works, the book carefully analyzes Monty’s strategy and tactics. Perhaps this portrait puts the field marshal’s unflattering reputation among Americans into a better perspective. It concentrates upon what is perhaps the climactic battle of the western front—the campaign in Normandy. Even the failure to capture Antwerp and the blunder of “A Bridge Too Far” almost become postscripts. Montgomery dominated the Normandy Campaign; as Bedell Smith (Eisenhower’s chief of staff and one of Monty’s fiercest critics) said, “I don’t know if we could have done it without Monty.”
Although I was skeptical about the quality of a condensed version of a three-volume study, Hamilton confined the vast majority of this edition to the World War II years of Montgomery’s life, producing a credible, readable version of his monumental biography. In contrast, I expected a good historical study from Horne, the master British historian, and he didn’t disappoint me. His Monty, like Hamilton’s, is an excellent study of the field marshal. Although I recommend them both, if you want a close, critical analysis of the “crusade in Europe,” turn first to Horne.
Maj M. J. Petersen, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
[ Back Issues | Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor ]