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"Civil-military relations -- United States -- History -- 20th century"
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The Pentagon's wars : the military's undeclared war against America's presidents
\"A gripping insider account of the clash between America's civilian and military leadership The Pentagon's Wars is a dramatic account of the deep and divisive debates between America's civilian leaders and its military officers. Renowned military expert Mark Perry investigates these internal wars and sheds new light on the US military-the most powerful and influential lobby in Washington. He reveals explosive stories, from the secret history of Clinton's \"don't ask, don't tell\" policy to how the military plotted to undermine Barack Obama's strategy in Afghanistan, to show how internal strife and deep civilian-military animus shapes America's policy abroad, often to the nation's detriment. Drawing on three decades of high-profile interviews, both on and off the record, Perry yields sobering judgments on the tenures of our nation's most important military leaders. The Pentagon's Wars is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the inner workings of the making of America's foreign policy\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Unwarranted Influence
In Dwight D. Eisenhower's last speech as president, on January 17, 1961, he warned America about the \"military-industrial complex,\" a mutual dependency between the nation's industrial base and its military structure that had developed during World War II. After the conflict ended, the nation did not abandon its wartime economy but rather the opposite. Military spending has steadily increased, giving rise to one of the key ideas that continues to shape our country's political landscape.
In this book, published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Eisenhower's farewell address, journalist James Ledbetter shows how the government, military contractors, and the nation's overall economy have become inseparable. Some of the effects are beneficial, such as cell phones, GPS systems, the Internet, and the Hubble Space Telescope, all of which emerged from technologies first developed for the military. But the military-industrial complex has also provoked agonizing questions. Does our massive military establishment-bigger than those of the next ten largest combined-really make us safer? How much of our perception of security threats is driven by the profit-making motives of military contractors? To what extent is our foreign policy influenced by contractors' financial interests?
Ledbetter uncovers the surprising origins and the even more surprising afterlife of the military-industrial complex, an idea that arose as early as the 1930s, and shows how it gained traction during World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam era and continues even today.
eBook
The Pentagon's battle for the American mind : the early Cold War
The U.S. military has historically believed itself to be the institution best suited to develop the character, spiritual values, and patriotism of American youth. InStrategy for Survival,Lori Bogle investigates how the armed forces assigned itself the role of guardian and interpreter of national values and why it sought to create \"ideologically sound Americans capable of defeating communism and assuring the victory of democracy at home and abroad.\" Bogle shows that a tendency by some in the armed forces to diffuse their view of America's civil religion among the general population predated tension with the Soviet Union. Bogle traces this trend from the Progressive Era though the early Cold War, when the Truman and Eisenhower administrations took seriously the battle of ideologies of that era and formulated plans that promised not only to meet the armed forces' manpower needs but also to prepare the American public morally and spiritually for confrontation with the evils of communism. Both Truman's plan for Universal Military Training and Eisenhower's psychological warfare programs promoted an evangelical democracy and sought to inculcate a secular civil-military religion in the general public. During the early 1960s, joint military-civilian anticommunist conferences, organized by the authority of the Department of Defense, were exploited by ultra-conservative civilians advancing their own political and religious agendas. Bogle's analysis suggests that cooperation among evangelicals, the military, and government was considered both necessary and normal. The Boy Scouts pushed a narrow vision of American democracy, and Joe McCarthy's chauvinism was less an aberration than a particularly noxious manifestation of a widespread attitude. To combat communism, American society and its armed forces embraced brainwashing-narrow moral education that attacked everyone and everything not consonant with their view of the world and how it ought to be ordered. Exposure of this alliance ultimately dissolved it. However, the cult of toughness and the blinkered view of reality that characterized the armed forces and American society during the Cold War are still valued by many, and are thus still worthy of consideration.
eBook
The war beat, Europe : the American media at war against Nazi Germany
\"Broadcasting pioneers like Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite, unpretentious reporters like Ernie Pyle, and dashing photographers like Robert Capa and Margaret Bourke-White are remembered for their courage and their willingness to put their lives on the line to record the sights and sounds of the World War II battlefield. In return for their fervent loyalty to the anti-Nazi cause, so the argument goes, the military provided them with almost unprecedented access to all the major events. Small wonder that they apparently responded with patriotic generosity, telling a story that both the military and the home front wanted to hear: World War II as a great American success story. In doing so, these war correspondents engaged in self-censorship to hold back the type of story that would have a corrosive impact on domestic morale. Casey uses relevant archives of primary sources that other previous works have failed to, to challenge the core assumptions at the heart of the WWII media narrative. Was the American public exposed to an upbeat and anodyne image of the 'good war,' which helped to ensure that domestic support remained durable and robust? How did the military's goal of keeping civilians 'entertained,' the president's aim to prevent complacency on the home front, the media's desire to sell papers and radio shows, and the reporters' ambitions and hardships affect what Americans read about the war in the European theater? Was the cooperation between the military and war correspondents voluntary, altered by censorship policies, coerced to some degree, or the result of a fractious compromise? Steven Casey gives the real scoop in this in-depth account covering the reporters who covered the European beat from the battlegrounds of North Africa, Germany, Italy, and France.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Lincoln and the Military
When Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860, he came into office with practically no experience in military strategy and tactics.Consequently, at the start of the Civil War, he depended on leading military men to teach him how to manage warfare.
eBook
Truman & MacArthur : policy, politics, and the hunger for honor and renown
Truman and MacArthur offers an objective and comprehensive account of the
very public confrontation between a sitting president and a well-known general over
the military's role in the conduct of foreign policy. In November 1950, with the
army of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea mostly destroyed, Chinese military
forces crossed the Yalu River. They routed the combined United Nations forces and
pushed them on a long retreat down the Korean peninsula. Hoping to strike a decisive
blow that would collapse the Chinese communist regime in Beijing, General Douglas
MacArthur, the commander of the Far East Theater, pressed the administration of
President Harry S. Truman for authorization to launch an invasion of China across
the Taiwan straits. Truman refused; MacArthur began to argue his case in the press,
a challenge to the tradition of civilian control of the military. He moved his
protest into the partisan political arena by supporting the Republican opposition to
Truman in Congress. This violated the President's fundamental tenet that war and
warriors should be kept separate from politicians and electioneering. On April 11,
1951 he finally removed MacArthur from command. Viewing these
events through the eyes of the participants, this book explores partisan politics in
Washington and addresses the issues of the political power of military officers in
an administration too weak to carry national policy on its own accord. It also
discusses America's relations with European allies and its position toward Formosa
(Taiwan), the long-standing root of the dispute between Truman and
MacArthur.
eBook
The Great War and America : civil-military relations during World War I
The First World War marked a key turning point in America's involvement on the global stage. Isolationism fell, and America joined the ranks of the Great Powers. Civil-Military relations faced new challenges as a result. Ford examines the multitude of changes that stemmed from America's first major overseas coalition war, including the new selective service process; mass mobilization of public opinion; training diverse soldiers; civil liberties, anti-war sentiment and conscientious objectors; segregation and warfare; Americans under British or French command. Post war issues of significance, such as the Red Scare and retraining during demobilization are also covered. Both the federal government and the military were expanding rapidly both in terms of size and in terms of power during this time. The new group of citizen-soldiers, diverse in terms of class, religion, ethnicity, regional identity, education, and ideology, would provide training challenges. New government-military-business relationships would experience failures and successes. Delicate relationships with allies would translate into diplomatic considerations and battlefield command concerns.
eBook
The national security : its theory and practice, 1945-1960
This collection of essays presented at a conference at West Point by leading political thinkers, including David Alan Rosenberg, Richard D. Challener, Lloyd C. Gardner, and Martin J. Sherwin, explores the national security policies developed by the Truman and Eisenhower administrations (1945-1960) in response to the threat of Soviet expansionism. Stressing that fear motivated the makers of Cold War policy, the contributors discuss such topics as the objections raised by Democrats to nuclear security strategy, Eisenhower's disputes with Army and Navy leaders, and the evolution of Cold War policy into today's global security policy.
eBook