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Author: James G. Burton Publisher: US Naval Institute Press ISBN: 9781612516004 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
From the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, a small band of military activists waged war against corruption in the Pentagon, challenging a system they believed squandered the public's money and trust. The book examines the movement and its proponents and describes how the system responded to the criticisms and efforts to change accepted practices and entrenched ways of thinking. The author, an air force colonel and part of the movement, worked in the pentagon for fourteen years. He presents a view of the Department of Defense that only an insider could offer. He exposes serious flaws in the military policy-making process, particularly in weapons development and procurement. The details he gives on the unrelenting push for high-tech weapons, despite their ineffectiveness and extraordinary cost-overruns, provide a strong case for the charge of ethical bankruptcy. The second half of the book deals with the author's attempts to get frontline equipment tested under combat conditions. For the first time, readers learn the nasty details of his battle with the army over line-fire testing of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle--a battle that he eventually won, leading to the personnel carrier's redesign and the saving of many lives. Never reluctant to name names and reveal details, James G. Burton presents a forceful case. And his revelations offer insights not found elsewhere into the motivations and actions of the people who wield power from within. Nor does he stop at the walls of the Pentagon. In his epilogue he tells what happened in the field during the final hours of the Gulf War that allowed Hussein's elite Republican Guard to escape. Now back in print after having inspired a feature HBO film, this explosive account of insider corruption is sure to serve policy-makers for generations to come.
Author: James G. Burton Publisher: US Naval Institute Press ISBN: 9781612516004 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
From the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, a small band of military activists waged war against corruption in the Pentagon, challenging a system they believed squandered the public's money and trust. The book examines the movement and its proponents and describes how the system responded to the criticisms and efforts to change accepted practices and entrenched ways of thinking. The author, an air force colonel and part of the movement, worked in the pentagon for fourteen years. He presents a view of the Department of Defense that only an insider could offer. He exposes serious flaws in the military policy-making process, particularly in weapons development and procurement. The details he gives on the unrelenting push for high-tech weapons, despite their ineffectiveness and extraordinary cost-overruns, provide a strong case for the charge of ethical bankruptcy. The second half of the book deals with the author's attempts to get frontline equipment tested under combat conditions. For the first time, readers learn the nasty details of his battle with the army over line-fire testing of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle--a battle that he eventually won, leading to the personnel carrier's redesign and the saving of many lives. Never reluctant to name names and reveal details, James G. Burton presents a forceful case. And his revelations offer insights not found elsewhere into the motivations and actions of the people who wield power from within. Nor does he stop at the walls of the Pentagon. In his epilogue he tells what happened in the field during the final hours of the Gulf War that allowed Hussein's elite Republican Guard to escape. Now back in print after having inspired a feature HBO film, this explosive account of insider corruption is sure to serve policy-makers for generations to come.
Author: Mark Perry Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0465093108 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 417
Book Description
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.
Author: Neta C. Crawford Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262047489 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 393
Book Description
How the Pentagon became the world’s largest single greenhouse gas emitter and why it’s not too late to break the link between national security and fossil fuel consumption. The military has for years (unlike many politicians) acknowledged that climate change is real, creating conditions so extreme that some military officials fear future climate wars. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Defense—military forces and DOD agencies—is the largest single energy consumer in the United States and the world’s largest institutional greenhouse gas emitter. In this eye-opening book, Neta Crawford traces the U.S. military’s growing consumption of energy and calls for a reconceptualization of foreign policy and military doctrine. Only such a rethinking, she argues, will break the link between national security and fossil fuels. The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War shows how the U.S. economy and military together have created a deep and long-term cycle of economic growth, fossil fuel use, and dependency. This cycle has shaped U.S. military doctrine and, over the past fifty years, has driven the mission to protect access to Persian Gulf oil. Crawford shows that even as the U.S. military acknowledged and adapted to human-caused climate change, it resisted reporting its own greenhouse gas emissions. Examining the idea of climate change as a “threat multiplier” in national security, she argues that the United States faces more risk from climate change than from lost access to Persian Gulf oil—or from most military conflicts. The most effective way to cut military emissions, Crawford suggests provocatively, is to rethink U.S. grand strategy, which would enable the United States to reduce the size and operations of the military.
Author: Sharon Weinberger Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0804169721 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 498
Book Description
The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly sixty years. Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency’s original mission was to create “the unimagined weapons of the future.” Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond military technology. Sharon Weinberger gives us a riveting account of DARPA’s successes and failures, its remarkable innovations, and its wild-eyed schemes. We see how the threat of nuclear Armageddon sparked investment in computer networking, leading to the Internet, as well as to a proposal to power a missile-destroying particle beam by draining the Great Lakes. We learn how DARPA was responsible during the Vietnam War for both Agent Orange and the development of the world’s first armed drones, and how after 9/11 the agency sparked a national controversy over surveillance with its data-mining research. And we see how DARPA’s success with self-driving cars was followed by disappointing contributions to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Weinberger has interviewed more than one hundred former Pentagon officials and scientists involved in DARPA’s projects—many of whom have never spoken publicly about their work with the agency—and pored over countless declassified records from archives around the country, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and exclusive materials provided by sources. The Imagineers of War is a compelling and groundbreaking history in which science, technology, and politics collide.
Author: Rosa Brooks Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1476777861 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 448
Book Description
A former top Pentagon official, daughter of anti-war activists, wife of an Army Green Beret and human rights activist presents a scholarly examination of how a constant state of war is contrary to America's founding values, undermines international rules and compromises future security. --Publisher
Author: James Carroll Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN: 9780618872015 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 696
Book Description
An analysis of the Pentagon, the military, and their vast, frequently hidden influence on American life argues that the Pentagon has, since its inception, operated beyond the control of any force in government or society.
Author: Steve Vogel Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1588367010 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 674
Book Description
The creation of the Pentagon in seventeen whirlwind months during World War II is one of the great construction feats in American history, involving a tremendous mobilization of manpower, resources, and minds. In astonishingly short order, Brigadier General Brehon B. Somervell conceived and built an institution that ranks with the White House, the Vatican, and a handful of other structures as symbols recognized around the world. Now veteran military reporter Steve Vogel reveals for the first time the remarkable story of the Pentagon’s construction, from it’s dramatic birth to its rebuilding after the September 11 attack. At the center of the story is the tempestuous but courtly Somervell–“dynamite in a Tiffany box,” as he was once described. In July 1941, the Army construction chief sprang the idea of building a single, huge headquarters that could house the entire War Department, then scattered in seventeen buildings around Washington. Somervell ordered drawings produced in one weekend and, despite a firestorm of opposition, broke ground two months later, vowing that the building would be finished in little more than a year. Thousands of workers descended on the site, a raffish Virginia neighborhood known as Hell’s Bottom, while an army of draftsmen churned out designs barely one step ahead of their execution. Seven months later the first Pentagon employees skirted seas of mud to move into the building and went to work even as construction roared around them. The colossal Army headquarters helped recast Washington from a sleepy southern town into the bustling center of a reluctant empire. Vivid portraits are drawn of other key figures in the drama, among them Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president who fancied himself an architect; Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, both desperate for a home for the War Department as the country prepared for battle; Colonel Leslie R. Groves, the ruthless force of nature who oversaw the Pentagon’s construction (as well as the Manhattan Project to create an atomic bomb); and John McShain, the charming and dapper builder who used his relationship with FDR to help land himself the contract for the biggest office building in the world. The Pentagon’s post-World War II history is told through its critical moments, including the troubled birth of the Department of Defense during the Cold War, the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the tumultuous 1967 protest against the Vietnam War. The pivotal attack on September 11 is related with chilling new detail, as is the race to rebuild the damaged Pentagon, a restoration that echoed the spirit of its creation. This study of a single enigmatic building tells a broader story of modern American history, from the eve of World War II to the new wars of the twenty-first century. Steve Vogel has crafted a dazzling work of military social history that merits comparison with the best works of David Halberstam or David McCullough. Like its namesake, The Pentagon is a true landmark.
Author: David L. Robb Publisher: Prometheus Books ISBN: 1615924515 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
Directors of war and action movies receive access to billions of dollars worth of military equipment and personnel, but it comes with a hidden cost. As a veteran Hollywood journalist shows, the final product is often not just what the director intends but also what the powers-that-be in the military want to project about America's armed forces.
Author: Dale Roy Herspring Publisher: ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 278
Book Description
A highly critical but nonpartisan assessment of the controversial former Defense Secretary as told by one of the leading experts on civil-military relations. Focuses on Rumsfeld's notoriously domineering leadership style, flawed vision for transforming the military, and failures in the Iraq War.
Author: Michael T. Klare Publisher: Metropolitan Books ISBN: 162779249X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 199
Book Description
All Hell Breaking Loose is an eye-opening examination of climate change from the perspective of the U.S. military. The Pentagon, unsentimental and politically conservative, might not seem likely to be worried about climate change—still linked, for many people, with polar bears and coral reefs. Yet of all the major institutions in American society, none take climate change as seriously as the U.S. military. Both as participants in climate-triggered conflicts abroad, and as first responders to hurricanes and other disasters on American soil, the armed services are already confronting the impacts of global warming. The military now regards climate change as one of the top threats to American national security—and is busy developing strategies to cope with it. Drawing on previously obscure reports and government documents, renowned security expert Michael Klare shows that the U.S. military sees the climate threat as imperiling the country on several fronts at once. Droughts and food shortages are stoking conflicts in ethnically divided nations, with “climate refugees” producing worldwide havoc. Pandemics and other humanitarian disasters will increasingly require extensive military involvement. The melting Arctic is creating new seaways to defend. And rising seas threaten American cities and military bases themselves. While others still debate the causes of global warming, the Pentagon is intensely focused on its effects. Its response makes it clear that where it counts, the immense impact of climate change is not in doubt.
Author: James G. Burton
Author: James G. Burton
Author: Mark Perry
Author: Neta C. Crawford
Author: Sharon Weinberger
Author: Rosa Brooks
Author: James Carroll
Author: Steve Vogel
Author: David L. Robb
Author: Dale Roy Herspring
Author: Michael T. Klare