The Pentomic Era; The US Army Between Korea and Vietnam
Laszlo L. Bodrogi (Cover Art) Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1986. First Printing [Stated]. Trade paperback. 21 cm. xiv. 197, [5] pages. Wraps. Illustrations. Footnotes. Endnotes. Selected Bibliography. Index. Slight wear and soiling to covers. Andrew J. Bacevich Jr. (born July 5, 1947) is an American historian specializing in international relations, security studies, American foreign policy, and American diplomatic and military history. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1969 and served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1971. He taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University before joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998. He is a Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. He is also a retired career officer in the Armor Branch of the United States Army, retiring with the rank of colonel. He is a former director of Boston University's Center for International Relations (from 1998 to 2005), now part of the Pardee School of Global Studies. Bacevich is the co-founder and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. This essay is a brief history of the U.S. army during the years immediately following the Korean War. For many in our own time that period-corresonding to the two terms of the Eisenhower presidency-has acquired an aura of congenial simplicity. Americans who survived Vietnam, Watergate, and painful economical difficulties wistfully recall the 1950s as a time when the nation possessed a clearly-charted course and had the will and the power to follow it. In his history of the Army in the years between the Korean and Vietnam wars, Lieutenant Colonel A. J. Bacevich, US Army, accents the Army's mindfulness of the implications of nuclear warfare. The Army's concern, reflecting a complex mixing of institutional, strategic, and operational considerations, led to major changes in Army organization, doctrine, and weapons. The author argues that during these years, the Army not only survived an institutional identity crisis--grappling to comprehend and define its national security role in a nuclear age--but grew to meet new challenges by pioneering the development of rockets and missiles. Colonel Bacevich's analysis of the Army's post Korea, pre-Vietnam era contributes valuable insights to the study of recent US military history. Especially important is Colonel Bacevich's caution that military professionals temper their enthusiasm
for technological progress with an eye to those elements of warfare that remain changeless. Condition: very good.
Keywords: Counterinsurgency, Deterrence, Nuclear Weapons, Korean War, Soviet Union, Maxwell Taylor, Ridgway, Wilbur Brucker, Armed Forces, Land Warfare, William Dupuy, James Gavin, Massive Retaliation, Aggression, Pentomic
[Book #22708]
Price: $45.00