Parameters back issues from September 2003:
In this issue ...(From the Editor)
Sep 22, 2003 ... Since the end of the combat phase of the war with Iraq, it seems as though our nation's attention and energy have been totally consumed by the tasks necessary to stabilize and reconstruct that country. It is understandable that we are focused on winning the peace in Iraq, but there are ...
The Atlantic Century.
Sep 22, 2003; ... Throughout the previous decade, strategists and statesmen asserted that we were about to enter the "Pacific Century. Global power and wealth would shift to East Asia. American interests, power, and investments would follow. The Atlantic would become a dead sea strategically, its littoral ...
Jointness, defense transformation, and the need for a new joint warfare profession.
Sep 22, 2003; ... "Skilled officers, like all other professional men, are products of continuous and laborious study, training, and experience. There is no shortcut to the peculiar type of knowledge and ability they must possess. Trained officers constitute the most vitally essential element in modern war, ...
Conquering the elements: thoughts on joint force (re)organization.
Sep 22, 2003; ... Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrated, or should have demonstrated, that joint warfighting--that is, the synergistic application of the unique capabilities of each service so that the net result is a capability that is greater than the sum of the parts--is not just the mantra of the ...
Thirteen years: the causes and consequences of the war in Iraq.
Sep 22, 2003; ... The mission of our troops is wholly defensive," President George H. W. Bush intoned as elements of the 82d Airborne and US Air Force arrived in Saudi Arabia to defend it against an Iraqi invasion. "Hopefully, they will not be needed long." That was 8 August 1990. Thirteen years ...
Iraq: heavy forces and decisive warfare.
Sep 22, 2003; ... The Iraq War was a stunning example of the new paradigm of "decisive warfare," even more so than had been the Afghanistan campaign. The Bush Administration came into office defining this new paradigm as the ability to march on an enemy's capital and overthrow its regime. (1) The thinking ...
Iraqi resistance to freedom: a Frommian perspective.
Sep 22, 2003; ... Iraqi civilians were dancing and singing in the streets of Baghdad on the morning of 9 April 2003, while the American military consolidated efforts to secure the city. On that day it was obvious that Saddam Hussein had been deposed. In spite of the celebrations, however, coalition soldiers ...
War and the art of governance.
Sep 22, 2003; ... "Power is one thing. The problem of how to administer it is another." (1) --Douglas MacArthur On 9 April 2003, jubilant crowds and US troops toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad and drew down the curtain on the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom ....
Planning for conflict termination and post-conflict success.
Sep 22, 2003; ... "No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it." --Carl von Clausewitz (1) "If you concentrate exclusively on victory, with no thought ...
S. L. A. Marshall's Men Against Fire: new evidence regarding fire ratios.
Sep 22, 2003; ... The findings of journalist-soldier S. L. A. Marshall about combat fire ratios--particularly that in World War II less than 25 percent of American combat infantrymen in battle fired their weapons--have been controversial since Marshall published them in his 1947 book, Men Against Fire. (1) ...
In search of monsters to destroy: American empire in the new millennium.
Sep 22, 2003; ... "We have had an Imperial lesson; it may make us an Empire yet!"--Rudyard Kipling (1) With the coldly calculated use of terror, the perpetuators of 11 September 2001 served abrupt notice of challenge to US global dominance. The seemingly easy path before Americans that had ...
Prophets or Praetorians? The Uptonian paradox and the Powell corollary.
Sep 22, 2003; ... "A [military] philosophy grows from the minds and hearts, social mores and customs, traditions and environment of a people. It is the product of national and racial attributes, geography, the nature of a potential enemy threat, standards of living and national traditions, influenced and ...
Editor's shelf.
Sep 22, 2003 ... The American public has learned one overarching lesson from its military's conduct of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the necessity for robust strategic planning. To that end, Strategic Thinking: An Introduction and Farewell (London: Lynne Rienner, 2002.199 pp. $49.94 [$19.95 paper]) written by ...
Vietnam 1945 to 1975: communism on display.
Sep 22, 2003; ... What makes the Vietnam War so complex is the fact that it could have been prosecuted in a number of ways that might have achieved greater success--a guerrilla war using only the South Vietnamese forces, a guerrilla war using the South Vietnamese and American forces, or as a guerrilla and ...
The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By David M. Glantz. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. 660 pages. $39.95. In the aggregation of awesome--and awful--events that composed the German-Soviet War of 1941-45, and probably also in the whole history of warfare, the Battle for Leningrad holds the record for ...
Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: the Realist Foundations of Strategy.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By Bharat Karnad. (New Delhi, India: MacMillan India Limited, 2002). 724 pages. $37.50. For at least three reasons, this will be a most valuable book for anyone concerned about the nuclear confrontation in South Asia. To begin, the author was a member of India's first ...
Peacekeeping Fiascoes of the 1990s: Causes, Solutions, and U.S. Interests.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By Frederick H. Fleitz, Jr. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2002. 224 pages. $39.95. Frederick Fleitz, now serving as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and international Security, is a long-time member of the Central Intelligence Agency, ...
The Fall of Berlin 1945.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By Antony Beevor. New York: Viking Penguin Press, 2002.490 pages. $29.95. A sequel to his best-seller The Battle of Stalingrad, Antony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin is a superb narrative account of the Red Army's climactic assault on Berlin, Hitler's "lair" and the formidable ...
Gettysburg: a Testing of Courage.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By Noah Andre Trudeau. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. 694 pages. $34.95. While musing on many subjects to fill his final days in exile, Napoleon observed that history was an artful combination of material facts and moral intentions. Although the material facts of a battle or ...
Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By David G. Surdam. Studies in Maritime History series. William N. Still, Jr., series editor. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001. 288 pages. $34.95. David Surdam, a visiting assistant professor of economics at the Graduate School of Business of the University of ...
Shadow of the Dragon: Vietnam's Continuing Struggle with China and the Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By Henry J. Kenny. Washington: Brassey's, 2002. 176 pages. $49.95 ($24.95 paper). With the end of America's Indochina war in the 1970s and the passage of time, Vietnam has slipped from the collective consciousness of US policymakers and the general public. The Socialist Republic ...
Korean Endgame: a Strategy for Reunification and U.S. Disengagement.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By Selig S. Harrison. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. 409 pages. $29.95. The core message of this closely argued book is that American military presence in the Korean peninsula will gradually wane in the near future, and that thoughtful preparations for this ...
Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By Jonathan Shay. Foreword by Max Cleland and John McCain. New York: Scribner, 2002. 329 pages. $25.00. Shay's first book in this duet, Achilles In Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, was remarkable both for the truths it spoke that reached beyond the theme and ...
A Perilous Progress: Economics and Public Purpose in Twentieth Century America.
Sep 22, 2003; ... By Michael A. Bernstein. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. 376 pages. $42.50. At the outset of the 20th century, academic economists were struggling for a professional identity and the discipline of economics lacked coherence. By the second half of the century, ...
Off the press ...
Sep 22, 2003 ... Astor, Gerald. Terrible Terry Allen: Combat General of World War II--The Life of an American Soldier. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 2003. 384 pp. $25.95. Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003. 214 pp. $21.00. Bhatia, Michael V ....
Transformation circa 1861--precision drill.(From the Archives)
Sep 22, 2003 ... During the secession crisis and the early months of the Civil War, tens of thousands of men on each side eagerly entered military service. Transforming such hordes of enthusiastic volunteers into an effective fighting force was a problem confronting both North and South during that period ....