The Political Army

"Despite its insistent claims to the contrary, the United States Army is deeply involved in domestic American politics, so much so that it has repeatedly changed its way of fighting war to better align with how it is perceived by the American public. This is not a new development. Over a period of roughly sixty years (1939-2001), the Army transformed its relationship with the government and the American people. This book tells the story of how the Army gradually entwined its domestic statecraft with its military strategy from World War II (when its senior officers first began to take press work seriously) to the Revolution in Military Affairs (when Army leaders finally accepted the benefits of aligning public affairs with the other services in a joint effort). It chronicles the fall and rise of the world's most powerful force and charts the new challenges to American democracy posed by a military that has gained, at great expense, a new and potent expertise in politics. It describes how the Army learned to speak for itself, and what this has meant for the way it fights war and maintains readiness in times of peace. More particularly, this book uncovers a new understanding of what the Army learned about domestic American politics during the Vietnam War, why it suppressed this new understanding for nearly two decades, and how it has balanced statecraft and strategy since Operation Desert Storm. The argument is built around two paradoxes. During the Vietnam War, the Army discovered that it could achieve success on the battlefield yet still experience failure in the political arena. Later, the opposite became true: despite consistent and costly battlefield failures, the Army found itself politically victorious. The Political Army offers fresh insights into the relationship between state and society and the transforming politics of war. It provides a point of entry into one of the most consequential but inaccessible sites of government power: the way the Department of Defense shapes American democracy"--