From Publishers Weekly
Drawing on interviews with senior officials and newly declassified documents, Gordon and Trainor provide a behind-the-scenes look at the Gulf War's generalship. The dominant figure, then-chairman of the joint chiefs General Colin Powell, is spotlighted as a politico-military maestro overseeing the dawn of a new era in military technology. In their review of the short, violent, one-sided war, the authors uncover the problems of cooperation among coalition forces and reveal details of interservice tensions, as well as difficulties within the U.S. branches themselves. This meticulous reconstruction of American leadership in Desert Shield/Desert Storm presents the conflict as a laboratory for testing new weapons and doctrine and the services' capacity for cooperation in the field. It also serves as an object lesson in the failure of deterrence and the problem of war termination, with a discussion of President Bush's premature cease-fire order. Gordon is chief New York Times Pentagon correspondent; Trainor is military columnist for the Times. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
From Library Journal
If the Vietnam War was conducted by politicians in Washington, the war for Kuwait was, according to New York Times correspondent Gordon and retired general Trainor, our "generals' war." The authors astutely conclude that President Bush understood what his predecessors never did. Neither Johnson nor Nixon, nor for that matter National Security Council adviser Henry Kissinger, allowed the military to wage a winning war. The lesson was well learned by the savvy Gen. Colin Powell, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who directed his subordinates to lash out against the Iraqis with everything we had save for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Kuwait was not Vietnam, however, and the unmotivated Iraqis were not the Vietcong. Aggrandized as "the world's fourth largest military," the enemy fizzled away within hours when confronted with the world's premier military force. Thus, it came as no surprise that Washington won the battle, but with Saddam Hussein still in power four years after hostilities ended, has it won the war? This cogent analysis provides several disturbing answers worthy of our attention. Recommended for informed lay readers and specialists.
Joseph A. Kechichian, Rand Corp., Santa Monica, Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Joseph A. Kechichian, Rand Corp., Santa Monica, Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
