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War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (2001)

di David Halberstam

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761429,221 (3.85)5
"More than twenty-five years ago Halberstam told the riveting story of the men who conceived and executed the Vietnam War. Today the author has written another chronicle of Washington politics, this time exploring the complex dynamics of foreign policy in post-Cold War America." "Halberstam evokes the internecine conflicts, the untrammeled egos, and the struggles for dominance among the key figures in the White House, the State Department, and the military. He shows how the decisions of men who served in the Vietnam War - such as General Colin Powell and presidential advisers Richard Holbrooke and Anthony Lake - and those who did not have shaped American politics and policy makers (perhaps most notably, President Clinton's placing, for the first time in fifty years, domestic issues over foreign policy)."--Jacket.… (altro)
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Summary: A history of the post-Cold War conflicts of the first Bush and the Clinton administrations, with extensive coverage of the Balkan conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

David Halberstam wrote one of the first major accounts of how the United States became bogged down in the Vietnam War in The Best and the Brightest, studying the various persons involved in U.S. decision-making. There, Halberstam offered at once a meticulous and riveting account of the succession of events and decisions that both led into the war, and led to the concealing of the full implications of those decisions from the American public.

Halberstam accomplished a similar feat in this work, nominated for a Pulitzer in 2002. He takes us through the succession of events from fall of Communist rule, the brilliantly executed Gulf War, a triumph of American technology, and the simmering "teacup" wars in Somalia and the Balkans, the human rights implications of which could not be ignored by one administration tired of war, and another administration preferring to focus on domestic issues.

Halberstam gives us an account thick with all the personalities -- the presidents, the policy makers, the military leaders. We meet Larry Eagleburger, on the ground as Yugoslavia breaks up into its ethnic components, watching the rise of Milosevic and warning of the trouble to come with an administration fighting to meet an unexpectedly tough electoral challenge from Bill Clinton. There is a new administration, not particularly interested in foreign policy with a competent bureaucrat but not visionary Warren Christopher, the aloof Tony Lake, Richard Holbrooke, facing the diplomatic challenge of a lifetime.

The abject failure of leadership in Somalia leaves the Clinton administration all the more reticent to assert itself in the Balkans, hoping for European leadership instead. Meanwhile the situation degenerates into genocide in Bosnia. We see a military conflicted with the memories of Vietnam, and the accomplishments of its forces in the Gulf War, and its rapidly improving aerial technology. Around them are hawks like Al Gore and Madeleine Albright, deeply disturbed by the human rights violations, while others from Christopher to Clinton struggle to define an American interests, and Colin Powell from another Vietnam. Eventually, the use of American airpower brought Milosevic to Dayton and Holbrooke's shining hour negotiating the Dayton Peace accords.

Halberstam's account does not paint a favorable picture of Clinton. He identifies a key concern of the military--a president who will remain loyal to them and give them what they need to do what he has asked of them as commander-in-chief. Perhaps nowhere is this so evident as the case of General Wes Clark, who brilliantly led the subsequent conflict against Milosevic and the Serbs in Kosovo, working with European allies, and cajoling a cautious president into sufficient use of their air and ground forces to give a growing Kosovar resistance a chance. For his successes, he was shunted aside by Defense Secretary Cohen, who never liked him.

The book also raises questions, particularly in its closing epilogue, written after 9/11, of the changes in American society from a resilient and resolute one of the post Depression years to an indulgent society, glutted on entertainment, accustomed to wars without casualties that are over in a matter of weeks. Little did Halberstam envision at the time the conflicts going on two decades in both Afghanistan and Iraq for which the conflicts of the Nineties were just rehearsals. What Halberstam understood is the growing consensus in political circles that these wars are fine as long as the American people could continue to live on an untroubled peacetime footing, apart from the occasionally troubling news of another soldier from one's local community lost in a distant part of the world in a conflict no one really understood. He also recognizes the short-sightedness of planners who did not see the threat from terrorist in their obsession with great, or even regional power conflicts.

Writing close to the events gave Halberstam access to all the key players. Clinton was one of the few he did not personally interview. Yet closeness to the events did not obscure for Halberstam the big issues. No administration has the luxury to ignore foreign policy--it will seek you out. Political pragmatism without overarching principle will lead to betrayal of loyalties and America's best interests.

Like every decade, the decisions of the Nineties shaped those that followed. Halberstam gives us a rich and readable account of this important period when some of today's leaders were coming of age. ( )
  BobonBooks | Jan 26, 2020 |
Careful and detailed reporting of the Bush/Clinton post-cold-war politics. Great to fill in the gaps in one's understanding of the early 19080s-2001. Halberstam uses an extremely wide range of sources; and he has a wonderful ability to piece together a sea of facts into a very readable narrative. Great history book. ( )
1 vota JosephKing6602 | Jan 17, 2016 |
This work makes me nostalgic for the days when America existed and the country could choose to fight a war or no, it was strong, and projected itself as a force to improve the world. It all seems so long ago now. Halberstam is at his best describing the Bush and Clinton optimistic years when America was the world's sole superpower. Optimistically, America was at the top of its game, and prophetically elsewhere, before his tragic death in a car crash in 2007, Halberstam predicted how America had changed. America's youth will be competing against people from the world who resemble their grandparents (http://blogsmithconsulting.blogspot.com/2010/07/david-halberstam-global-economy-and.html), dynamic, resourceful, hard-working, and highly motivated. The challenge to America's youth is the crux of the security issue in the 21st century.

War then is a book commemorating that nostalgic and all too brief secure period in the '90s when the U.S. appeared as the world's sole superpower. In this edition, Halberstam added an Epilogue as a post-911 reflection. As he concluded the original version of his book he cautioned that Rumsfield's "missile shield" (p. 494) would not be an effective security barrier, a Maginot Line of our own making. In light of 9/11 then he proved to be prophetic. The Epilogue is an effectively written summary of America's dilemma in the post-911 fight. We are most vulnerable to the strongest points of terrorists and we are ill-equipped to quickly respond to the challenge. Halberstam nonetheless remained optimistic that America would eventually and convincingly respond to the threat of terrorism.

Combat warfare over time is re-invented and the 90s were a critical time that can be easily overlooked in the history of warfare since the period is relatively undistinguished as opposed to earlier crucial periods of world history. As expressed by the preeminent military historian, John Keegan, "There are certain dates in the history of warfare that mark real turning points. November 20, 1917, is one, when at Cambrai the tank showed that the traditional dominance of infantry, cavalry, and artillery on the battlefield had been overthrown. November 11, 1940, is another, when the sinking of the Italian fleet at Taranta demonstrated that the aircraft carrier and its aircraft had abolished the age-old supremacy of the battleship. Now there is a new turning point to fix on the calender, June 3, 1999, when the capitulation of President Milosevic proved that a war can be won by air power alone" (Keegan as quoted in War, Halberstam, p. 478).

Another takeaway of the work is the complex interplay of forces between the Pentagon and civilian leadership. Particularly with Clinton, a non-military man, the first baby boomer president, and Halberstam illuminatingly reveals Clinton's lack of interest in foreign affairs generally and his lack of leadership and resolve in military affairs.

One of the most revealing passages is Halberstam's discussion of General Jack Sheehan of the Marines (pp. 412-413) and his possible nomination as Joint Chiefs of Staff. For an administration lacking military commitment and support, such as Clinton's, Sheehan proved to be problematic. "Sheehan, it was judged, would be the hardest of the senior men to control, and in a dispute over strategy, the most likely to resign in protest. That was the nightmare. This formidable, exceptionally impressive marine, who agreed with the Clinton administration's theory of what we should be doing in foreign policy, might go public if it was unwilling to make the necessary commitment. Sheehan would not get the chairman's job" (p. 413).

This is a startling passage in light of the Stanley McChrystal resignation (cf. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/28/stanley-mcchrystal-retiri_n_628463.html.... This resignation is most often compared to Truman's sacking of MacArthur for insubordination. Perhaps not. This resignation is more akin to an uncontrollable Sheehan who can not be managed or spun, yet, he was eminently qualified for the position, and who moreover is telegraphing grave concerns about Obama's regime. If Clinton lacked support for the military, and he was rightly perceived as such, the internationalist, pro-Islamic, and quixotic Obama is something beyond a Clinton. Questions about Obama's past and lack of documentation have troubled military personnel more than anyone else. Witness the numerous challenges to Obama's documentation that question his commitment to American national security. The military has questioned Obama's tenacity (Cf. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/opinion/30brooks.html?_r=3), Major General Carroll D. Childers agreed to be a plaintiff against Obama on the grounds that he was ineligible to qualify for the Office of the Presidency, and thus occupies the office illegally. 1st LT. Scott Easterling, Al Rowley, CDR, USN, (Retired), Charles E. Jones, Brigadier General US Air Force, Retired, Colonel Harry Riley Former Division Chief National Security Agency, Major James L. Cannon, SSGT. Brian A. Keith, Sgt. Mathew Michael Edwards, Lt Col. Chuck Miller, among others, have all brought public and legal actions against the regime. The military may be indicating with these actions their grave reservations about Obama.

During the Obama regime we are involved in two foreign wars and yet the public seems barely aware or conscious of the ongoing costs and security concerns as expressed, in the only ways available to them, by the American military.

Bosnia: How the war started, by Andy Wilcoxson, Cf. http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/bosnia-started.htm

14 December 2010:
Richard Holbrooke dies: Veteran U.S. diplomat brokered Dayton peace accords
Cf. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/13/AR2010121305198....
1 vota gmicksmith | Jul 3, 2010 |
Very depressing...again where was the press ( )
  Dakoty | Mar 22, 2009 |
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"More than twenty-five years ago Halberstam told the riveting story of the men who conceived and executed the Vietnam War. Today the author has written another chronicle of Washington politics, this time exploring the complex dynamics of foreign policy in post-Cold War America." "Halberstam evokes the internecine conflicts, the untrammeled egos, and the struggles for dominance among the key figures in the White House, the State Department, and the military. He shows how the decisions of men who served in the Vietnam War - such as General Colin Powell and presidential advisers Richard Holbrooke and Anthony Lake - and those who did not have shaped American politics and policy makers (perhaps most notably, President Clinton's placing, for the first time in fifty years, domestic issues over foreign policy)."--Jacket.

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