American Defense Reform

A roadmap for US military innovation based on the Navy’s history of success through civilian-military collaborations The US military must continually adapt to evolving technologies, shifting adversaries, and a changing social environment for its personnel. In American Defense Reform, Dave Oliver and Anand Toprani use US naval history as a guide for leading successful change in the Pentagon. American Defense Reform provides a historical analysis of the Navy during four key periods of disruptive transformation: the 1940s Revolt of the Admirals, the McNamara Revolution in systems analysis, the fallout from the Vietnam War, and the end of the Cold War. The authors draw insights from historical documents, previously unpublished interviews from four-star admirals, and Oliver’s own experiences as a senior naval officer and defense industry executive. They show that Congress alone cannot effectively create change and reveal barriers to applying the experience of the private sector to the public sector Ultimately, Oliver and Toprani show that change can only come from a collaborative effort between civilians, the military, and industry, each making vital contributions. American Defense Reform provides insights and practical recommendations essential to reforming national defense to meet future demands.

This volume helps the reader understand fundamental strengths and weaknesses in America's military forces, thereby leading to a comprehension of what genuine military reform is--and is not--and what remains to be done.

American Defense Policy has been a mainstay for instructors of courses in political science, international relations, military affairs, and American national security for over 25 years. The updated and thoroughly revised eighth edition considers questions of continuity and change in America's defense policy in the face of a global climate beset by geopolitical tensions, rapid technological change, and terrorist violence. On September 11, 2001, the seemingly impervious United States was handed a very sharp reality check. In this new atmosphere of fear and vulnerability, policy makers were forced to make national security their highest priority, implementing laws and military spending initiatives to combat the threat of international terrorism.In this volume, experts examine the many factors that shape today's security landscape - America's values, the preparation of future defense leaders, the efforts to apply what we have learned from Afghanistan and Iraq...

America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress describes how America's armed forces are manned and equipped to fight, at best, enemies that do not now—and may never again—exist and to combat real enemies ineffectively at high human and material cost. Given that many regard America's military as "the best in the world," how can this be? In answer to this question, 13 "non-partisan Pentagon insiders, retired military officers, and defense specialists" lay out an array of hard-hitting and well-documented charges against our current defense establishment. They demonstrate that the hugely expensive and excessively complex weapons embraced by the Pentagon and Congress as vital for our national defense are barely adequate for engaging in outmoded 20th century forms of warfare. They are woefully inadequate for fighting a 21st century "fourth generation" war, as we've learned so painfully in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least as disturbing is the condition of the US defense budget. Over time, policy makers of all political stripes have created budgets that have made our forces smaller, less well equipped, and less ready to fight—all at dramatically increasing cost. Fortunately, the book's authors offer "real-world" solutions to all the problems they identify. At the same time, however, they remain pessimistic about the prospects for real change—arguing that in a system that measures merit by the amount of money spent, the reform proposals elaborated in this book are likely to meet intense resistance. As Winslow Wheeler remarks, "The changes require a president with an iron will who will require real, not cosmetic, reforms of a system determined to and skilled at countering them. It will also require a president who will stick with the process for years, continuously making decisions that will ultimately reverse the present disastrous course U.S. national security is now on. "

Based on the 20th West Point Senior Conference, 1982, and edited by officers serving in the U.S. Army, this volume presents opposing views on strategy, doctrine, force structure, modernization of weapons and weapons acquisition, and the organization of defense policy making. These cover major reform issues including an evaluation of manuever versus attrition warfare, reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and officer education. The editors offer assessments of the proposals and alternatives set forth by individual authors. ISBN 0-8018-3205-5 : $12.95.

America Can Win is a powerful, nonpartisan analysis of what needs to be done to revitalize our armed forces, which have not won a major victory since the Inchon landing during the Korean War. Senator Gary Hart is co-founder of the Military Reform Caucus, a group of more than one hundred thirty senators and congressmen from both sides of the aisle whose central concern is not the size of our defense budget, but how effectively we use it. After more than four years of intensive military buildup, America Can Win takes a close look at our combat readiness and finds it woefully inadequate. Senator Hart believes the Pentagon comes up with the wrong answers because it asks the wrong questions about such vital matters as weapons, force structure, officer education, troop training, field tactics and military organization. This book calls for fundamental changes in all of these areas. - Jacket flap.

The history of oil is a chapter in the story of Europe's geopolitical decline in the twentieth century. During the era of the two world wars, a lack of oil constrained Britain and Germany from exerting their considerable economic and military power independently. Both nations' efforts to restore the independence they had enjoyed during the Age of Coal backfired by inducing strategic over-extension, which served only to hasten their demise as great powers. Having fought World War I with oil imported from the United States, Britain was determined to avoid relying upon another great power for its energy needs ever again. Even before the Great War had ended, Whitehall implemented a strategy of developing alternative sources of oil under British control. Britain's key supplier would be the Middle East - already a region of vital importance to the British Empire - whose oil potential was still unproven. As it turned out, there was plenty of oil in the Middle East, but Italian hostility after 1935 threatened transit through the Mediterranean. A shortage of tankers ruled out re-routing shipments around Africa, forcing Britain to import oil from US-controlled sources in the Western Hemisphere and depleting its foreign exchange reserves. Even as war loomed in 1939, therefore, Britain's quest for independence from the United States had failed. Germany was in an even worse position than Britain. It could not import oil from overseas in wartime due to the threat of blockade, while accumulating large stockpiles was impossible because of the economic and financial costs. The Third Reich went to war dependent on petroleum synthesized from coal, domestic crude oil, and overland imports, primarily from Romania. German leaders were confident, however, that they had enough oil to fight a series of short campaigns that would deliver to them the mastery of Europe. This plan derailed following the victory over France, when Britain continued to fight. This left Germany responsible for Europe's oil requirements while cut off from world markets. A looming energy crisis in Axis Europe, the absence of strategic alternatives, and ideological imperatives all compelled Germany in June 1941 to invade the Soviet Union and fulfill the Third Reich's ultimate ambition of becoming a world power - a decision that ultimately sealed its fate.