The Pentagon's Wars: The Military's Undeclared War Against America's Presidents Hardcover – October 24, 2017

Thought provoking. Highly recommended.

A new perspective on national decision making.

Anyone who pays attention to military affairs will be aware of the tensions that exist not only between military leaders and their civilian overseers, but also between the Pentagon and the functioning military. This book is less concerned with field action than military advocacy and (lack of) visionary leadership, focused as it is on the interactions and conflicts between our presidents and the Pentagon.These figures are often people one's never heard of -- but they profoundly effect American history. Perry's book is dense with detail, observation and insight. It's impossible to read this and not look at the civilian-military relationship anew. Part biography, part history, Perry discusses the impact of policy and legislation as well as personality; we get to know the men who have shaped our conflicts, both internal and external, military, political, strategic and philosophical.The prologue focuses on two impactful policy shifts: the Revolution in Military Affairs of the 1970s and the Goldwater-Nichols reorganization of 1986 -- and the man who would preside over the implementation of both, William Crowe, who would later express concern over the US's role as the world's only superpower. He worried that the military would not find (or heed) visionary leaders and that the US would overreach, attempting to shape the world in ways it deemed advantageous or desirable, i.e. nation building. Crowe felt the ultimate victory was one in which there was no actual fighting.Unfortunately Crowe's warnings went unheeded. The Pentagon's Wars is Perry's attempt to determine why, instead, the US has entered into a string of interventions, actions and wars that often worked against our national strategic interests, and he does so by examining the conflicts and tensions between military and civilian leaders, beginning with Crowe's retirement and Operation Desert Storm, and ending with the conclusion of Obama's second term. (The epilogue does briefly discuss the Trump administration's reliance on generals in key positions.)The personalities involved are fascinating and, in light of current events, the chapter on James Mattis is especially interesting.The epilogue observes that the US is currently engaged in "more wars in more countries, and with less success, than at any time since WW2", and the author names as the 'original sin' the decision, under GHW Bush, to stand down as Saddam Hussein's military slaughtered the people of southern Iraq. Also problematic is America's ill-defined 'war on terrorism' and our recent determination to engage in nation building.Perry notes that in the last election military leaders tended to endorse Clinton while the rank-and-file, disenchanted with nation building and leary of Hillary's liberal interventionism, voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Perhaps more important, both candidates inserted the military into their campaigns and conventions. This politicization of the military does not bode well for the US.While outside the focus of this book a companion guide to the *business* and profitability of war is also essential to our understanding of how we got where we are -- and how to escape this cycle of endless intervention and the determined and persistent squandering of our blood and treasure. It would also be complemented by a volume on the history of diplomacy covering the same time period.This is a rich, fascinating account of the politics of war and the relations between the military and its civilian leaders. I highly recommend it, particularly in light of the key positions currently held by generals Mattis as secretary of defense, McMaster as national security advisor, Dunford as JCS chair and Kelly, originally as secretary of homeland security and now White House chief of staff -- none of whom, despite their virtues, seem to adhere to William Crowe's philosophy of restraint in leadership.

I think this book's title is a little over-the-top, but this is a very readable, informative, at times infuriating and always interesting look at the dynamics of the upper echelon of military and politics.There is quite a bit of conflict between various presidential administrations and the military's joint chiefs and the inside baseball accounts by Mark Perry certainly show all sides are adept at protecting either themselves or their interests - but not always both. Some of the names are shadows of another era - Hugh Shelton, Wesley Clark, and of course Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell from Desert Storm - but they all built small parts of our recent history.The only wide-open outright defiance shown here is the "gays in the military" saga of the early 1990s. It's funny, since I was in the Army from 1987-92, and knew plenty of gay men and women, and the whole thing was stupid. It was *already* a 'don't ask, don't tell' environment. One of my friends was a sergeant major's driver, for crying out loud and he was about as 'out' as could be. So at least in Army units I was in, nobody cared - and it's sad to see that Colin Powell made that the hill he died on - NOT Iraq's WMDs several years later.(As an aside, I just watched "Seven Days in May," about a military coup - and the showdown between the general and the president is slightly reminiscent of the 1993 Clinton-Powell showdown as described by Perry. Obviously the stakes weren't as high, but it was confrontational.)Mark Perry does a good job working with a lengthy chronology and various personalities get their just due. Perry is objective and fair, and lets his sources do the backstabbing - and there's quite a bit of it. Wesley Clark and David Petraeus come in for the worst of it, but Tommy Franks and Richard Myers are at the top too. People like Franks basically bulled their way forward with bad plans, Myers just sat on the sidelines, and others were full of ambition with every act. The gossip is all pretty interesting, and calling this "Real Generals of Washington DC" is not a huge stretch.The problem that Perry identifies is that the military has the reputation of "George Marshall, Eisenhower, Grant," etc - but the reality is that caliber of officer is very uncommon. At that level of military rank, the people who attain it are political, adept at self-promotion and compromise, and that's often be the type of leader who can navigate a bureaucracy without rocking the boat. What that results in is officers who tell their superiors what they want to hear. I know that women aren't at this high level yet, but I wish Perry had brought in an example of a female general just so we could have seen some of that perspective - but that would have shoehorned an example that doesn't really fit with the book's premise or locale.If anything, the book's title is sort of the opposite - it begins with Powell essentially threatening Clinton, but by the end it's the Joint Chiefs basically agreeing with the President or SecDef whenever they can. An exception is trying to finagle Obama to commit more troops to Afghanistan, while trying to avoid conflict in Libya or Syria. But it's not defiance as much as shading the information.It's a frustrating look at a frustrating era. "It's really complicated," one general says, and he's absolutely right. If you're a reader of modern military history, this is a book worth looking into - readable, interesting and with lots of gossip to entertain while it infuriates. These might not be the best men the military has to offer - but most of them are the best at navigating the government we've created for them.