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For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States from 1607 to 2012, 3rd Edition
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About For The Common Defense: A Military History Of The
Product Description Now fully updated and totally revised, this highly regarded classic remains the most comprehensive study available of America’s military history. Called “the preeminent survey of American military history” by Russell F. Weigley, America’s foremost military historian, For the Common Defense is an essential contribution to the field of military history. This carefully researched third edition provides the most complete and current history of United States defense policy and military institutions and the conduct of America’s wars. Without diminishing the value of its earlier editions, authors Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis provide a fresh perspective on the continuing issues that characterize national security policy. They have updated the work with new material covering nearly twenty years of scholarship, including the history of the American military experience in the Balkans and Somalia, analyzing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2012, and providing two new chapters on the Vietnam War. For the Common Defense examines the nation’s pluralistic military institutions in both peace and war, the tangled civil-military relations that created the country’s commitment to civilian control of the military, the armed forces’ increasing nationalization and professionalization, and America’s growing reliance on sophisticated technologies spawned by the Industrial Revolution and the Computer and Information Ages. This edition is also a timely reminder that vigilance is indeed the price of liberty but that vigilance has always been—and continues to be—a costly, complex, and contentious undertaking in a world that continually tests America’s willingness and ability to provide for the common defense. Review "A work of fine research, peer review and precise, evenhanded writing that is standing the test of time." -- Kirkus Reviews About the Author Allan R. Millett is Professor of History and Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. Peter Maslowski is professor of history at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. For the Common Defense Introduction Although we are pleased that the original 1984 edition and 1994 revised edition of For the Common Defense have stood the test of time so well, the ongoing important national defense issues of the last eighteen years and the superb scholarship in military history since 1994 warrant this third edition. We have been encouraged in our efforts by teachers who have continued to use the second edition, even though American military history took on new directions in the Balkans and Muslim world since its publication. We have reviewed all of the text for currency and accuracy. Where we found errors of fact and printing, we have corrected them. We have made the most changes in areas where our own research interests have taken us in the last eighteen years. I rewrote the account of the Korean War to reflect fifteen years of research. The Vietnam War is now divided into two chapters written by Peter, a subject of his recent research. There are now two chapters on the end of the Cold War and the new wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2001–2011, the decade characterized by the George W. Bush administration as the “Global War on Terrorism.” Readers will search in vain in this book for dramatic new interpretations or radical departures in intellectual approach. We are aware that others may take issue with our reluctance to add novel twists and unexpected turns to our narrative. We have not taken the easy road of alternative or counter-factual history. We have tried to maintain the distinction between “what if” and “what was,” although “so what” remains a matter of reasonable debate. We hope we have provided the right balance of fact and interpretation to make any discussion of American military history meaningful, whether the debate involves cont
