What a great look at our nations wars from the political perspective. Pearlman's writing style and personality pull you in and give you the impression that you are getting a look behind the scenes of American history. This is an important piece of work for those that want to understand the why of many wartime decisions.

From my review of this work published in the Naval War College Review, Spring 2000:

Warmaking-the pursuit of political objectives by military means- ineluctably involves trade-offs not only in determining appropriate goals but also in determining the means by which they may be best pursued. While recent military action in Kosovo highlights the truth of this statement, the struggle to achieve a coherent military policy is not simply a contemporary problem for this nation. In this work, Michael D. Pearlman, a historian and associate professor at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, traces this problem from the pre-Revolutionary colonial wars through to the present, providing a comprehensive survey not only of America's wars but of the continual push and pull between the practitioners of military art and the politicians who direct them. In doing so, Pearlman demonstrates the difficulties faced by a pluralistic democracy in obtaining a consensus on either the most effective means for fighting a war or on justifiable ends of the wars being fought. While pursuing an explanation of the sources of these difficulties, he also illuminates a warmaking goal that is perhaps peculiar to America-that of fighting in order to banish doubts that a democracy can win its wars.

The timeliness of this work can not be overlooked. It sheds light on the recent debates on the use of force in Kosovo, as well as on the general discussion about the effectiveness of the application of military power in the pursuit of limited political goals, by opening up new avenues of understanding into the formation and execution of military policy. Written in a highly readable style that eschews both political science jargon and "military-speak," this work is a valuable addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in seeing how strategy has been determined in the actual rather than the abstract/theoretical world. It is essential reading for those who would understand the why of military strategy as well as the what.

This is a splendid and original book. It examines the faultline between military strategy and political considerations. It is an engagingly written product of a superb and fairminded thinker and thorough researcher. No matter how much you have read about military history, you are guaranteed to learn many new things. I have two faults with it - both major, but localized: first, in his analysis of WWII, he does not discuss the allocation of resources enough. Joel Davidson showed how we ended the war with a larger Navy and a smaller Army than we should have had, largely because of FDR's Navy bias, Adm. King's aggressiveness and Gen. Marshall's willingness to back down, even when he was right. I would have liked to see Mr. Pearlman direct his considerable talents to this subject. The second failing is somewhat perplexing: the author's willingness to accept the argument of a handful of JFK partisans that JFK wanted to abandon South Vietnam after the 1964 election. The only sources for this canard are a handful of intensely loyal Kennedy insiders who made these claims only after the war had become unpopular. If there were any truth to these claims, they would have surfaced when these same people were in counsels of war with the reluctant hawk, Lyndon Johnson. I'm not saying that these people are liars exactly, but that they so wanted JFK to have done the popular thing, that they created these conversations in their subconscious and came to believe them as gospel. Recent studies suggest that JFK ordered the coup against Diem because Diem was talking to Ho Che Minh; surely JFK would have let that continue if he planned to pull out. At any rate, once he had had the CIA depose Diem and completely disrupt the established government of an ally, there was no way he could bail out. Forget getting Bobby elected, there were too many people committed to Vietnam and who were privy to the coup to let JFK pull such a stunt without facing an impeachment. Despite these two shortcomings, this is one of the best works of military history that I have ever read.

I did not really live until I read this book. It is the most significant thing that ever happened to me, including being born.