The Cold War U.S. Army: Building Deterrence for Limited War (Modern War Studies) [Hardcover]

Ingo Trauschweizer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2008 | ISBN-10: 0700615784 | ISBN-13: 978-0700615780

The Cold War marked a new era for America's military, one dominated by nuclear weapons and air power that seemed to diminish the need for conventional forces. Ingo Trauschweizer chronicles the U.S. Army's struggles with its identity, structure, and mission in the face of those challenges, showing how it evolved, redefined its mission more than once, and ultimately transformed itself.

Trauschweizer describes how, beginning in the 1950s, the army faced an unprecedented problem: how to maintain a combat-ready fighting force that could operate on both conventional and nuclear battlefields. Faced with shifting threats to national security, budgetary battles, and unstable political developments around the globe, the army also had to keep abreast of new weaponry while navigating changes in its own top brass and the presidency.

Trauschweizer particularly considers the army's organizational and doctrinal response to problems posed by deterrence in Europe, focusing on the evolving role of the Seventh Army in West Germany--the largest and best-prepared field army the U.S. had ever deployed in peacetime. He explores the roles of Generals Matthew Ridgway, Maxwell Taylor, and others, as well as the use role of tactical nuclear weapons, as he traces the army's transformation through the New Look policy, pentomic reorganization, and the adoption of the ROAD concept.

Ultimately, Trauschweizer contends, the army found it impossible to prepare for limited war in the Third World while pursuing its primary mission of deterrence in Europe. His revisionist argument about the army's objectives in the 1960s and early 1970s places the Vietnam War in the context of the wider Cold War, offering new lines of inquiry into both. He also shows how, after the debacle of Vietnam, the army's sense of mission, technological evolution, organizational structure, and operational doctrine matured to produce the AirLand Battle doctrine of 1982, the cornerstone of our defense of Europe until the Cold War finally ended.

The U.S. Army's evolution during the 1950s and its role in Europe throughout the Cold War have remained two of the most neglected subjects in American military history. By covering the interaction of strategy, organization, doctrine, and technology in the army during this era--as well as the relationship between army doctrine and U.S./NATO defense strategy--The Cold War U.S. Army marks a major contribution to our understanding of both subjects.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"An exceptional, in-depth analysis of the role played by the U.S. Army in American strategy during and immediately after the Cold War. . . . Indispensable for anyone attempting to understand that period or the Army's thinking in its current efforts to develop Future Combat Systems."--Dale R. Herspring, author of Rumsfeld's Wars: The Arrogance of Power

"Few authors illuminate the details and interactions of strategy, organization, doctrine, and technology as well as Trauschweizer has done here."--Dave Hogan, author of Centuries of Service: The U.S. Army, 1775-2004

"Fills a significant gap in the military history of the twentieth century and deserves the attention of soldiers, historians, and the general public."--Jonathan M. House, author of Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century

About the Author

Ingo Trauschweizer is visiting assistant professor of history at New Mexico Tech. He has also taught at Norwich University and the University of Maryland.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 366 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas (June 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700615784
• ISBN-13: 978-0700615780
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #523,264 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting account of the Cold War US Army, July 19, 2008

By 

1. "John Henninger" (Littleton, CO United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Cold War U.S. Army: Building Deterrence for Limited War (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

Ingo Trauschweizer states in his book that it was not until the nineteen eighties that the United States gained a conventional deterrent against the Soviet Union. According to Trauschweizer it was General Taylor, who implemented the Pentomic divisions in the nineteen fifties, was ths first one to take notice of the United States Army in Germany. Even though the Pentomic divisions lacked firepower they provided a political resaon for the United States Army existing in Europe. During the sixties the combat effectiveness of the United States Army in Europe was severely curtailed due to the war in Vietnam. In the nineteen seventies the US Army began copying tactics from the West Germans in how to counter the Soviet Army. Finally in the eighties with the AirLand concept the American army found an effective doctrine in countering Soviet deep attacks by using airpower to destroy echelons of armor. Trauschweizer disagrees with Brain McAllister Linn's analysis of the American army in the eighties by stating that the US Army served its main strategic goal which was to serve as a deterrent to any Soviet invasion in Europe and that training it for COIN operations would be detrimental for this task. The only weakness of this book is that from reading Shimon Naveh's book it appears that the United States army learned more from the Soviet army in creating an operational art rather than from the Germans who concentrated soley on tactics. Nevetheless this book is execellent at describing the constantly changing doctrine of the American army during the Cold War.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Cold War US Army: Building Deterrence for Limited War, September 29, 2008

By 

Michael B. Meese "Cold War History Buff" (Santa Rosa, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cold War U.S. Army: Building Deterrence for Limited War (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

The author did an excellent job in researching sources for the book. A more accurate title for the book would have been "The History of the Evolution of the Cold War Army." The author talked strategy and tied it to the changes in force structure however, the author did not spend any appreciable time on the force structure. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a global perspective.