Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.