Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Important Analysis of the Pentagon and its Leadership in the Early Twenty-First Century, June 2, 2009
This review is from: Rumsfeld's Wars: The Arrogance of Power (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
This is an important book, but a difficult one to get through. This is the case not because of turgid writing or poor analysis, but because it is so disturbing. Donald Rumsfeld had a reputation as a superb administrator and organizer when he took office as President George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense in 2001. Having served both in that capacity and in a range of other senior governmental posts in previous Republican administrations, he brought a wealth of experience and understanding about the manner in which the U.S. government operated. But he was also well known as an arrogant, ruthless bureaucratic infighter. Some, even inside the Republican Party, distrusted him and were sure that he would sell out his best friend for personal gain. Dale Herspring, a retired Foreign Service officer and Navy veteran, is a faculty member at the University of Kansas. His work, "Rumsfeld's Wars: The Arrogance of Power," reviews the experience of Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. He especially analyzes two major elements of his experiences in the DoD. The first was his stated task upon entering the SECDEF job of military transformation, a shorthand for the reorganization of the services into smaller, more nimble, more technologically advanced, and presumably more flexible and effective armed forces needed for the twenty-first century. Many people inside the defense establishment had been talking about transformation since the end of the Cold War; the loss of the Soviet Union meant that the dominant concerns of more than 40 years had changed and the military needed to change in response. Rumsfeld was certain that he had the answer to what was needed in this transformation, and refused to listen to others and to take other perspectives seriously. In implementing his presumed reforms he disregarded the advice of his senior officers, some of whom were just as committed as he to transforming the military, and according to Herspring even went so far as to seize control of the promotion system to ensure that only those with whom he thought he could work reached positions of leadership. This was unprecedented in the last half of the twentieth century and said to the military brass that he considered them incompetent and unprofessional as well as deserving only of his manipulation. As you might guess, Herspring documents a succession of failures, some of them brought on by Rumsfeld through his "arrogance of power," but also because he was abandoned by the officer corps who through inaction and sometimes active resistance sidetracked his efforts. Although probably not intended by Herspring, this discussion reads like a Greek tragedy as hubris overcomes the central character and leads to failure and collapse. Even more to the point is Herspring's analysis of the second great challenge of Rumsfeld's leadership of the DoD, the Iraq War. Again, Rumsfeld, with the help of key Neocons Donald Feith and Paul Wolfowitz, totally failed through both ignorance and arrogance. In the end, Herspring has offered a valuable analysis of what happened in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld, and by extension the problems of the military in Iraq. It is not surprising that President Bush would sack Rumsfeld, but he waited far too long. The same is even truer of some of his underlings in the DoD. What a mess, and it's far from resolved. Herspring, I should add, is not a partisan in this story. He approaches it as scholar who seeks to document what has happened and why.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Arrogant Brillance, July 22, 2008
This review is from: Rumsfeld's Wars: The Arrogance of Power (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense (SecDef) under George W. Bush from 2000 to 2006. Rumsfeld is chiefly remembered today for his consistently poor judgment and managerial incompetence, especially in the execution of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the subsequent occupation of Iraq. This book examines how such an excellent and intelligent manager with a brilliant track record (including an earlier (1974-1978) tour as SecDef) could have lost his way so badly. Herspring argues that for all his brilliance and drive, Rumsfeld in the year 2000 was consumed by arrogance, a desire for absolute power, and an unwillingness to learn from anyone. To demonstrate this argument, Herspring reviews how Rumsfeld managed his two most important challenges during his tenure, the Transformation of the U.S. Military and Operation Iraqi Freedom (and the occupation of Iraq). According to Herspring, Rumsfled and his senor assistants in the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) engaged both challenges with an unfortunate mixture of overweening arrogance and ignorance. Herspring also argues that Rumsfeld had an irrational dislike of the U.S. Army and its officer corps. He supports this allegation with antidotal evidence, but the reader is left to wonder if this charge is accurate or not. For example, Herspring states that Rumsfeld choose Marine General Jim Jones as the senior U.S. Military Representative at NATO as a deliberate snub aimed at army and, to a lesser extent, air force general officers. While this may very well have been Rumsfeld's motivation, the fact is that General Jones was highly qualified for the NATO position. He is fluent in French (English and French are the official NATO languages), experienced in dealing with high level foreign civilian and military officials, widely respected both in the U.S. and Europe, and equally capable of unambiguous command and diplomatic maneuverings. Perhaps Rumsfeld knew nothing of these qualities, but there is really no way to tell. Rumsfeld by any standard is a complicated and not always agreeable person. This book is a serious attempt to examine his second tenure as SecDef. It is a good start, but far from the definitive work on the topic.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5.0 out of 5 stars
The high costs of arrogance and silence, October 10, 2010
This review is from: Rumsfeld's Wars: The Arrogance of Power (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
While the fallout from Donald Rumsfeld's reign as Secretary of Defense has been widely reported, insightful analysis of how and why this happened was lacking for me until I read this book, which is a very thorough investigation and critique from a conservative perspective of that period by Dale Herspring, a long serving officer and now academic plus writer on the area of Pentagon and Presidency relations. The key themes which the book explores very clearly and fully are: the critical need to transform the Pentagon's outdated approach in handling and reacting to global conflicts in the 21st century (potentially in several locations), which Rumsfeld saw as his personal mandate for driving changes given the election campaign George W. Bush fought; the fundamental requirement in driving such strategic change of mutual respect and seeking to understand and explore differing and alternative arguments by both sides was key, but Rumsfeld through his own personal brusque style never attempted or explored as he largely imported the CEO management style used in his prior business career; that perceived arrogance was enforced in the Pentagon's mind by Rumsfeld ensuring that only officers acceptable to his management style were selected using unprecedented interference in the promotion of officers to achieve that aim (bringing retired officers back when all else failed) and many of the checks and balances which the US system has built into it (access to the President, the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) were simply flaunted, the coverage of General Tommy Franks role showing how this was all allowed to happen; and, the outcome of that approach was that while Rumsfeld was probably vindicated in how the Iraq war was initially fought and won, he was incapable of or failed to understand that winning the war but losing the peace would have painful consequences, since he refused to listen or engage with the Pentagon or the State Department who had the knowledge he needed on what was required to be done. The book inevitably covers several related issues notably the toxic influence of two individuals (Wolfowitz and Feith) on forcing the Defence Department's approach to arguing for and then mishandling the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the roles of several side players (especially Cheney, Rice and Bremer) but the key central theme of Rumsfeld versus the Pentagon is what makes the book such a powerful read. The Pentagon may think they won a pyrrhic victory with Rumsfeld's resignation but the fundamental of how to avoid a repeat where by keeping silence and acquiescing they were indirectly losers as Herspring's suggested solutions at the end make clear, is still unresolved. I started reading this book after the fallout between President Obama and General McChrystal and sadly concluded that the Pentagon has not yet moved on much since the demise of Rumsfeld and his costly legacy. That does not augur well one fears for the ongoing involvement of USA in foreign conflicts in the 21st century.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
