War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World (Hardcover)

by Frank J. Gaffney Jr. (Author), Victor David Hanson (Introduction), R. James Woolsey (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This is the book the enemy doesn't want you to read.... We ARE in a war for our survival. War Footing is a blueprint to not just survive this threat, but vanquish it. -- Dr. Monica Crowley

America has been at war for years, but until now, it has not been clear with whom or precisely for what. And we have not been using the full resources we need to win.

With the publication of War Footing, lead-authored by Frank Gaffney, it not only becomes clear who the enemy is and how high the stakes are, but also exactly how we can prevail.

War Footing shows that we are engaged in nothing less than a War for the Free World. This is a fight to the death with Islamofascists, Muslim extremists driven by a totalitarian political ideology that, like Nazism or Communism before it, is determined to destroy freedom and the people who love it.

Mr. Gaffney and his esteemed colleagues offer ten specific steps that Americans, as individuals and as communities, can take to ensure their way of life and safety and the future well-being of their children and grandchildren. These steps include detailed recommendations about how to:

-- Know the enemy

-- Really support U.S. troops

-- Provide for the country's energy security

-- Stop investing in terror

-- Equip the country for war at home

-- Counter the mega-threat: an EMP attack

-- Secure U.S. borders and the interior against illegal immigration

-- Wage political warfare

-- Launch regional initiatives

-- Wield effective diplomacy

This book is a highly readable and definitive owners manual for the War for the Free World. Whether we like it or not, every American owns a stake in its outcome. War Footing tells us how we can make sure it comes out right.

About the Author

Frank Gaffney is one of the most thoughtful and visible national security experts of our time. He held senior positions in the Reagan Defense Department and on the staffs of leading Democratic and Republican senators.

Since he founded the Washington, D.C.- based Center for Security Policy in 1988, Mr. Gaffney and his organization have become widely recognized by policy makers, the media, and the public alike as go-to sources for timely, informed, and articulate analysis of current defense and foreign policy developments.

Under Mr. Gaffney s leadership, the Center for Security Policy has promoted policies consistent with the Reagan philosophy of peace through strength. To advance this agenda, the organization brings together and works with many of America’s finest security policy practitioners and other experts. As a group, they comprise the Special Forces in the War of Ideas. War Footing is their playbook.

Among those who contributed brilliant analyses and commonsense recommendations to War Footing are: R. James Woolsey, Victor Davis Hanson, General Tom McInerney, General Paul Vallely, Alex Alexiev, Andrew McCarthy, Claudia Rosett, Michael Rubin, Daniel Goure, Caroline Glick, and Michael Waller. Their inputs - and those of twenty other contributors - help make this strategy for winning the War for the Free World as readable as it is needed.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press (November 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591143012
• ISBN-13: 978-1591143017
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #536,596 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

105 of 110 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wake-Up Call For America, December 10, 2005

By	Mark L. Schannon (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Regarding President Bush's handling of the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq, "Something is missing in the Bush administration's approach, and in manifests itself in a number of inadequate and sometimes even feckless steps that fail to produce a determined effort, a coherent strategy, or a rallied nation." Written by a head-in-the-sand liberal? Anti-Bush, anti-war activist? Try R. James Woolsey, President Regan's CIA director, who notes, "Even among those of us who support...President Bush...there persists a pervasive disquiet. [Emphasis added.]

Thus begins the Foreword to one of the most disturbing--even terrifying--books on the state of the world today, War Footing, by Frank J. Gaffney, former assistant secretary for defense for international security policy under President Reagan and founder of the Center for Security Policy.

Some books startle you from the beginning, shaking you out of complacency into a new understanding. Others build slowly, often reminding you of what you've already read, but by putting the various links together in new ways, leave you shaken, distressed, and muttering, "I never thought about it that way before." War Footing is in the latter category. Whatever one's political philosophy--and there's enough in the book to offend everyone--I can't imagine anyone rejecting Gaffney's opening argument that this book is "your owner's manual for the War for the Free World." Whether one accepts the entire thesis or not, this book is a serious, must-read book for anyone concerned about what's going on in the world--we ignore it at our own peril.

No one escapes Gaffney's criticism: the administration's strategic myopia and pathetic attempts at public diplomacy, the Defense Department's refusal to understand the nature of the enemy, the State Department's undermining of administration policy, corporations who knowingly do business with countries supporting terrorist activities, and the entire country for refusing to take concrete steps that could be implemented quickly and relatively painlessly to end our suicidal dependence on foreign oil.

Making a clear distinction between the majority of Muslims who pose no threat, Gaffney identifies what he calls "the new totalitarians," Islamofascists, and compares them and their goals with those of Hitler, Stalin, and other fascists determined to create a new world order--one in which Americans aren't welcome.

War Footing is not a dense, policy wonk's dissertation, although there are times one wishes he'd written the thousand-page companion--it is, as he describes, a manual. At 270 pages, he sets out ten specific steps that need to be taken immediately if we are to survive the coming decades.

At the same time, he examines the world, region by region, exposing the growing Islamofascist threat. It shouldn't be news to anyone that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is a dictatorial thug who has done everything, including killing wannabe voters, to rig the current election. And yet, in the Saturday, December 10th Washington Post, the failure of his efforts--and our billion-dollar a year support became clear with the following headline: "Banned Islamic Movement Now the Main Opposition in Egypt."

If it were only Egypt, perhaps one could relax, but there is literally no world area that, in one way or another, is immune from the Islamofascists or in league with them to thwart American interests. One might take exception to some of Gaffney's claims, but if he's only fifty percent right, America is woefully unprepared--both to confront the problems overseas and manage them at home. In the same edition of the Post was a disquieting report that our crisis communications systems are no better than they were pre-9/11. More billions wasted.

Gaffney--and the considerable group of experts with whom he collaborated--fall well into the conservative arena, and, as a hard-core liberal, I found myself at times frustrated with some of the rhetoric. (I'm reassured by the fact that hard-core conservatives will be just as frustrated by his criticisms of the administration and big business.) But there's no question that Russia and China continue to act against our interests around the world, that the Saudis continue to spread and fund the most virulent form of Islamic extremism, that Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt are at risk of being taken over by the Islamofascists, that demographic, economic, and immigration problems in Europe threaten that continent's future viability...and that America isn't having the kind of open, honest dialogue necessary to fully understand and respond to the real world.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Threat Analysis, December 19, 2005

By	L. Cary (Little Elm, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A remarkable piece of work in that it is:
- comprehensive, covering the spectrum of security challenges and threats
- readable, in that it is written in plain English for a lay audience, not for policy wonks
- informative, in that it addresses challenges that seldom make it into the narrow vision of the US news outlets
It is unsettling, as it needs to be.

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Last!, December 21, 2005

By	Bob Milspaugh (USA) - See all my reviews

At last, a Unified Field Theory of what America needs
to do! Not just a laundry list of current threats,
problems and challenges, this comprehensive volume
transcends mere hand-wringing to delineate specific,
viable solutions to each of the major dangers we face
as a civilization today: be it oil dependency, illegal
immigration, indirect corporate funding of terrorism,
or more exotic doomsday scenarios such as the one
outlined in the chilling EMP chapter, "War Footing"
defines the problem, then gives extremely specific
steps we need to take to achieve the solution in each
case. A crucial, timely text that ultimately
transcends party/political lines.