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Military reformers have often been frustrated when what seem like highly rational ideas for greater military effectiveness meet with passive or active resistance by various sections of the military establishment. What Carl Builder did in this book was to abandon attempts of dredge through ancient history and instead try to understand what fundamental motivations the three major services bring to considerations of proposed change. He found each military service to be a complex organism with internal differences and tensions but each with a specific key motivational paradigm. As clearly stated by other reviewers, the Air Force sees the love of flight and flying to be the central principle that guides it forward, the Navy sees the sanctity of independent command of the ship as basic to by its organizing principle and the Army sees itself as the faithful and dutiful servant of the nation and its population validated by it's role and function in 1944/5.
If this were all Carl Builder had done, it would have explained a great deal, but there is more to this book than some specific insight that left to itself might be interesting but not all that significant. In addition, the author spent some time describing what he means by strategy and by analysis and then shows how each service's self image affects its style of doing strategy and doing analysis. Finally, Builder tries to wrap up his understanding of these matters by reviewing the implications for national military planning and the prospects of change.
Something that makes this book all the more remarkable is that Builder, writing in 1989, just as the Soviet Union was coming to pieces, was able to see that the Army had already been repeatedly tasked with carrying out styles of war that really did not follow the 1944/45 triumph of the nation in arms narrative. He foresaw that this would continue to be the case and that the other two services would continue in their role of offering necessary support without having to question either of their fundamental self conceptions. He could not, of course, have predicted the unending war in the Islamic world of the "all-volunteer" force, but the challenge that has created for the Army's self conception would certainly be of no surprise to anyone using this work as a guide.
In many ways, Builder so correctly captured today's reality from the perspective of 25 years ago. Close air support is still an orphan in the Air Force as it tries to shed the A10 force. Minesweeping is still the lowest status job in the Navy and the aircraft carrier is still king even though debate is allowed on the subject. Engineers and civil action assets are still undervalued in the Army. The tension between Special Operations and line combat arms in the Army goes on. He also made clear that in the final analysis, it was going to be the Army and its commitment to ground based action that would actually define American commitment to military activity. The best example of that after the writing of this book was in the Balkan wars where the use of or credible threat of ground force action was the factor that forces the Serbs to consent to the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.
I think Builder really had the point of view that the personnel of the services were good and well meaning people but quite constrained by the necessarily strong internal cultures and cultural assumptions he identified. It is perhaps unfortunate that he used the word "toys" to describe the machinery of combat that each service employs, though he did try to explain he did not mean it as disrespectfully as it sounds.
In the end, this book could seem discouraging to potential military reformers but Builder wanted to make the point that change had to be worked through the culture as it really existed, taking truly into account the fundamental and different self images of the services. From this point of view this work is of quite significant value. Many books are out there about our military and what is wrong with it and what needs to change. Reading this book should provide a better perspective on all the others.
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