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Andrew J. Bacevich

Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country (American Empire Project) Hardcover – September 10, 2013

by Andrew J. Bacevich (Author)

198 ratings

Part of: American Empire Project (33 books)

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A blistering critique of the gulf between America's soldiers and the society that sends them off to war, from the bestselling author of The Limits of Power and Washington Rules

The United States has been "at war" in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade. Yet as war has become normalized, a yawning gap has opened between America's soldiers and veterans and the society in whose name they fight. For ordinary citizens, as former secretary of defense Robert Gates has acknowledged, armed conflict has become an "abstraction" and military service "something for other people to do."

In Breach of Trust, bestselling author Andrew J. Bacevich takes stock of the separation between Americans and their military, tracing its origins to the Vietnam era and exploring its pernicious implications: a nation with an abiding appetite for war waged at enormous expense by a standing army demonstrably unable to achieve victory. Among the collateral casualties are values once considered central to democratic practice, including the principle that responsibility for defending the country should rest with its citizens.

Citing figures as diverse as the martyr-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the marine-turned-anti-warrior Smedley Butler, Breach of Trust summons Americans to restore that principle. Rather than something for "other people" to do, national defense should become the business of "we the people." Should Americans refuse to shoulder this responsibility, Bacevich warns, the prospect of endless war, waged by a "foreign legion" of professionals and contractor-mercenaries, beckons. So too does bankruptcy―moral as well as fiscal.

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Metropolitan Books
Publication date

September 10, 2013
Dimensions

6.07 x 0.96 x 8.47 inches
ISBN-10

0805082964
ISBN-13

978-0805082968
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Despite our ostensible admiration of our men and women in arms, Americans have offloaded the full burden of war onto their shoulders—with dismal results, argues Boston University history professor and Army vet Bacevich (Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War) in this impassioned and painfully convincing polemic. Our Founding Fathers proclaimed that all free people must make sacrifices when the nation goes to war. As late as WWII, the draft affected nearly everyone, with most people having a family member, friend, or colleague in the service. F.D.R.'s government raised taxes and instituted price controls and rationing, yet few complained. Bacevich emphasizes that eliminating the draft in 1973 sowed the seeds of disaster. When Bush announced the war on terror in 2001, the president mobilized volunteer troops, but not the nation; he urged Americans to enjoy life, and he cut taxes. Since borrowing paid the bill, and there was no draft, few complained. When the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan turned sour, protests were mild compared to the upheavals over Vietnam. Bacevich asserts bluntly that a disengaged and compliant citizenry has reduced military service from a universal duty to a matter of individual choice, allowing our leaders to wage war whenever (and for however long) they choose—with little to fear from an electorate who are neither paying nor perishing. (Sept. 10)

From Booklist

In January 1973, the military draft was suspended, in effect pointing the way to an all-volunteer military. The Nixon administration hoped this would defuse antidraft elements, and it was also concerned about dissension within the conscript army. Forty years later, one could argue that we have a more professional, efficient military, well equipped to handle the high-tech nature of contemporary warfare. Is there a downside? Absolutely, asserts history professor and U.S. Army veteran Bacevich. He criticizes what he regards as the reckless application of military power, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike Vietnam, however, most American citizens feel disconnected from the true costs of the war in blood and treasure; taxes remain low and few worry that they or their sons or daughters will be placed in harm’s way. So our “support” for our military is reduced to staged patriotic displays costing most citizens nothing. Bacevich clearly has a foreign-policy agenda beyond civil-military relations, but this is a serious, well-argued work that should engender discussion within society and government. --Jay Freeman

From Bookforum

Andrew Bacevich hates the “all-volunteer” military, and Breach of Trust is perhaps his angriest book since he retired from the army in the early 1990s. It’s not the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen that he’s upset with. To the contrary. It’s the new and unhinged institution that has corrupted the American polity: the nation’s permanent political class. Freed of the Vietnam Era’s resentful or unfit draftees, the volunteer force has allowed political leaders and the Pentagon to make war without having to worry about poor performance, rebellion in the ranks, or public disapprova. This is a gripping, appropriately lacerating book. —Jeff Stein

Review

“Scorching… heartbreaking… Bacevich dismantles the warrior myth we civilians and politicians so enjoy worshiping from afar, and replaces that idol with flesh and blood, vulnerable humans, who deserve better than the profligate, wasteful way in which we treat them.” ―Rachel Maddow, the New York Times Book Review

“Bacevich offers a brilliant critique of an American military system sharply at variance with our democratic republican ideals. Most disturbing is his compelling argument that the fault lies with We the People. A thought-provoking ride.” ―Karl W. Eikenberry, Lieutenant General, U. S. Army (Retired) and former U. S. Ambassador to Afghanistan

“With American warmongers and militarists demanding the bombing of North Korea and intervention in the Syrian civil war, Andrew Bacevich's powerfully written Breach of Trust comes at a critical time. For Bacevich, the problem is perpetual war, a condition fostered by our citizens' detachment from the conflicts America fights. President Obama, Congress, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff should read this book, but the American people must read it because they, to Bacevich, represent the solution.” ―Colonel Gian P. Gentile, Associate Professor of History, West Point

“Breach of Trust is grimly eloquent, with prose as effortless as its truths are hard. In this superb history, Andrew Bacevich reveals the civil-military dysfunction that made this a nation of endless conflicts, waged by a professional warrior class, for a public that has traded civic virtue for mindless flag-waving. This is an original, provocative, and invaluable book for anyone who hasn't given up on America.” ―Nick Turse, author of Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam

“Like the soldier that he was, Andrew Bacevich is courageous. As the scholar that he is, he is learned. As a citizen, he is impassioned. All this has combined to produce a unique voice of great value in American political life. In Breach of Trust he anatomizes what he knows best, the acute danger our current military institutions and policies pose to American democracy. Anyone who cherishes that democracy should read and heed this book.” ―Jonathan Schell, author of The Unconquerable World and The Real War

About the Author

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, served for twenty-three years as an officer in the U.S. Army. He is the author of Washington Rules, The Limits of Power, and The New American Militarism, among other books. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Metropolitan Books; 1st edition (September 10, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0805082964
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0805082968
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.07 x 0.96 x 8.47 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #836,652 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,084 in U.S. Political Science
- #9,165 in American Military History
- #42,077 in United States History (Books)

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If You Have No Responsibility for a Thing, You Have No Power Over That Thing

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2018

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Career soldier and Gold Star father Andrew Bacevich has made a second career out of reevaluating the role of America's military in American society and the world. The thesis of his 2013 book "Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed their Soldiers and their Country" is that the all-volunteer force is a method of immunizing the government, the army, and the wars they conduct from adverse public opinion. This is what makes it a great companion book to Michael Beschloss' "Presidents of War."

The vast majority of major powers in the world abolished conscription in the wake of the United States' decision to do so in 1973 and why not? From the standpoint of any government, abolishing conscription is the best way to keep those pesky ordinary people out of the business of war. Peacetime conscription may have been a response to the unique emergency of the Cold War but Bacevich argues that it also made the army representative of the people and gave the latter skin in the game, creating a uniquely desirable (if short lived) state of affairs.

The United States military today is just like that of Rome or Britain at the height of those countries' empires and is accordingly mired in similar unending missions. The only real way for the people to control where and to do what the army is sent, is for the people (and not just people with no better options) to make up the army. Bacevich's argument, though spare (only 196 pages) convinced me completely. Five stars.

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Gerald M. Sutliff

Breach of Trust

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2013

Verified Purchase

I couldn't agree more with author Bacevich. Personally I've been out of sync with what passes for military policy since I returned from being a grunt level service man (USArmy) back in really early days of Vietnam conflict. In a sense this book reassures me that there are thinking, intelligent officers serving but on the other hand. where were they back in 1962 - 63 before it was too late? I'm looking forward to reading Bacevich's suggestions on how to prevent military "interventions" in the future. Bacevich's prose in clear and his arguments well written. I recommend Breach of Trust to anyone who harbors even the slightest doubt about our popularization of military culture from the Friday Night High School football game to Hollywood mega "entertainments". The worst action by Dick Nixon was ending the draft, I thought so then and do now.

46 people found this helpful

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Michael J. Gosling

A Solid Look at The Military

Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2013

Verified Purchase

Andrew Bacevich has done it once again. "Breach of Trust" offers a well researched account of the history of the Army, as well as how the country's citizens have abdicated their responsibility to truly stand behind the armed forces by making sacrifices in their own lives to "Support the Troops."

A criticism of Bacevich I have read in the past is that all his books are essentially the same: The misuse of the country's military to solve matters of international diplomacy. However, a close look at his work shows how he systematically analyzes each facet of how the government, and in turn the country's citizens, look to using the armed forces as an end in itself to maintain America's role as the one indispensable nation on the planet.

A must read for those interested in what a lack of genuine concern, and in turn, the responsibilities of citizenship, for the men and women in uniform will affect the country's future.

Mike Gosling

36 people found this helpful

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Java Man Carlini

A timely and worthwhile reminder

Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2015

Verified Purchase

As interesting and thoughtful as Bacevich's book is, I have to ask whether he might consider the National Guard and Reserve units the functional equivalent of a 'citizen army'? They, after all, have been providing 50% of the soldiers for the GWOT. That was, we should recall, the Pentagon's trade-off for accepting an end to draft calls in 1973. Yet we don't hear much from the NGs & Reservists about being misused. Bacevich, eloquent as he is, hasn't really said anything that other authors who were not graduates of The Point have been saying for 50 years or more, so there's not much "news" here. It is, rather, a brief and crisp distillation of a half-century of many other authors' work, augmented by his personal experience and individual epiphany that propelled him to add his academic heft to the public debate about the ends served by the US military.

As much emphasis as other readers have placed on Bacevich's call to return to conscription, I don't see it as that central. Is it really much of a retardant of machinations of the powerful elites who make those decisions? I think not; where was the resistance during the first 20 years of US involvement in Indochina (1945-1965), for example? And, often as not, the resistance within the military that emerged very near the end of US involvement there came from enlistees rather than draftees. And the draft in the post-WWII period never really hoovered in many who were outside the demographic that continues to enlist under the VOLAR, so who serves and who doesn't--absent a radical change in the workings of the still-intact Selective Service System--would not in all likelihood change with a return to statutory conscription.

2 people found this helpful

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Old Tim

A vwey well writtem book

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2020

Verified Purchase

Bacevich is an excellent writer and this book is no exception. He details the disconnect between the people who serve in the military and the general public. He makes the point that when Americans have no "skin in the game" is it too easy to ignore our military adventures and allow a small group of Americans to shoulder the load and and suffer the consequences. I have always hated "thank you for your service" and this book explains that better than I ever could.

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Kindle Customer

Impressive as ever

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 19, 2014

Verified Purchase

Bacevich's books never fail to impress, and this is no exception. He's touched on this subject before in The New American Militarism and elsewhere, but it gets fuller and more considered attention here.

As always the arguments are precise and backed up with thorough references. But it's not just thoroughness of thought and robust moral framework that impresses. It's his ability to locate his argument within a clear historical context and in doing so, to illuminate the present. As is so often the case, he manages to put into words and flesh out ideas that I've only dimly percieved.

For once though, I did think there were some limitations. Obviously Vietnam happened without an all-volunteer force, so going back to a citizen-soldier ethic isn't likely to achieve very much without major political changes elsewhere.

advokat

I liked the ideas, not the presentation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2015

Verified Purchase

I like Bacevich writings, and this is a fine one. It got important message to convey, namely, that the abolition of conscription during the Vietnam War had unexpected wicked consequences, that continue influencing the high politics of today. I would recommend it. The trouble is, I have read it right after re-reading "American Diplomacy" by George Kennan. Kennan would have made three paragraphs out of the whole book, without loosing anything important.

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