Citizens and Soldiers: The Dilemmas of Military Service, and: The Rise and Fall of An American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965-1973 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 245 Despite the brief span of time Dickey actually spent in the field, the view he presents of the troops is one of desperate, bitter, and ruthless commanders leading confused and questionably loyal campesinos who join the force more out of fear than out of conviction. He also presents irrefutable proof of the large CIA involvement in the funding, training, and organization of the Contras from 1981 to 1983, roughly the period covered by the book. One cannot help but admire Dickey's bravery in crossing the Honduran border into hostile territory. But what the American people need, if they are to make sense of the acrimonious debate between those who favor aiding the rebels and those who oppose such aid, are facts, not journalistic derring-do. With a writing style which Louis L'Amour might envy, Dickey has produced a quick, enjoyable read. But it is a triumph of style over substance, too facile to cut through the rhetoric which has defined the limits of the most important U.S. foreign policy debate of this decade. Citizens and Soldiers: The Dilemmas of Military Service. By Eliot A. Cohen. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. 227 pp. $22.50/cloth. The Rise and Fall ofAn American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965-1973. By Shelby L. Stanton. Novato, Calif.: Presidio, 1985. 411 pp. $22.50/cloth. Reviewed by David Colton, M.A. candidate, SAIS. Can a liberal democratic republic raise and field the instruments of military power necessary to the discharge of global responsibilities? Two recent works approach this question from different angles, illuminating the relationships between institutional and ideological systems, manpower, and battlefield performance. In Citizens and Soldiers: The Dilemmas ofMilitary Service, Harvard professor Eliot Cohen examines the tension between American liberal and egalitarian ideals and national global responsibilities. Cohen views this tension as an intractable problem for creating a basis on which to raise and sustain the requisite level of military manpower. Central to his argument is the linkage of internal political structures and ideology with how military forces are raised and actually perform on the battlefield. Analyzing the international and domestic environments that shape the military policies of political institutions, Cohen clarifies why geopolitical-military imperatives may fail to translate into the appropriate manpower posture. The United States as a world power must prosecute both limited and total wars, each requiring armies of a different nature. The Anglo-American liberaldemocratic and egalitarian ideologies complicate matters by ruling out certain ideal alternatives such as raising a mass conscript army for total war and a small professional army for limited wars. Cohen does not claim to have a solution for this impasse, but he does present options drawn from European and American historical experience. 246 SAIS REVIEW Though primarily a battlefield history, Captain Shelby L. Stanton's The Rise and Fall ofan American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965 1973 also addresses the link between domestic ideology and institutions and battlefield performance. His recountings of actual unit performance in combat reinforce Cohen's observations: The method by which the nation raised and replenished its forces determined the outcome on the battlefield far more than is commonly recognized. Like Cohen, Shelby reveals the detrimental effects of the individual rotation system on unit cohesion, leadership cadres, and fighting effectiveness. The various engagements documented herein are convincing evidence of the oft-heard observation that America did not fight in Vietnam for ten years, but one year ten times over. Given the nation's failure to mobilize reserves and the inequalities of the Selective Service System— all ordained by the nation's ideology and political institutions — the outlook was dim from the start. Cohen points to the successful but savage pacification program in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War as a model of how to wage limited war. Fought by a small elite army— 11,000 out of 14,000 volunteers were rejected— this campaign did not generate large-scale domestic protests despite opposition within the government and press establishment. As Cohen demonstrates, however, given present geopolitical requirements for a mass army and domestic concepts of volunteerism and egalitarianism, the small army optimal for such...