From the John Holmes Library collection.

This book grew out of the need to describe the culture and structure of the uniformed services to students studying defense policy in the context of a graduate program in American government at Johns Hopkins University. The need to transform U.S. military forces was readily apparent in the 1989-1991 time frame as the Cold War came to an abrupt end. The industrial-age force of the 1980s designed to fight the military forces of another great power needed to be transformed into a force designed to intervene into the affairs of lesser powers. Instead, expensive programs were pursued to transform the industrial-age force into an information-age force to fight an unknown great power threat at an unknown future date at an unknown place. The many interventions of the Clinton and Bush administrations have exposed the failure of leadership to provide the armed forces organized, trained, and equipped for the real wars of a period between eras of great power conflict.

This volume examines how the U.S. military must rebuild in the wake of Iraq/Afghanistan, and refocus its power projection to face the new challenges emerging in the Pacific and with China. Rebuilding American Military Power in the Pacific: A 21st-Century Strategy provides an all-encompassing look at the challenges facing the United States in shaping a 21st-century Pacific strategy: dealing with the growing Chinese colossus, the unpredictable nuclear challenge presented by North Korea, the dynamic of the Arctic opening, and maintaining the security of the conveyor belt of goods and services in the Pacific. Can the United States successfully train and prepare for the 21st century, and break free from the mindset that determined its strategies in the previous century? The authors of the work explain why a carefully considered, fully modernized Pacific strategy is a key element for the evolution of American military power—and why shaping an effective air and maritime strategy in the Pacific as well as globally is the crucial challenge facing the U.S. military and the policy community. Written by authors with significant access to the media, think tanks, and high-level politicians, the book provides an insider's look at how American military leaders are building out relevant capabilities in the Pacific to defend America and its allies, and it contains extensive interviews with those leaders.

The document proposes that for the first time since its founding, the United States is confronted with the task of devising a national strategy which will coordinate its power resources, both military and nonmilitary, in order to maintain its security and achieve its long-term political goals. In undertaking this task, the main problem facing the nation is seen as that of reconciling a strong military establishment with a free society. It is difficult to envision a time or situation in which this problem has been more thoroughly investigated or rational solutions have been more seriously sought. (Author).

The United States military has evolved from a tiny and distrusted institution at the margins of government into a central element of America and American power, yet the military is sometimes hard to comprehend because of its unique language, history, and culture. Paula Thornhill first provides a primer for understanding America's military services. She then traces the military's evolution from the nation's founding through the present day to reveal how major American experiences repeatedly reshape the military. This examination offers a constant reminder that the armed services are the products of experience and accident. Thus, today's twenty-first century military reflects patterns of adaptation and agglomeration, and so may only partially reveal the ideal military America would build if starting from a blank slate. Ultimately, this book seeks to open a window into the American military in such a way that the reader can see it, for good or for ill, for what it fundamentally is--a reflection of the nation, its priorities, and its people.

For more than 40 years, U.S. defense policy and the design of military capabilities were driven by the threat to national security posed by the Soviet Union and its allies. Over a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, American forces are a smaller, but similar version of their Cold War predecessors. The author argues that the bureaucratic inertia of comfortable military elites has dominated the defense policy debate and preserved the status quo.