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Public Management and Change
The Greening of the U.S. Military: Environmental Policy, National Security, and Organizational Change
By the Cold War's end, U.S. military bases harbored nearly 20,000 toxic waste sites. All told, cleaning the approximately 27 million acres is projected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. And yet while progress has been made, efforts to integrate environmental and national security concerns into the military's operations have proven a daunting and intrigue-filled task that has fallen short of professed goals in the post-Cold War era.
In The Greening of the U.S. Military , Robert F. Durant delves into this too-little understood world of defense environmental policy to uncover the epic and ongoing struggle to build an environmentally sensitive culture within the post-Cold War military. Through over 100 interviews and thousands of pages of documents, reports, and trade newsletter accounts, he offers a telling tale of political, bureaucratic, and intergovernmental combat over the pace, scope, and methods of applying environmental and natural resource laws while ensuring military readiness. He then discerns from these clashes over principle, competing values, and narrow self-interest a theoretical framework for studying and understanding organizational change in public organizations.
From Dick Cheney's days as Defense Secretary under President George H. W. Bush to William Cohen's Clinton-era-tenure and on to Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, the battle over "greening" the military has been one with high-stakes consequences for both national defense and public health, safety, and the environment. Durant's polity-centered perspective and arguments will evoke needed scrutiny, debate, and dialogue over these issues in environmental, military, policymaking, and academic circles.
In The Greening of the U.S. Military , Robert F. Durant delves into this too-little understood world of defense environmental policy to uncover the epic and ongoing struggle to build an environmentally sensitive culture within the post-Cold War military. Through over 100 interviews and thousands of pages of documents, reports, and trade newsletter accounts, he offers a telling tale of political, bureaucratic, and intergovernmental combat over the pace, scope, and methods of applying environmental and natural resource laws while ensuring military readiness. He then discerns from these clashes over principle, competing values, and narrow self-interest a theoretical framework for studying and understanding organizational change in public organizations.
From Dick Cheney's days as Defense Secretary under President George H. W. Bush to William Cohen's Clinton-era-tenure and on to Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, the battle over "greening" the military has been one with high-stakes consequences for both national defense and public health, safety, and the environment. Durant's polity-centered perspective and arguments will evoke needed scrutiny, debate, and dialogue over these issues in environmental, military, policymaking, and academic circles.
298 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2007
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About the author
Robert F. Durant
8 books1 followerI am Professor Emeritus, American University, Washington, DC. My books have received 7 national book awards, and I have been given lifetime achievement awards for my books and articles from the American Political Science Association and the American Society for Public Administration. I am also and elected fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration. I presently reside in Marietta, GA.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 10, 2012
Not sure I even understand the 1-star review here, but I have a very different opinion of the book. I can't say it any better than Steven Cohen already has at this site, though: http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.gr....
Highly recommended for real insight into military environmental policy!
Highly recommended for real insight into military environmental policy!
October 21, 2010
I love my Public University education. Nothing drives deeper into the reformed theological worldview than books like this and the class I had to read it for.
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June 26, 2018There are two things: I learned a lot from this book. About the history of environmental policy and its relationship to the US government, about the way flows of power have changed the way DoD treats its massive and unusual environmental hazards, and....
the other thing. how not to write a book. Mr. Durant's "Greening of the US Military" stands out in my memory of reading some fairly boring books as not even trying to make it interesting. It's the most poorly written book I've ever read, and I finished Robert Jordan's "wheel of time" as a distraction at the same time I was reading Mr. Durant's book. He uses three word thesaurus triplets to open and close his most important sentences.
The main ideas- that environmental regs were irrelevant to the military, the military could dispose of waste however it saw fit, ignoring all environmental law- Reagan made it so that the government couldn't sue itself, so EPA couldn't sue DoD, and that there was no substantial environmental activism in US DoD until the Clinton administration... yes, that content is solid.
This publication is Mr. Durant trying to turn a graduate thesis into a book. You can learn a lot of facts from it if you're interested how the DoD has responded to environmental law. If you're looking for someone who can convey those ideas well, Mr. Durant is terrible. This is a horribly written book with a lot of good information in it.
Fortunately, it is short.
the other thing. how not to write a book. Mr. Durant's "Greening of the US Military" stands out in my memory of reading some fairly boring books as not even trying to make it interesting. It's the most poorly written book I've ever read, and I finished Robert Jordan's "wheel of time" as a distraction at the same time I was reading Mr. Durant's book. He uses three word thesaurus triplets to open and close his most important sentences.
The main ideas- that environmental regs were irrelevant to the military, the military could dispose of waste however it saw fit, ignoring all environmental law- Reagan made it so that the government couldn't sue itself, so EPA couldn't sue DoD, and that there was no substantial environmental activism in US DoD until the Clinton administration... yes, that content is solid.
This publication is Mr. Durant trying to turn a graduate thesis into a book. You can learn a lot of facts from it if you're interested how the DoD has responded to environmental law. If you're looking for someone who can convey those ideas well, Mr. Durant is terrible. This is a horribly written book with a lot of good information in it.
Fortunately, it is short.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews