War Without End: American Planning For The Next Vietnams

by Michael T. Klare

~ The current military planning that threatens to keep the United States embroiled in an endless succession of Vietnams is revealed in this rigorously documented and astonishingly complete book~a work which lays bare the basis of the next generation of American military policy. Drawing on the records of the Pentagon, the State Department, and Congress, Michael T. Klare presents a comprehensive picture of the development of strategies and technologies to be employed in future American "limited wars," and places these strategies in the context of the overtly expansionist ideology that prevails at the highest levels of our government. He analyzes as well the historical roots of the new ideology and shows how it matured in the early years of Robert McNamara's stewardship of the Department of Defense~how "counterinsurgency" has become the byword, and technological advance the key, to successful implementation of policy. With full, authoritative documentation, Klare explains • the use of universities in weapons research~how the Pentagon has utilized "academics~for~hire" to develop the new counterinsurgency arsenal • the enormous expenditure of American money ~a large portion of it under the auspices of the Alliance for Progress~to train and arm Latin American police officials and antiguerrilla forces • the development of the tremendously sophisticated "electronic battlefield," key to a more efficient~and more manageable~system of death and destruction • the formulation of a new "intervention mobility" that will enable the Pentagon to deploy full divisions of troops virtually simultaneously with the outbreak of hostilities anywhere in the world • the role and function of the various Pentagon research bodies, the weapons they are develop ing, the strategies they are evolving • the planned future commitments throughout southeast Asia, from Thailand to Japan. Writing lucidly and with an expert ability to render the most complex technological matters intelligible, Klare brings to his subject the urgency it demands yet never compromises the unimpeachable accUracy upon which any such study must be based. His accompanying research guide to the Byzantine pathway, of Pentagon policy and practice breaks the code which has made full understanding of our military policy impossible for even the most concerned Americans. War Without End is a forecast grounded in concrete knowledge of the interventionist course America is currently traveling and an imperative alert to those who would choose not to see our past tragedies repeated~and magnified.

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Michael T. Klare is a Five Colleges professor of Peace and World Security Studies, whose department is located at Hampshire College, defense correspondent of The Nation magazine, and author of Resource Wars and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (Metropolitan).

Klare also teaches at Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Klare also serves on the boards of directors of Human Rights Watch, and the Arms Control Association. He is a regular contributor to many publications including The Nation, TomDispatch, Mother Jones, and is a frequent columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus.