Powerful and Brutal Weapons
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Powerful and Brutal Weapons by Stephen P Randolph
As America confronts an unpredictable war in Iraq, Randolph returns to an earlier conflict that severely tested our civilian and military leaders. In 1972, America sought to withdraw from Vietnam with its credibility intact, with Nixon and Kissinger hoping that gains on the battlefield would strengthen their position at the negotiating table.
The climactic Easter Offensive, the last major campaign of the American war in Vietnam, serves as Stephen Randolph's focus for this fine study of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's foreign policy and use of military powerUsing a wide range of sources, Vietnamese as well as American, Randolph convincingly details how Hanoi's armies were stopped. Powerful and Brutal Weapons is the most comprehensive history of this crucial campaign yet written. It should not be missed. -- John Prados, author of Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh
Stephen Randolph has produced a tour de force. He skillfully takes us inside the White House and over the skies of Vietnam. His analysis of Nixon's role in managing the war during the critical year of 1972--when the president was pursuing detente with the USSR, the opening to China, and his reelection bid--is brilliant. Randolph has produced a book that should be read not just by scholars and students of military history and foreign policy decision-making, but by anyone working at the highest levels of the U.S. government today. -- James Goldgeier, George Washington University
An outstanding and eminently readable account of the penultimate battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War - the 1972 Easter Offensive – and of President Nixon's decisive reaction to this massive North Vietnamese surprise attack. Colonel Randolph takes the reader inside the corridors of power, the Oval Office in Washington, and the Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo's conference room in Hanoi, and explains how the decisions made at those lofty levels were translated into action at the tactical level. This book belongs on the bookshelves of every serious student of military history and Presidential leadership. -- Merle Pribbenow, translator of Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975
For all of those who long for the good old days before the Iraq imbroglio, Stephen Randolph has written a spectacular study on the dismal processes through which the United States began to disentangle itself from the Vietnam War. In effect, Randolph has done for the end of the war what H.R. McMaster managed to do for the war's beginning. -- Williamson Murray, co-author with Major General Robert H. Scales Jr. of The Iraq War: A Military History
A detailed but lucid account. Randolph tells the tale from three sides (American, South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese) and three perspectives--military, of course, but also diplomatic and political. And it works. Randolph has done deep research--for example, into the military archives of the North Vietnamese, who candidly noted what they'd done wrong. Unlike many military writers, Randolph pays attention to the staggering importance of logistics. (He says the U.S. surge of 1972 was unprecedented and a major feat for its time.) And as a retired colonel who once flew fighters, he knows all about military culture and military turf battles. -- Harry Levins * St. Louis Post-Dispatch *
Drawing on extensive research and newly declassified materials, Randolph tells the story of how the White House overrode the objections of the Pentagon brass and the field command in Vietnam--which resulted in a display of shock-and-awe that was as impressive in the realm of realpolitik as it was on the battlefield. * The Atlantic *
[A] brilliant if scary account of a White House running its own military show. -- Tony Maniaty * Weekend Australian *
The beauty of Powerful and Brutal Weapons is that it seamlessly melds the domestic, political, diplomatic, cultural, technical, tactical, and strategic factors affecting the air war in 1972. Meticulously researched, it depends heavily on primary sources from all sides of the fight-American, North and South Vietnamese, Soviet, and Chinese. Randolph uses a chronological organizing scheme, starting with the Easter Offensive in the South and moving on to the mounting of Linebacker One. -- David R. Mets * Air and Space Power Journal *
Powerful and Brutal Weapons is far more than the story of a single big campaign. It sketches out the broad architecture of the Nixon administration’s effort to extricate itself from Vietnam and Nixon’s larger aspirations in Sino-Soviet-American affairs, making clear his simultaneous willingness to use force in ways beyond what Lyndon Johnson had allowed and his keen sense that Congressional and public patience was all but gone...Randolph has made a major and important contribution to the study of the American war effort in Vietnam, of civil-military relations, and of the interplay of war making and diplomacy. It is an indispensable part of the core literature on the place of Vietnam within the larger context of U.S. policy objectives in the 1970s. -- Donald J. Mrozek * Journal of Military History *
Powerful and Brutal Weapons is far more than the story of a single big campaign. It sketches out the broad architecture of the Nixon administration’s effort to extricate itself from Vietnam and Nixon’s larger aspirations in Sino-Soviet-American affairs, making clear his simultaneous willingness to use force in ways beyond what Lyndon Johnson had allowed and his keen sense that Congressional and public patience was all but gone...Randolph has made a major and important contribution to the study of the American war effort in Vietnam, of civil-military relations, and of the interplay of war making and diplomacy. It is an indispensable part of the core literature on the place of Vietnam within the larger context of U.S. policy objectives in the 1970s. -- Donald J. Mrozek * Journal of Military History *
Randolph uses not only an impressive range of U.S. records but also some important fresh sources from Hanoi such as official histories and proceedings of the Politburo. The result is a remarkable achievement that brings together multiple perspectives...It is an indispensable part of the core literature on the place of Vietnam within the larger context of U.S. policy objectives in the 1970s. -- Donald J. Mrozek * Journal of Military History *
Stephen Randolph has produced a tour de force. He skillfully takes us inside the White House and over the skies of Vietnam. His analysis of Nixon's role in managing the war during the critical year of 1972--when the president was pursuing detente with the USSR, the opening to China, and his reelection bid--is brilliant. Randolph has produced a book that should be read not just by scholars and students of military history and foreign policy decision-making, but by anyone working at the highest levels of the U.S. government today. -- James Goldgeier, George Washington University
An outstanding and eminently readable account of the penultimate battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War - the 1972 Easter Offensive – and of President Nixon's decisive reaction to this massive North Vietnamese surprise attack. Colonel Randolph takes the reader inside the corridors of power, the Oval Office in Washington, and the Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo's conference room in Hanoi, and explains how the decisions made at those lofty levels were translated into action at the tactical level. This book belongs on the bookshelves of every serious student of military history and Presidential leadership. -- Merle Pribbenow, translator of Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975
For all of those who long for the good old days before the Iraq imbroglio, Stephen Randolph has written a spectacular study on the dismal processes through which the United States began to disentangle itself from the Vietnam War. In effect, Randolph has done for the end of the war what H.R. McMaster managed to do for the war's beginning. -- Williamson Murray, co-author with Major General Robert H. Scales Jr. of The Iraq War: A Military History
A detailed but lucid account. Randolph tells the tale from three sides (American, South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese) and three perspectives--military, of course, but also diplomatic and political. And it works. Randolph has done deep research--for example, into the military archives of the North Vietnamese, who candidly noted what they'd done wrong. Unlike many military writers, Randolph pays attention to the staggering importance of logistics. (He says the U.S. surge of 1972 was unprecedented and a major feat for its time.) And as a retired colonel who once flew fighters, he knows all about military culture and military turf battles. -- Harry Levins * St. Louis Post-Dispatch *
Drawing on extensive research and newly declassified materials, Randolph tells the story of how the White House overrode the objections of the Pentagon brass and the field command in Vietnam--which resulted in a display of shock-and-awe that was as impressive in the realm of realpolitik as it was on the battlefield. * The Atlantic *
[A] brilliant if scary account of a White House running its own military show. -- Tony Maniaty * Weekend Australian *
The beauty of Powerful and Brutal Weapons is that it seamlessly melds the domestic, political, diplomatic, cultural, technical, tactical, and strategic factors affecting the air war in 1972. Meticulously researched, it depends heavily on primary sources from all sides of the fight-American, North and South Vietnamese, Soviet, and Chinese. Randolph uses a chronological organizing scheme, starting with the Easter Offensive in the South and moving on to the mounting of Linebacker One. -- David R. Mets * Air and Space Power Journal *
Powerful and Brutal Weapons is far more than the story of a single big campaign. It sketches out the broad architecture of the Nixon administration’s effort to extricate itself from Vietnam and Nixon’s larger aspirations in Sino-Soviet-American affairs, making clear his simultaneous willingness to use force in ways beyond what Lyndon Johnson had allowed and his keen sense that Congressional and public patience was all but gone...Randolph has made a major and important contribution to the study of the American war effort in Vietnam, of civil-military relations, and of the interplay of war making and diplomacy. It is an indispensable part of the core literature on the place of Vietnam within the larger context of U.S. policy objectives in the 1970s. -- Donald J. Mrozek * Journal of Military History *
Powerful and Brutal Weapons is far more than the story of a single big campaign. It sketches out the broad architecture of the Nixon administration’s effort to extricate itself from Vietnam and Nixon’s larger aspirations in Sino-Soviet-American affairs, making clear his simultaneous willingness to use force in ways beyond what Lyndon Johnson had allowed and his keen sense that Congressional and public patience was all but gone...Randolph has made a major and important contribution to the study of the American war effort in Vietnam, of civil-military relations, and of the interplay of war making and diplomacy. It is an indispensable part of the core literature on the place of Vietnam within the larger context of U.S. policy objectives in the 1970s. -- Donald J. Mrozek * Journal of Military History *
Randolph uses not only an impressive range of U.S. records but also some important fresh sources from Hanoi such as official histories and proceedings of the Politburo. The result is a remarkable achievement that brings together multiple perspectives...It is an indispensable part of the core literature on the place of Vietnam within the larger context of U.S. policy objectives in the 1970s. -- Donald J. Mrozek * Journal of Military History *
Stephen P. Randolph is the Historian at the U.S. Department of State.
| SKU | Nicht verfügbar |
| ISBN 13 | 9780674024915 |
| ISBN 10 | 0674024915 |
| Titel | Powerful and Brutal Weapons |
| Autor | Stephen P Randolph |
| Buchzustand | Nicht verfügbar |
| Bindungsart | Hardback |
| Verlag | Harvard University Press |
| Erscheinungsjahr | 2007-03-30 |
| Seitenanzahl | 416 |
| Preise | Nominated for President's Book Award 2006, Nominated for Ellis W. Hawley Prize 2008, Nominated for Lionel Gelber Prize 2008, Nominated for J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize 2008, Nominated for Arthur Ross Book Award 2008, Nominated for Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize 2008, Nominated for Edgar S. Furniss Book Award 2007, Nominated for Richard E. Neustadt Best Book Award 2008, Nominated for Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award 2008, Nominated for Pfizer Award 2010 |
| Hinweis auf dem Einband | Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden. |
| Hinweis | Nicht verfügbar |