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MWSA Review
War During Peace tackles a controversial and heavily documented period in recent history but manages to provide new perspectives and insights. The author takes the time to carefully research and organize a framework for his approach before laying out his conclusions. Decisions made by both political and military leaders are presented against the structure of established definitions of sound strategy, both global and military.
Dr. Hamilton offers the fresh perspective of a scholar who was also intimately involved in the conflict at the senior command level. Although the historic facts that he presents are well known, he uses the first-person accounts of an impressive number of participants in tracking the unsteady march to US failure in Vietnam.
Although Dr. Hamilton is a career Army officer, he does not avoid examining the cultural factors that made the US military vulnerable to the political processes that drove the US to defeat. He highlights critical points where stronger positions by military leaders (especially Army senior leaders) might have persuaded civilian authorities to adopt more successful policies and tactics.
No disaster is the result of a single blunder or mistake. A thoughtful reader of War During Peace should discover a clearer picture of what actually went wrong—and what did not—in Vietnam during the decades between 1955 and 1975. Despite a few formatting problems, the reader will find many explanations for the decisions that led to American forces fighting a war in Vietnam while the rest of the nation remained at peace.
Review by Peter Young (March 2020)
Author's Synopsis
War During Peace: A Strategy for Defeat offers a probing examination of civil-military relationship gone wrong is a major contribution to military science and to the field of civil-military relations. Detailing the flaws in the Johnson Administration's Strategy of Attrition and the folly of thinking the gradual application of airpower could "modify" the behavior of the North Vietnamese leadership. War During Peace: A Strategy for Defeat exposes the thinking of those who made the Vietnam War impossible for our military to win and how our political leadership continues to make many of the same mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Researched and written by award-winning author, Dr. William Hamilton, this book reveals insights into the conflict through personal interviews with many of the then retired generals and admirals who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the McNamara Era.
Praise for War During Peace: A Strategy for Defeat: “This is the best book yet on the origins of the Vietnam War and how politicians continue to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”—Lt. General Thomas G. McInerney, USAF (Ret.), a former fighter pilot who served four combat tours in Vietnam. “Why was the American public so poorly informed about the War in Vietnam? For some of the answers read: War During Peace: A Strategy for Defeat, in particular, read Chapter VI ‘Troops, Time, TET, and Truth.’”—Joseph L. Galloway co-author of We Were Soldiers Once…and Young: Ia Drang—The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam (1991), and co-author of We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam (2009). “Right on target! War During Peace exposes the thinking of those who made the Vietnam War impossible to win and how our political leadership keeps making many of the same mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq.”—Rear Admiral H. Denny Wisely, USN (Ret.), former commander of the Navy’s Blue Angels, former commander of the USS John F. Kennedy, and recently the author of Green Ink;
Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle
Review Genre: Nonfiction—History
Number of Pages: 416