[PDF] The Ever Shrinking Fighting Force eBook

Author : Arnold Punaro
Publisher :
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 43,20 MB
Release : 2021-02
Category :
ISBN : 9781735911403

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Its capabilities unrivaled and its global reach unmatched, America's military is the envy of the world. Yet, to those in the know, like retired Marine Major General Arnold Punaro, a former Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee, there is compelling need for improvement in its support elements. From the glacial pace of acquisitions to the spiraling growth of the defense agencies to the fully-burdened costs of the All-Volunteer Force, the Department of Defense's non-warfighting elements are not getting enough bang for the buck. Every recent Secretary of Defense has pushed business-minded reforms as a high priority, citing the need to convert overhead to warfighting capacity.Despite substantial increases in defense spending over the last decades, the number of warfighters is still declining. The Ever-Shrinking Fighting Force lays out, in clear and compelling detail, the major factors that contribute to this adverse trend that has outlasted efforts to reverse it by strong Defense Secretaries and even Presidents.Drawing on his half-century of experience in national security, Gen. Punaro offers a no-nonsense look at the inefficiencies that have plagued the Pentagon's creeping bureaucracy for decades. With calls for defense reform emanating from both the executive and legislative branches, this timely book provides a road map for thoughtful and balanced improvements.

Author : Arnold L. Punaro
Publisher : US Naval Institute Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 18,52 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781612519067

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Major General Arnold Punaro, USMC (Ret.), served 35 years in uniform. He spent 24 years in the U.S. Senate, becoming Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He was a top industry executive and is currently CEO of a small business. He serves on numerous boards and commissions related to national security

Author : Keith B. Bickel
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 44,62 MB
Release : 2018-03-09
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0429978677

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Keith B. Bickel challenges a host of military and strategic theories that treat particular bureaucratic structures, large organizations, and elites as the progenitors of doctrine. This timely study of how the military draws lessons from interventions focuses on the overlooked role that mid-level combat officers play in creating military doctrine. Mars Learning closely evaluates Marine civil and military pacification operations in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua, and illuminates the debates surrounding the development of Marine Corps' small wars doctrine between 1915 and 1940. The result is compelling evidence of how field experience obtained before 1940 played a role in shaping the Marine Corps' Small Wars Manual and elements of doctrine that exist today. How the Marines organized lessons at that time provides important insights into how doctrine is likely to be generated today in response to post-Cold War interventions around the globe.

Author : Hugh S. Vest
Publisher :
Page : 88 pages
File Size : 28,49 MB
Release : 2005-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781410219473

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The rapid expansion of social democracy and technology has drawn the military closer to civilian society. Major Vest takes a practical and conceptual look at some of the deep cultural patterns of change within today's military society and he highlights the need to continue the dialogue on shaping the military culture of tomorrow's cyber warriors. He questions whether the modern occupational military can consistently fulfill the demands of soldiers in the twenty-first century, or whether it is adversely affecting the development of the heroic leaders and followers we need for future military endeavors.

Author : Robert H. Scales
Publisher : US Naval Institute Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 35,59 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781682471029

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"Scales on War is a collection of ideas, concepts, and observations about contemporary war taken from over thirty years of research, writing, and personal experience by retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales. Each chapter addresses a distinct topic facing the upcoming prospects of America's military, including tactical ground warfare, future gazing, the draft, and the role of women in the infantry. Fusing all of these topics together is Scales' belief that, throughout its history, the United States has favored a technological approach to fighting its wars and has neglected its ground forces."--Provided by publisher.

Author : Heidi Squier Kraft
Publisher : Hachette UK
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 22,7 MB
Release : 2007-10-24
Category : History
ISBN : 0316022977

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When Lieutenant Commander Heidi Kraft's twin son and daughter were fifteen months old, she was deployed to Iraq. A clinical psychologist in the US Navy, Kraft's job was to uncover the wounds of war that a surgeon would never see. She put away thoughts of her children back home, acclimated to the sound of incoming rockets, and learned how to listen to the most traumatic stories a war zone has to offer. One of the toughest lessons of her deployment was perfectly articulated by the TV show M*A*S*H: "There are two rules of war. Rule number one is that young men die. Rule number two is that doctors can't change rule number one." Some Marines, Kraft realized, and even some of their doctors, would be damaged by war in ways she could not repair. And sometimes, people were repaired in ways she never expected. Rule Number Two is a powerful firsthand account of providing comfort admidst the chaos of war, and of what it takes to endure.

Author : Paul R. Birch
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 31,4 MB
Release : 2024-02-09
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0700636218

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The beautiful picture of brothers in arms vanquishing a tyrant. The power of a well-orchestrated army and navy winning historic battles. Overwhelming military might and ability through teamwork. This is how the US military services portray themselves to the public and to their own service members through official doctrine. However, under the veneer of jointness, deeply fraught processes are at play. Frequently, the services think more about protecting organizational turf than about national security and maintaining an advantage against the United States’ external adversaries. Uniting US military services is a difficult endeavor that becomes even more so the farther from a battlefield and the higher up the command structure the unifying needs to happen. In The Collaborative Fight, Paul R. Birch and Lina M. Svedin examine cases of institutional jointness among US military services from the late nineteenth century into the twenty-first century. They draw actionable conclusions for practitioners in the defense establishment while giving examples of successful joint cooperation that overcame the difficulties inherent in pursuing it. Even the successful cases that Birch and Svedin discuss show that the US military services face bureaucratic incentives and organizational leadership issues that make battlefield cooperation less than ideal. Birch and Svedin adeptly translate theory and history into approaches useful to practitioners in the field while examining the theoretical framework outlining the drivers in joint military cooperation.

Author : Michael J. Boskin
Publisher : Hoover Press
Page : 707 pages
File Size : 38,93 MB
Release : 2023-11-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0817925961

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America is facing the most dangerous and complex geopolitical environment since World War II. Ensuring the adequacy and flexibility of our defense budget is essential to keeping our nation secure and the world safe for global democracy. Defense Budgeting for a Safer World brings together the ideas, perspectives, and solutions of America's most renowned experts on national security and the defense budget. The volume originates from a conference held at the Hoover Institution in early 2023 and reflects the presentations, discussions, and debates among military and civilian leaders. Drawing on their remarkable experience leading the Pentagon, the services, Congress, and academe, these experts lay out the key priorities in reforming, realigning, and rightsizing the budget amid current challenges. Several topics converge: national security threats, strategy, technology and innovation, personnel, reform options, and the politics of the defense budget. This unique compilation covers each of the major areas of debate in forging and sustaining a defense budget capable of supporting the nation's security needs.