US Defence Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military Innovation and the New American War of War, 1973-2003

From 1973 to the 2003 liberation of Iraq, American military thought and defense planning was transformed.US Military Innovation and Strategy after Vietnampresents the reader with a clear overview and assessment of this Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Robert Tomes skillfully details this thirty-year process that began in the aftermath of Vietnam, matured in the 1980s as Pentagon planners sought an integrated nuclear-conventional deterrent, and culminated with battles fought during sandstorms on the road to Baghdad in 2004. He distills the key historical, conceptual, and doctrinal factors central to the evolution of US defense policy and military thought during the last three decades. In doing so, Tomes explores the widespread perception that advanced US war fighting capabilities became suddenly available in the early 1990s, a perception that skewed defense policy discourse at a time when a more balanced understanding of historical factors was sorely needed. In addition, the reader ispresented with a wide range of invaluable insights into innovation phenomena and a clear understanding of the origins and core elements of recent US advances in areas such as battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance, long-range precision strike, stealth technology, and end-to-end information and knowledge capabilities. This book will be of great interest to all students of the US military, military history and of military and strategic studies in general.