Breach of Trust
eBook - ePub

Breach of Trust

How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

  1. 256 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Breach of Trust

How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

About this book

This New York Times bestseller is a blistering critique of the gulf between America's soldiers and the society that sends them off to war.

In Breach of Trust, Andrew J. Bacevich takes stock of the separation between Americans and their military, tracing its origins to the Vietnam era and exploring its pernicious implications: a nation with an abiding appetite for war waged at enormous expense by a standing army demonstrably unable to achieve victory. Among the collateral casualties are values once considered central to democratic practice, including the principle that responsibility for defending the country should rest with its citizens.

Citing figures as diverse as the martyr-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the marine-turned-anti-warrior Smedley Butler, Breach of Trust summons Americans to restore that principle. Rather than something for "other people" to do, national defense should become the business of "we the people." Should Americans refuse to shoulder this responsibility, Bacevich warns, the prospect of endless war, waged by a "foreign legion" of professionals and contractor-mercenaries, beckons. So too does bankruptcy—moral as well as fiscal.

"Scorching . . . heartbreaking . . . Bacevich dismantles the warrior myth we civilians and politicians so enjoy worshiping from afar, and replaces that idol with flesh and blood, vulnerable humans, who deserve better than the profligate, wasteful way in which we treat them." ?Rachel Maddow, New York Times Book Review

"Reveals the civil-military dysfunction that made this a nation of endless conflicts, waged by a professional warrior class, for a public that has traded civic virtue for mindless flag-waving. This is an original, provocative, and invaluable book for anyone who hasn't given up on America." ? New York Times– bestselling author Nick Turse

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Yes, you can access Breach of Trust by Andrew J. Bacevich in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Military & Maritime History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Notice
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. Prologue
  8. Introduction
  9. Part I: Nation at War
  10. Part II: Warrior’s Plight
  11. Part III: Skin in the Game
  12. Notes
  13. Acknowledgments
  14. Index
  15. The American Empire Project
  16. Also by Andrew Bacevich
  17. About the Author
  18. Copyright