A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon
Neil Sheehan. New York: Random House, 2009. 560 pp. Interviews. Source Notes. Bib. Index. $32.
Reviewed by Norman Friedman
Neil Sheehan's latest is really two books: an account of the creation of Air Force ballistic missiles and a rumination on the larger Cold War. The first seems very successful; the second will raise
questions among some readers.
First, the success. Every so often, discussions of U.S. strategic missiles bring up the names of Bernard Schriever, his Western Missile Division, and the company Ramo-Wooldridge (later TRW). Schriever seemed to be to the Air Force what Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was to the nuclear-powered Navy. Sheehan managed to interview Schriever extensively, and his book explains how crucial he was and how the program went from idea to reality in a way I had not previously seen. There are a few technical glitches (most notably a misleading explanation of inertial guidance), but the important story is how Schriever managed to maneuver among several minefields to success.
Sheehan is convinced that this success was crucial to national survival. He makes much of the opposition of diehard Air Force bomber advocates, particularly General Curtis E. LeMay. It would be interesting to see what LeMay's supporters make of this account. Sheehan has convinced himself that the ballistic missile was the first truly deterrent weapon in history.
Some might argue, however, that originally it was more of a first-strike weapon than a bomber: totally vulnerable on its unprotected launch pad, to the point where it had to be launched on warning. A bomber, by contrast, could be launched and put into a holding pattern until the situation became clear. This distinction never quite went away, because even after intercontinental ballistic missiles were placed in hardened silos, it was often claimed that sufficiently precise enemy weapons could destroy them before they could be launched-that it really was possible to win a nuclear war against such a force (the same cannot be said of submarine-launched missiles).
It is clear that from a psychological point of view the United States would have been at a grave disadvantage had the Soviets maintained a monopoly on ICBMs for very long; even Sputnik had grave consequences for us. Schriever was instrumental in making sure that the missile gap did not last long.
The Cold War story in effect surrounds the missile story, and it deserves comment. In Sheehan's view, the United States misinterpreted Soviet actions after 1945 and developed a paranoid psychology that led directly first to a nuclear arms race and then to the horror of Vietnam. Some respectable Russians hold that Soviet leader Josef Stalin was never particularly aggressive; we misinterpreted his plans beyond Central Europe. Unfortunately, the reality is more complex. To Stalin and to other committed communists, history would lead to their triumph; resistance on our part was attacking the just force of history. Words like defensive and aggressive were not particularly meaningful. There is evidence, for example, that Stalin chose to sign the pact with Adolf Hitler which ignited World War II, not to buy time to rearm, but in the hope that the war would grind down the Germans and the Western allies and leave them open to takeover. In 1945 he told Milovan Djilas, a prominent Yugoslav communist, that the war just ended had "liberated" half of Europe, another war might destroy imperialism altogether, and that "perhaps we'll have another go in 20 years." In other words, the horrific cost of World War II had been a reasonable price to pay to expand the communist empire.
Some of Sheehan's lapses are odd. It is one thing to remark on the destructiveness of the fire raids on Tokyo in 1945, but they seem a lot worse if the reader is unaware that German cities had been fire-bombed much earlier-or, for that matter, that fire-bombing Japan was a feature of the U.S. joint war plan against that country as early as 1929. Those facts change the raids from an extraordinary measure to one surprisingly not used until so late in the Pacific war, with very different implications (the connection to Sheehan's subject is that the commander involved was Curtis Le May, who often tried to block Schriever's missile efforts). The book's other worrisome feature is its absence of footnotes and detailed endnotes (beyond naming entire books as sources). A reader who distrusts some of what Sheehan asserts really might like to know where he got his more interesting statements.
Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History
Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn B. Young, editors. New York: The New Press, 2009. 304 pp. Illus. $30.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel William J. Astore, U.S. Air Force (Retired)
Is bombing and killing civilians "a crime against humanity regardless of the asserted military justification"? So asserts Yuki Tanaka in his searing introduction to this collection of essays on "indiscriminate" military bombing of civilians in the 20th century. One of this book's strengths is its consistent condemnation of strategic bombing theory as sanctioning mass murder, with the loaded terms "holocaust" and "genocide" being used to characterize the U.S. bombing of Tokyo in March 1945 and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that August.
American and British bombing campaigns consistently draw criticism. One essay addresses Japanese bombing campaigns against Chongqing, China, during World War II; two others cover moral and legal issues related to bombing. The book raises, in passing, Fascist Italy's bombing of Ethiopia and Nazi Germany's attacks against the Basque province of Guernica; Rotterdam in the Netherlands; Coventry, England; and London. Yet, overall, the reader is confronted by an unduly one-sided portrait of a United States bent on employing aerial superiority to bludgeon and burn its enemies into submission.
Efforts at balance and nuance come as mere asides. Robert Moeller's essay reminds us that the Anglo-American bomber offensive during World War II was the "second front" that helped to appease Stalin as well as to establish the preconditions for victory on D-Day. And Moeller does not forget how deadly the air war was to Allied air crews, who also "had faces, families, fates, and bellies filled with fear."
Similarly, Michael Sherry, after criticizing the "technological fanaticism" of American leaders during World War II, admits that U.S. technological and economic superiority "did help keep its [troop] losses the smallest among the major powers," and that "bombing did contribute to Allied victory."
Such historical context, however, is all too lacking. Diplomatic events leading up to the decision to drop the atomic bomb are detailed with no reference to the extremely bitter combat at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the sacrificial intensity of kamikazes, or growing war weariness among the Allies. Almost no effort is made to understand air war from the perspective of the air crews themselves, who are reduced to cogs in a militaristic machine devoted to mass murder. Two or three essays written by supporters of strategic bombing would have improved the balance of this work.
Naval readers will be particularly interested in an analogy Sherry makes between naval power and air power. In the early 20th century, "prophecy about battleships and submarines as decisive weapons flourished," he notes. But after World War II, with naval power's "showiest breakthroughs" seemingly consigned to the past, airpower was hyped in its place. The kicker is that airpower may now be suffering a similar marginalization, "displaced in part by terrorism and counterterrorism as principal modes of warfare," Sherry concludes.
Such insights are few, however. While this volume encourages reflection about what strategic bombing means for those on the receiving end, its fiercely polemical nature will lead to its being dismissed within military circles. In condemning American and British strategic airpower theorists as "militarists" bent on "indiscriminate" bombing of civilians, the editors have allowed their moral outrage to run to extremes. In place of moderation and precision, they themselves resort to the literary equivalent of carpet bombing.
"Execute Against Japan": The U.S. Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
Joel Ira Holwitt. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2009. 262 pp. Illus. Index. $37.50
Reviewed by Anthony J. Newpower
Within hours of the devastating Japanese surprise attack against Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold R. Stark issued a terse message to all units of the Pacific and Asiatic fleets ordering them to conduct unrestricted air and submarine warfare against Japan. "Execute Against Japan," the first three words of the message, also form the title of Navy lieutenant and historian Joel Ira Holwitt's study of the decision-making process that resulted in this dramatic reversal of national policy.
At first glance, readers may wonder why a detailed study of this topic is necessary; after all, the Germans had been practicing unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic for some time, and the surprise attack by the Japanese without a prior declaration of war certainly merited reprisal by the United States in one form or another. Holwitt acknowledges both points and dives into an explanation of the concept of Freedom of the Seas, a maxim upheld by generations of U.S. Presidents and lawmakers, reaching its ultimate manifestation in the policies of President Woodrow Wilson. Special attention is deservedly given to the U.S. decision to enter World War I based on the German introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare. Along with his extensive archival research, Holwitt draws heavily on the work of distinguished historians Samuel Flagg Bemis and Sir Patrick Devlin.
The author has chosen a subject-based flow for his narrative: the evolution (or in some cases, devolution) of international law, the development of naval thinking on both the submarine and its application in war, the impact of American isolationist policy (particularly the neutrality legislation) on Freedom of the Seas, the buildup to the American unrestricted warfare decision itself, and finally its implications both to international law and to the nation of Japan. Holwitt also includes a chapter on the development of the U.S. Fleet submarine, which while interesting and well-written, seems tangential to the book's main thrust.
Holwitt clearly spent many hours in the archives researching this subject, and the proof is in the vast amounts of primary source material cited in the notes. It was during this research that Holwitt unearthed the real bombshell: Admiral Thomas C. Hart, on his own initiative, issued the order to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare to the boats of his Asiatic fleet well before CNO Stark's "Execute Against Japan" message was issued-a clear violation of international law and established American policy.
The only inaccuracy I noted was the description of the Mark-XIV torpedo's deep-running defect, which was actually caused by a combination of using a lighter exercise warhead for calibration of the depth-setting mechanism, improper placement of the depth sensor on the sloped rear section of the torpedo, and faulty calibration instrumentation. These are minor issues that should not detract from the fact that Holwitt has filled an important gap in World War II history with his well-written and well-researched exploration of this major American policy shift.
Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush
Peter W. Rodman. Introduction by Henry A. Kissinger. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. 368 pp. Notes. Index. $27.95
Reviewed by Commander Youssef Aboul-Enein, MSC, U.S. Navy
The late Peter Rodman culminated a four-decade career in public service and shaping Republican viewpoints of America's foreign policy by serving as assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs from 2001 to 2007. He was in charge of managing the complex relationships among many of our foreign allies. I served with Mr. Rodman, who passed away in 2008, as Middle East country director and adviser from 2002 to 2006. I learned much from him, such as the power that language, diplomacy, and gentle persuasion have in dealing with foreign leaders and defense officials.
Rodman's final book offers a unique civics lesson in presidential power and the need for Presidents to be personally engaged lest their administrations be consumed in feuds among cabinet members. Such feuds can lead to a stagnant bureaucracy incapable of responding to the country's challenges. Rodman argues that there is no organizational chart for how a presidential administration works. The U.S. executive branch and bureaucracy are heavily influenced by the personality of the elected chief executive.
The book opens with an excellent discussion of a President's types of legitimacy. There is constitutional legitimacy vested in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which leaves a slight ambiguity allowing the executive and Congress to wrestle over policy issues. Democratic legitimacy is we the people who elect a President every four years and provide that person the authority to direct national policy until they leave office. When we elect a President, think not only of this person but the 3,000 political appointments a president makes in changing an administration. Procedural legitimacy is the power of the President to make the final decisions on national policy and even overrule his entire cabinet if need be. Think of Abraham Lincoln or Truman on the issue of a President overriding his cabinet.
Rodman describes the origins of the National Security Council, created in 1947, and considers how Presidents have shaped the organization since then. He shares intimate, fascinating details of Nixon's decision to visit Romania in 1969. The final chapter discusses the presidency of George W. Bush, and gives only 16 pages to that President's decision to go to war in Iraq. Rodman writes that the most important mistaken assumption on Iraq was determining the extent of the political vacuum left by the removal of Saddam Hussein. He also observes that the U.S. government failed to adapt quickly to difficulties in Iraq as they arose, such as the seriousness of the insurgency. It is easy to oversimplify major decisions, but one should read a variety of viewpoints before coming to any conclusions. In October 2002, for instance, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent a memo to Bush highlighting the things that could go wrong in invading Iraq. The summer of that year, Rodman had drafted a memo to Secretary Rumsfeld on the subject of whether the U.S. should occupy Iraq at all and on the dangers inherent in evolving into occupiers. His book is highly recommended for those interested in the complexities of America's national security policy-making process and presidential power in the 20th and 21st centuries.