Book Reviews

Review Essay

Tubby: Raymond O. Barton and the United States Army, 1889–1963

by Stephen A. Bourque

Patton’s Tactician: The War Diary of Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes

Edited by James W. Holsinger Jr.

Reviewed by Dr. John A. Bonin, distinguished fellow, US Army War College
©2026 John A. Bonin

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These books provide valuable insights into two significant but mostly forgotten US Army generals from World War II in Europe.

Tubby: Raymond O. Barton and the United States Army, 1889–1963 is a biographical treatment of Major General Raymond “Tubby” Barton and the 4th Infantry Division during World War II. Author Stephen A. Bourque is a 20-year veteran of the US Army and a professor emeritus at the US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He enriched this biography by accessing a trove of personal letters Barton wrote to his family and friends and Barton’s war diary detailing his activities. He traces Barton’s 38 years in the Army, entering the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1908 from a rural family in Oklahoma through his retirement as a major general in 1946 and his death in 1963.

Patton’s Tactician: The War Diary of Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes is a heavily edited war diary that Keyes or his staff maintained from October 22, 1942 (just prior to the North Africa campaigns) to October 13, 1950, when Keyes departed from serving as the high commissioner for Austria. This book, edited by James W. Holsinger Jr., a retired major general and the son of one of Keyes’s World War II staff officers, is not a biography. Holsinger includes significant additional material from relevant primary and secondary sources in his notes, and two appendices contain notable personal correspondence.

Bourque organized his book into chronological chapters, each presenting an aspect of Barton’s growth as a leader and, later, as a division commander. The first three chapters cover his formative years before and during his time at West Point as one of 95 members of the class of 1912 and into his initial years of troop duty as an Infantry officer in Alaska, on the Mexican border, and as an instructor during World War II. The next chapters cover the 15 years he spent between commanding the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment as a major in occupation forces in Germany and then the 8th Infantry Regiment as a lieutenant colonel from 1938 to 1940. During those years, typical of his contemporaries, he experienced several significant broadening opportunities as a field-grade officer that benefited him later as a general officer, including attendance and three years of instructor duty at the Command and General Staff School, serving as a corps staff officer; attendance at the US Army War College; Reserve Officers’ Training Corps duty at George Washington University, Washington, DC; and staff work with the Civilian Conservation Corps. Two chapters describe Barton’s years as the chief of staff of the 4th Infantry Division and IV Corps and the two years he served as the commanding general of the 4th Infantry Division in the United States and Great Britain preparing for D-Day.

In the last eight chapters, Bourque brings readers inside the thinking and actions of a World War II Infantry division commander from Utah Beach to the Battle of the Bulge. One of the themes of this book is that “the interwar officer corps was relatively small and connected,” but also internally political with personal conflicts (102). While the 4th took comparatively few casualties storming Utah Beach as part of Major General J. Lawton Collins’s VII Corps, the division suffered heavy casualties during operations on the Cotentin Peninsula and during the Saint-Lô breakout. By the end of June 1944, the division had lost 5,400 soldiers (almost 40 percent), including four Infantry battalion commanders and 22 rifle company commanders killed. Despite the performance of the division in June, Collins did not like Barton and rated him poorly. Barton, who suffered from ulcers, knew he would be replaced if he failed or faltered.

During the brutal fight for the Hürtgen Forest, the 4th fought again under VII Corps, where Bourque was critical of Collins for conducting a frontal attack. From November 8 to December 8, the 4th suffered the loss of more than half its authorized strength. Because of its high casualties, Barton’s division moved to the quiet sector in southern Ardennes for reorganization. On December 16, Barton’s understrength 4th Infantry Division held the southern flank during the Battle of the Bulge against the attacks of two German divisions for the next 10 days. Transferred to the Third Army, General George Patton wrote to Barton after his relief that “no American division in France has excelled the magnificent record of the 4th Infantry Division . . . but your most recent fight . . . halted the left shoulder of the German thrust into the Ardennes . . . is the most outstanding accomplishment of yourself and your division” (359).

Holsinger also organizes his book in eight chronological chapters. He provides a biographical sketch about Keyes in his introduction. Keyes, commissioned from West Point as a cavalry officer in 1913, overlapped with Barton, but they apparently were not close. He served with the 6th Cavalry Regiment on the Mexican border in 1916 and spent World War I at West Point as a French instructor and football coach. Between the wars, he received broadening assignments in the Panama Canal Division, at the Cavalry School, and in the US Department of War. He graduated from the Command and General Staff School, the French École Supérieure de Guerre in Paris, and the US Army War College. In 1940, Keyes served as chief of staff of the 2nd Armored Division commanded by Major General George Patton and, after promotion to major general, Keyes commanded the 9th Armored Division.

Despite the title, Keyes served under his mentor Patton for less than a year, working as Patton’s deputy at the I Armored Corps during the North Africa campaigns and then the Seventh US Army for the invasion of Sicily, where Keyes commanded “Provisional Corps.” He later commanded II Corps in Italy from September 1943 to May 1945. As his superior, Patton rated Keyes “Superior” and having “the best tactical mind” (3). Keyes’s typical diary entries are not illuminating and consist of the units he visited and who shared meals with him. He showed that II Corps frequently performed successfully in secondary roles with green divisions. Keyes also candidly stated he held General Mark Clark and the British responsible for the slow pace of the Italian Campaign.

Appendix B provides tremendous insight into general officer relationships. In December 1944, Keyes, upset at being passed over for 5th Army command, wrote to Patton. On December 23, during the Battle of the Bulge, Patton encouraged him by responding, “I am sure that if we keep doing our stuff we will sooner or later get the reward we merit” (383). In August 1945, Keyes, now a lieutenant general, took command of the Seventh US Army and later the Third Army for the occupation of Germany until January 1947. His diary documents the challenges the US Army faced during the occupation and reestablishment of a West German government. Keyes’s next assignment was as the high commissioner and commander of US Forces Austria until October 1950. In this last, very political position, Keyes proved instrumental in preventing Soviet gains during the early days of the Cold War by insisting the US Army remain in Austria against the efforts of the US Department of State.

Field Service Regulations, Large Units, Army Field Manual 100-15, 1944, states that during combat, the corps commander influences the outcome of the battle by maintaining close contact with the engaged divisions. Field Service Regulations: Operations, Field Manual 100-5, 1944, described the division as an administrative and tactical unit and the Army’s largest tactical unit. The Army ended the war with 22 corps and 89 divisions. Few American units would be as prepared for their first day of battle as the 4th Infantry Division (Ivy Division). Barton led the 4th Infantry Division through 204 days of almost continuous combat from June 6, 1944, until his medical relief on December 27, 1944. Despite the division suffering the second highest total casualties, it has not received the acclaim of other US Army divisions. Similarly, Keyes brilliantly commanded a corps in combat for nearly two years, longer than any other corps commander; mostly with the little-known II Corps.

Barton, Keyes, and their contemporaries who had progressed through a series of broadening assignments, the Army’s school system, and the ranks to division and corps level command were the solid basis for the Army’s success in World War II. After 1940, despite internal jockeying for positions, they turned one of the world’s least-effective ground forces into one that under their collective leadership defeated the more experienced German and Japanese armies. Tubby: Raymond O. Barton and the United States Army, 1889–1963 and Patton’s Tactician: The War Diary of Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes provide readers with the perspectives of two little-known commanders who successfully led from the front during large-scale combat operations in one of the world’s greatest armies, the US Army of World War II. While Tubby is a book for serious students of successful military leadership at the division level, I found Patton’s Tactician less valuable for the corps level due to the heavy editing. Holsinger provides valuable insights into Keyes’s five years as a senior Army officer during the initial occupation of Germany and the beginning of the Cold War in Austria.

Tubby: Raymond O. Barton and the United States Army, 1889–1963
University of North Texas Press, 2024 ▪ 512 pages

Patton’s Tactician: The War Diary of Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes
University Press of Kentucky, 2024 ▪ 461 pages

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Keywords: biography, World War II, military leadership, European Theater, campaigns

 
 

Strategy

The New Calculus of Escalation: Avoiding Armageddon in Great Power Conflict

by Martin C. Libicki
Reviewed by Colonel Darren W. Buss, faculty instructor, Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations, US Army War College

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The first half of 2025 witnessed two dramatic attacks against an adversarial state’s nuclear enterprise—Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web and US Operation Midnight Hammer. These operations employed emerging and advanced technologies, coupled with conventional nonnuclear weapons, to strike nuclear capabilities deep within the target’s homeland. Had such events occurred during the Cold War, drastic retaliatory strikes—potentially nuclear—would have ensued. Thankfully, that did not happen in 2025, despite the maneuvers crossing potential Russian and Iranian red lines.

As these operations demonstrate, evolving technologies have upended escalation management at a time when the shadow of a potential nuclear exchange remains cast over great-power competition and potential armed conflict. Martin C. Libicki, the United States Naval Academy’s Keyser Chair of Cybersecurity Studies, explores these dynamics in The New Calculus of Escalation: Avoiding Armageddon in Great Power Conflict.

Throughout the book, Libicki examines multiple thresholds—significant tranches where warfare transitions to a new scale or intensity, in military means or political ends—hoping to ascertain whether they can limit nuclear powers from marching forward toward strategic nuclear war. He tackles the subject by reviewing escalation theory, assessing potential thresholds, and exploring the risk of misinterpretation and spiral escalation that avoids crossing thresholds. He bleakly—and unsurprisingly—concludes that mutually agreed-upon boundaries are unlikely to emerge organically, given Russian and Chinese intransigence. His explorations of various twenty-first-century warfare capabilities, however, prove the most insightful and impactful aspect of his book.

Libicki assesses that the proliferation of strategic nonnuclear capabilities—such as cyber, counterspace, stealth, and precision strike—has complicated state decision making beyond Herman Kahn’s escalatory ladder construct, which framed much of Cold War logic. Instead, Libicki views the decision map as a lattice, with multiple intersecting lateral and vertical routes to the undesirable apex of strategic nuclear war. While the expanding capability set provides adversaries with numerous coercive tools and attack methods, neither the aggressor nor the defender can predict the psychological and societal effects of, or response to, their novel employment—thus complicating employment decision making.

Libicki’s book walks readers through his escalation lattice in five chapters aligned to potential boundaries in warfare: cyberwar, nonlethal versus lethal attacks (including operations in space), local versus global wars, attacks against nuclear capabilities with conventional nonnuclear means, and tactical-to-strategic nuclear attacks. Each chapter, supported with endnotes, describes the related borderline, explores how states may operate and respond to adversarial operations crossing such red lines, and concludes by asserting the possibility of states recognizing relevant thresholds.

Libicki views cyberwar, space warfare, and attacks on unmanned systems as less escalatory, though subject to interpretation, with no clear delineation as to their placement on his escalatory lattice. He also contends that great powers’ global strike capabilities diminish the boundaries between regional and global conflict, with homelands no longer off-limits.

While these assertions may appear self-evident, Libicki takes readers through such considerations in a logical manner and supports his claims with relevant contemporary evidence. His approach challenges readers to empathize with potential belligerents that may possess asymmetric capabilities in comparison to one another and, therefore, view their opponents’ actions in different lights. Readers, however, should seek out other threat-informed sources to complement Libicki’s predominance of Western source material.

Transitioning to the nuclear strata, Libicki focuses on conventional counter nuclear operations, an area that “offers great military potential and great escalation risk” (105). While discounting the likelihood that cyberattacks on nuclear systems would trigger a nuclear response, Libicki suggests that effective kinetic counter nuclear targeting could trigger nuclear employment—if only to reestablish credibility via a demonstration. Once crossed, the nuclear threshold, whether tactical or strategic, becomes inherently unstable, with nuclear actions providing the only means to control escalation. Given the United States’ asymmetric advantage to execute conventional strikes against Russian and Chinese nuclear systems, the onus rests on Washington to tread carefully into—and preferably avoid—the nuclear arena, in Libicki’s opinion.

Recent Ukrainian and American operations broached the nuclear sphere—risky actions in Libicki’s view, but ones that were mitigated as one side possessed nuclear weapons. In the future, US national security policy officials and military strategists will find themselves interpreting Russian and Chinese actions, in real life or in an exercise environment. The New Calculus of Escalation provides a valuable tool for such professionals when thinking through potential threat response options. As an educator and war game facilitator for the US Army War College, the book matured my understanding of managing great-power conflict escalation in the twenty-first century.

Georgetown University Press, 2025 ▪ 248 pages

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Keywords: great-power competition, cyberwar, nuclear war, conflict thresholds, international politics, military strategy

 
 

Obama and the Bomb: New START, Russia and the Politics of Post–Cold War Arms Control

by Frank Leith Jones
Reviewed by Major Brennan Deveraux, US Army strategist, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College

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Can the great powers find common ground for cooperation in a tenuous multipolar world? February 5, 2026, marked the end of an era of this potential cooperation as the last bilateral nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired. Frank Jones’s book Obama and the Bomb: New START, Russia and the Politics of Post–Cold War Arms Control, provides an in-depth and authoritative historical account of the development, signing, and eventual ratification of this treaty. While the book covers all the niche details an arms-treaty enthusiast would hope to find, three broad themes that should interest senior military leaders underpin Jones’s analysis: strategic reset, the impact of arms control on military planning, and the two-level game.

The most interesting aspect of Jones’s analysis of President Barack Obama’s pursuit of the New START Treaty is its framing of the treaty as a means, not an end. This reality does not mean the treaty was not important in its own right, rather, it highlights that the nuclear deal was part of a broader foreign policy goal—resetting relations with Russia. This emphasis provides readers with a unique lens for viewing the treaty process, particularly when dealing with internal resistance and the inherent distrust many have for Russia. As a military officer, this framing forced me to reflect on my feelings regarding shifting US relations with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

Sprinkled throughout Jones’s narrative is a domestic concern regarding how the New START Treaty could hinder US national security efforts. Many defense analysts have explored the military implications of a new treaty or, in more modern times, its demise. Jones, however, illuminates the role that military leaders and the Intelligence Community can play in the treaty development process. Specifically, the book highlights how the Obama administration leveraged the expertise of uniformed wearers throughout the process and also proudly noted that the defense and Intelligence Communities had weighed in on the treaty when discussing the path to ratification with Congress, with some leaders testifying. This inclusion highlights the role practitioners can play in this highly political process.

Still, the ratification process was contentious. Jones alludes to, and eventually outlines, the two-level game, a concept that explains how a negotiator must balance two potentially competing games—the international conversation and domestic interests. This concept is a staple of professional military education, and the book provides a real-world case study for how it shapes international agreements. Interestingly, the tension in the book arises over the value of the treaty. During the international conversation, the Obama administration sought a deal and was willing to compromise. The treaty, while important, was a symbol of a renewed relationship with Russia. Conversely, domestically, Congress aimed for the best possible deal, one predicated on a lack of trust in Russia. In turn, Congress expressed legitimate concerns about limiting US nuclear initiatives. Jones points to the negotiator’s ability to navigate this conflict as one of the keys to the treaty’s eventual ratification.

Overall, Obama and the Bomb provides a detailed recounting of a highly specific topic. At face value, it is written for a niche audience. The incorporation of broader themes, however, expands the book’s potential reader base to include mid-grade and senior military leaders, albeit primarily to amplify material for a professional military education institution.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2025 ▪ 353 pages

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Keywords: arms control, nuclear weapons, strategic cooperation, two-level game

Look for Deveraux’s SSI Live podcast with Frank Leith Jones at:
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/SSI-Media/Recent-Publications/Article/4443601/ssi-live-123-obama-and-the-bomb/.

 
 

Occupation: Russian Rule in South-Eastern Ukraine

by David Lewis
Reviewed by Colonel Christopher J. Hickey, PhD, associate professor, Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations, US Army War College

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Anyone interested in practical or theoretical problems of deterrence and Joint war fighting would benefit from reading Professor David Lewis’s case study of events in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, Occupation: Russian Rule in South-Eastern Ukraine. His work highlights aspects of conflict that are understudied and inadequately accounted for in how we think about conflict. Lewis marshals an impressive collection of evidence about what occurred behind Russian lines in a manner that leads readers to reflect on the political and military issues in play during an occupation for the authoritarian aggressor and the democratic defender.

Lewis argues that “Russia built a highly effective occupation regime, but it was aided by the political and social dynamics of south-eastern Ukraine. It achieved a high level of control through its occupation regime, but it was not clear that it could be reproduced elsewhere. It is true that with sufficient violence, any military force can assert control in the short term, but authoritarian regimes struggle to survive in the longer term if they rely solely on repression. A contemporary military occupation requires a more sophisticated policy toolbox than simply a thuggish occupation force” (4). He describes Russia’s approach as “the four pillars of occupation; governance, violence, propaganda, and money” (5). The book shows how Russia has employed a mix of violence with political, social, economic, and information manipulation that is increasingly costly and dangerous for the civilian population to resist openly.

The introduction summarizes this argument and addresses how the research was conducted. The first two chapters provide background for the conflict and a summary of the military events that established the occupation. Chapters 3 through 6 provide detailed accounts of how the governance, violence, propaganda, and money pillars were implemented in the occupied areas. Chapter 7 discusses the problems a democracy faces when it liberates its territory and citizens from an authoritarian occupier and how they worsen over time. The final chapter offers conclusions but is carefully disciplined not to go beyond what is directly supported by the evidence available in this case.

The book is an unusual contribution to conflict literature because it credibly discusses events in an area where researchers could not operate safely. The author, a noted scholar and practitioner with decades of relevant experience in academia, government, and nongovernmental organizations, used a disciplined approach with multiple sources of evidence supporting each point. Lewis’s experience enables readers to draw many broad implications.

The book is of obvious and immediate interest to anyone curious about the acute and existential threat posed by Russia, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or, more generally, in resistance operations and occupation. The book fills a gap in the literature, and its uses are much broader for those willing to draw on this case for its possible larger implications. Anyone thinking about current and future problems of deterrence, whether in the context of deterring Chinese aggression against Taiwan or further Russian aggression in Europe, would benefit from reconsidering what this case implies about the costs and risks to an authoritarian regime of the occupation component of war.

Readers interested in information operations, the cognitive aspects of war, the role of will as a component of power, or hybrid warfare would benefit from the case study, which shows, to the degree possible with scholarly methods, evidence of the effects of Russian and Ukrainian efforts in these areas. Although the book does not explicitly address the bargaining model of war that is highly influential among scholars, it provides interesting evidence about the costs and benefits of war used in that model and how those were perceived at various levels of the Russian government, which would be of interest to those seeking to improve that model. Readers looking for an example of how to deal with complex qualitative problems they cannot observe firsthand would benefit from the example of Lewis’s carefully disciplined approach.

Lewis has made a significant and policy-relevant contribution to the practical and theoretical study of war with this groundbreaking case study and analysis of the dynamics of a contemporary authoritarian occupation on the territory of a democratic society during a large-scale conflict.

Oxford University Press, 2025 ▪ 248 pages

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Keywords: repression, deterrence, Joint war fighting, authoritarianism, resistance

 
 

Military History

Lessons Learned and Unlearned: The Drivers of US Indirect-Fire Innovation

by Brennan S. Deveraux
Reviewed by Dr. Michael E. Lynch, professor of national security affairs, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College

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Artilleryman and strategist Brennan S. Deveraux’s short but comprehensive Lessons Learned and Unlearned: The Drivers of US Indirect-Fire Innovation analyzes a century of artillery development. The book examines how the “King of Battle” evolved from its professional infancy before World War I to conquer the complex challenges artillery faced in the twenty-first century. Deveraux moves beyond the common military trope of “lessons learned” to identify a cyclical pattern in which militaries adopt vital capabilities during conventional conflicts but frequently unlearn them during periods of peace or counterinsurgency.

Deveraux’s central thesis identifies three primary adaptive pressures that propel indirect-fire innovation: incorporating new technology, applying lessons from combat experience, and assessing external threats. He shows that though these factors often interact, they have historically fostered a damaging short-term memory of destructive capacity. This forgetting cycle has led the Army to neglect or abandon key fire-support skills, undermining readiness in future conflicts—a direct result of the core pattern Deveraux identifies.

He notes that most innovations must overcome cultural resistance before full acceptance. The evolution of centralized fire direction illustrates some of the bureaucratic intransigence that accompanied doctrinal development. The creation of the Fire Direction Center in the 1930s allowed the Army to transition from preplanned, inflexible fires to a science capable of massing effects. World War II validated this innovation, as centralized control proved essential for effective support during crises. Later decentralization efforts, however, such as the Pentomic formation and the later transition to modularity, weakened the role of division artillery and challenged these established combat lessons.

Deveraux also highlights the long struggle for the mobility and protection of artillery. Cultural resistance slowed the transition to self-propelled howitzers during the interwar years as many senior officers clung to horse-drawn transport. Only the fast-paced mechanized reality of World War II forced the improvisation of the self-propelled howitzer. The need for agility further reinforced 360-degree traverse requirements for the howitzer. Although artillery experts recommended this full-circle firing capability as early as 1919, the Army did not field howitzers with this capability until 1966.

The monograph provides a sobering look at the increasing volume of cannon fire over time and resulting ammunition supply problems. High expenditures persistently plagued US forces in World War II and the Korean war, where inadequate infrastructure and high consumption rates forced commanders to ration rounds. The nuclear mission of the 1950s initially offered a solution, as the “New Look” policy sought to replace massive volleys with the singular destructive power of tactical atomic weapons like “Atomic Annie.” While this nuclear focus was short-lived, it ushered in the transition to rocket artillery. That transition began with the development of the Multiple Launch Rocket System in the 1980s, leading to today’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Deveraux identifies a significant modern trend away from massed firepower and toward precision munitions. Historically, US artillery relied on the principle of mass to saturate areas, but the global war on terrorism forced a radical shift in this paradigm. In counterinsurgency environments, the artillery community needed to balance tactical destruction against the operational risk of collateral damage. Deveraux warns senior leaders that this focus on precision has created an anti-armor capability gap. The Army transitioned from area-effect weapons to precision-guided munitions such as Excalibur in 2005. While current precision-guided munitions accurately strike fixed GPS coordinates, they remain poorly suited for the high-tempo mechanized fights envisioned against peer adversaries. While these tools brought “pinpoint lethality,” they caused a significant “loss of destructive capacity” as the military phased out dual-purpose improved conventional munitions and terminated anti-armor programs.

Lessons Learned and Unlearned makes a vital contribution to defense studies by showing how repeated cycles of learning and forgetting have shaped the effectiveness of US artillery. The book’s predominant focus on institutional patterns, however, sometimes overlooks the influence of external factors. Nevertheless, Deveraux compels readers to confront the pattern of “unlearning,” urging senior leaders and future innovators to break the cycle and prepare the military for the next war rather than merely refining the tools of the last.

Army University Press, 2024 ▪ 191 pages

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Keywords: precision-guided munitions (PGM), indirect fire, innovation, artillery, adaptation, mobility

 
 

Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security

by Andrew Preston
Reviewed by Dr. Michael S. Neiberg, chair of war studies, US Army War College

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Author Andrew Preston’s Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security addresses how the United States transitioned from the “free security” of the early republic to the current situation in which the nation sees threats everywhere. The problem has had, and continues to have, serious implications for national resource allocation, self-image, and the domestic political atmosphere. As a result, a nation that once could afford to assemble a voluntary army in the rare moments it needed one now has a $1 trillion defense budget to sustain a full-spectrum global military force on land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace. The book offers a grand sweep of American strategic history, beginning with Alexis de Tocqueville, who argued that the success of early American democracy depended on a lack of external threats and the consequent need for neither high taxes nor a strong central state.

For Preston, the key period of transition from this Tocquevillian Eden lies in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Roosevelt, he argues, fused the insecurity felt at home during the Great Depression with a sense of insecurity emerging from abroad. The result, as the title reveals, was a new concept of “total defense” to which Roosevelt and his team could apply the tools of the modern liberal state. Insecurity became physical and ideological. Consequently, total defense (or national security) could see challenges and potential enemies anywhere in the world. “Security,” Preston writes, “became ideological as well as territorial, normative as well as physical, global and not just continental. It became, as it still is today, all-encompassing” (2). The tools of the welfare state were, in effect, repurposed for national defense.

This thesis has some explanatory power, as it helps us to understand the historically unusual development of the national security state, which began with NSC-68 in 1950. It also has the advantage of linking domestic and security policy together. But in places, the book comes off almost conspiratorial. Roosevelt, Preston writes, “had to stoke fears about America’s place in the world” to enforce his vision on an unsure populace (11). This argument underplays the very real sense of fear that Americans did, in fact, face in a world where fascism and Bolshevism once again threatened to pull America into a European total war. At the same time, Japan’s aggression in China posed a nightmarish scenario of the nation having to fight two wars half a world apart. Moreover, the argument for war in 1917 centered on the genuine risk to American national security if autocratic Germany dominated Europe and also took parts of the Western Hemisphere from the British and French empires as part of any ensuing peace. The Zimmermann Telegram created the specter of a German-Mexican-Japanese alliance that, even if it never came to pass, posed a nightmarish security problem that predated the New Deal.

Undoubtedly, American notions of security radically changed in the twentieth century. Technology made it possible for the nation’s adversaries to come much closer to the nation’s shores than ever before. As Preston argues, ideology began to play a much greater role as monarchies in Europe gave way to fascism and Bolshevism. Nevertheless, just because the forces of Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union (or, for that matter, the Kaiser’s Second Reich) could not land troops on American soil did not mean Americans did not sense their free security was evaporating. Total Defense adds important pieces to our understanding of this problem, but we should keep in mind that much of the agency for the increase in American insecurity emerged not from Washington but from Berlin, Moscow, and Tokyo.

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2025 ▪ 336 pages

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Keywords: national security, New Deal, Franklin D. Roosevelt, government expansion, American history

 
 

Blood, Mud, and Oil Paint: The Remarkable Year That Made Winston Churchill

by J. Furman Daniel III
Reviewed by Dr. Kevin J. Weddle, distinguished fellow, US Army War College
©2026 Kevin J. Weddle

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Bookshelves all over the world groan under the weight of volumes about Winston Churchill, the British prime minister whose statesmanship led the West to victory over Germany and Japan in World War II. Consequently, this endlessly fascinating and inspiring figure attracts an inexhaustible number of scholars and authors.

Professor J. Furman Daniel III of Concordia University in Chicago has jumped into the fray and closely examines Churchill during a tumultuous 12-month period of World War I. In Blood, Mud, and Oil Paint: The Remarkable Year That Made Winston Churchill, Daniel argues that between May 1915 and May 1916, the future wartime leader of Great Britain responded to a series of profound personal and professional challenges through a combination of coping mechanisms that prepared him for the trials he would face as prime minister during World War II. The result is an excellent book that can be read with great pleasure by general readers and should be on the shelves of all senior leaders.

Drawing mainly on secondary sources, Daniel explores Churchill’s central role in the Dardanelles disaster, the military operation that the First Lord of the Admiralty believed would be the answer to the bloody stalemate on the Western Front. Unfortunately for Churchill, the campaign to force the Ottoman Empire out of the war degenerated into its own horrific deadlock. There were innumerable reasons for the failure, many of which were not Churchill’s fault. Nevertheless, in the midst of the government shakeup that followed, and looking for a scapegoat, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith dismissed Churchill from his influential post and instead appointed him to the minor position of chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in a newly formed coalition government. Churchill was devastated, and the young, high-flying politician suffered the first major setback of his life.

To many observers, it looked like the career of the supremely ambitious, talented, brilliant, and mercurial Churchill was finished. His influence in the cabinet was all but gone, and he no longer had a meaningful role in directing the war effort. Yet, Daniel convincingly argues that “despite the heartbreaks during this year, [Churchill] not only survived but became stronger, wiser, and more resilient” (191). Churchill achieved this unlikely result by discovering the immersive joy of painting, serving as a battalion commander in the trenches on the Western Front, and developing and nurturing a series of lifelong friendships.

Painting allowed Churchill to disengage his peripatetic mind and to forget his cares by focusing on his subjects, the canvas, and the vibrant colors and carefree style he adopted. His time as a battalion commander (he had initially hoped for a brigade) was essential to developing his leadership style, understanding all classes of society, and gaining an appreciation of the realities of modern war. Finally, during this period, “Churchill either strengthened or began friendships with dozens of people who would not only help him survive this most difficult time but also become essential to his future triumphs” (194). All these coping mechanisms allowed him to withstand the emotional upheavals of the Dardanelles disaster and his spectacular political fall and also set him up for future success. Indeed, when he emerged from the awful year, a refreshed Churchill advocated for the common soldier in Parliament, defended his part in the Dardanelles affair, and rejoined the cabinet as minister of munitions at the invitation of the new prime minister, David Lloyd George and performed brilliantly.

Daniel is no hagiographer. He does not shy away from pointing out his subject’s “impetuousness, arrogance, naivety, entitlement, anger, depression, and many other unsavory characteristics” (191). Still, the complexity of Churchill’s character humanizes this towering figure and makes this narrative even more engaging than it might otherwise be. In many ways, this book is about resilience and overcoming obstacles and, thus, this story will resonate with senior leaders or anyone who aspires to become a senior leader.

While readers seriously interested in Churchill will want to explore these issues further by turning to more in-depth studies (such as Andrew Roberts’s Churchill: Walking with Destiny, Carlo D’Este’s Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874–1945, and Martin Gilbert’s magisterial multivolume Winston S. Churchill), this book offers an excellent introduction to one of the most important and foundational periods in Churchill’s life. I highly recommend it.

The University Press of Kentucky, 2024 ▪ 280 pages

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Keywords: foreign military, biography, memoir, Winston Churchill, World War I

 
 

Beyond Black Hawk Down: Intervention, Nation-Building, and Insurgency in Somalia, 1992–1995

by Jonathan Carroll
Reviewed by Colonel Christian Werner, director of European studies, Department of National Security and Strategy, US Army War College
©2026 Christian Werner

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Jonathan Carroll’s Beyond Black Hawk Down: Intervention, Nation-Building, and Insurgency in Somalia, 1992–1995 delivers a searing, meticulously researched analysis of the US and UN interventions in Somalia amid a humanitarian crisis defined by famine, clan warfare, and political collapse. Unlike Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (Grove Press, 2023), which focuses on the tactical intensity of the October 3—4, 1993, Battle of Mogadishu, Carroll zooms out to provide the broader context—what sparked the intervention, why it unraveled, and its enduring impact. As the former US defense attaché in Somalia (2020–21), I found this book to be the definitive resource I wish I had read before deploying—a must for anyone studying this pivotal chapter in US and UN history.

Carroll’s work, grounded in UN documents, declassified US files, and primary sources from institutions like the US Army Heritage and Education Center and the US Army Center of Military History, is divided into two arcs: a historical narrative and a critical analysis of operational challenges. The first part traces the collapse of the Mohamed Siad Barre regime, the ensuing power struggle, and the 1992 humanitarian crisis that compelled intervention. Carroll deftly navigates Somalia’s intricate clan and sub-clan systems, introducing key figures like Muhammad Farah Aydid and Cali Mahdi Maxamed without bogging down in complexity. His account of the political deliberations—featuring President George H. W. Bush, Secretary-General of the UN Boutros Boutros-Ghali, US Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell (and later President Bill Clinton and General John Shalikashvili)—offers invaluable insights for students and practitioners of national security policy and decision making.

Carroll challenges the oversimplified narrative of Aydid as a mere warlord, revealing him to be a shrewd negotiator, an effective militia leader, and an astute politician with a distinguished past as a police officer, general, and Somalia’s ambassador to India under Siad Barre. He shows that Aydid’s Somali National Alliance was not the sole contender for power; other clan and militia leaders—some of whom were receptive to UN assistance—engaged with US and UN representatives with varying levels of success. This nuanced depiction debunks myths pervasive even among military professionals, offering a fuller understanding of Somalia’s political landscape.

The second arc dissects the operational quagmire of United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM I, 1992–93), Unified Task Force, and UNOSOM II (1993–95). Carroll exposes the fractured US-UN command relationships and competing political agendas, highlighting the role of April Glaspie, the former US ambassador to Iraq turned UN political adviser. Dubbed the “Iron Lady” for her opposition to negotiations with Aydid—perhaps an effort to make up for her earlier missteps with Saddam Hussein—her stance complicated the UN diplomatic efforts. Carroll details the challenges posed by national caveats and contingents requiring home capital approval—a persistent challenge in UN peacekeeping missions. Later, logistical shortfalls, notably the lack of rotary-wing support, plagued operations in an environment that United States Central Command’s General Joseph Hoar likened to “deploying to the moon.” Carroll’s analysis of the Summer War—from the June 5, 1993, attacks on the Pakistani contingent to the Battle of Mogadishu—scrutinizes the investigations into the June attacks, debunking the rushed probe’s findings and providing critical context for October’s chaos.

Carroll dismantles the myth that the Battle of Mogadishu alone triggered the US and UN exodus. While the United States set a March 1994 withdrawal date, Boutros-Ghali secured a 5,000-strong Indian brigade to sustain UNOSOM II. The loss of US logistics, however, crippled smaller contingents from nations including Greece, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates, prompting their withdrawal. As force-generation efforts faltered, political pressures—more than military setbacks—eroded optimism and derailed mission objectives. Carroll underscores the limits of nation building. Military operations can establish security, but without a political framework, the host nation cannot sustain governance or services—a stark lesson amid Somalia’s famine and clan wars, and one of the many lessons from Somalia that Carroll argues were ignored during the US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Carroll concludes with a candid assessment: The interventions achieved temporary stability but faltered in nation building due to misaligned goals, logistical failures, and fragmented command. Still, he gives credit where due, acknowledging successes such as engaging cooperative leaders and stabilizing key areas. Beyond Black Hawk Down is essential reading for military and civilian leaders. Its rigorous scholarship and clear-eyed analysis make it a cornerstone for understanding Somalia’s 1990s crisis and its profound impact on US attitudes toward the UN, peacekeeping, nation building, and humanitarian intervention. As US engagement in Somalia continues to evolve, Carroll’s work delivers enduring lessons for future operations, debunking myths and providing “the rest of the story” along the way.

University Press of Kansas, 2025 ▪ 464 pages

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Keywords: Somalia, Black Hawk Down, nation building, insurgency, UN operations, military history, peacekeeping

 
   

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