The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military

by Dana Priest

Book Overview

Four-star generals who lead the military during wartime reign like proconsuls abroad in peacetime. Secretive Green Berets trained to hunt down terrorists are assigned to seduce ruthless authoritarian regimes. Pimply young soldiers taught to seize airstrips instead play mayor, detective, and social worker in a gung-ho but ill-fated attempt to rebuild a nation after the fighting stops.

The Mission is a boots-on-the-ground account of America's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393325504
• ISBN13: 9780393325508
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating look at the military and American foreign policy

_The Mission_ by Dana Priest is an interesting and through-provoking look at American foreign policy and the military's role in devising and implementing it. Since the end of the Cold War, "the Mission" for the American military has been to take the lead in managing world affairs, to fill in the tremendous gap left by civilian agencies. With little public debate or even awareness, the military "simply filled a vacuum left by an indecisive White House, an atrophied State Department, and a distracted Congress." Whether turned to by policymakers or on its own initiative, the military has taken the lead abroad to fix problems, even those that are at their root ultimately political and economic in nature. In the first third of the book, Priest detailed how this state of affairs came to be. Part of the reason is the lack of resources of the civilian agencies that are supposed to be prominent in foreign affairs. Congress slashed the State Department budget 20% in the 1970s and 1980s, closing over 30 embassies and consulates and laying off 22% of the department's employees. Other organizations, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps suffer from similarly reduced budgets. In contrast, the Department of Defense has more resources and personnel than any other foreign-focused government agency. Most prominent in this area are the leaders of the U.S. military's regionally-focused unified commands, the regional commanders-in-chief or CinCs (pronounced "sinks"). The Defense Department divided the globe into five regional commands, each with its own regional CinC (Southern Command, which is basically Latin America, European Command, which is Europe, Turkey, and most of Africa and the former Soviet Union, Central Command, which is the Horn of Africa, Egypt, the Middle East, and the states of former Soviet Central Asia, Pacific Command, which is the rest of Asia and the nations of the Pacific, and Northern Command, which is North America). Each regional CinC has a budget twice that or more than that of the Cold War era, averaging $380 million dollars a year, lavish compared to that of civilian agencies. Additionally, each CinC has a dedicated long-distance aircraft, a number of helicopters, and access to in-flight refueling (only the Secretary of State has a dedicated aircraft, all other diplomats either fly commercially or hitch a ride on military aircraft). Each CinC has a much greater staff than other diplomats and civilian officials; compare the overworked staff of Foreign Service officers in an embassy, each likely with more than one task to perform, to the dedicated entourage that accompanies each CinC in the field along with the scores of admirals, generals, majors, captains, and colonels that he or she can deploy on diplomatic missions. Additionally, CinCs are not as prone to the turf battles civilian agencies engage in on foreign policy matters as they are stationed abroad and generally don't become embroiled in

Ground Truth Reading About Failure of US Policy Process

I did not buy this book at first, having read and thoroughly enjoyed the many long articles the author contributed through The Washington Post, all of which comprise the middle two thirds of the book. However, at the recommendation of a retired Army Special Forces Colonel, I finally did buy it, and I am glad I did.Unlike the articles, which focused on the questionable use of Special Forces to train forces within repressive regimes around the world, from Colombia to Indonesia to Central Asia, the book more properly focuses on the complete lack of a US inter-agency planning process, the complete lack of a US means of coordinating actions and spending by all US agencies, and consequently, the complete lack of a US national security and global engagement strategy that is so vital to protecting America from attack and protecting American interests in a coherent and sensible fashion.While many critics read the book as if it were a glorification of the theater Commanders-in-Chief (CINC), and complain about the militarization of US foreign policy, a proper reading of this book clearly documents that the militarization occurs by default, as a consequence of the abject failure of the White House and the Department of State, neither of which, under either Clinton or Bush, are serious about global engagement.The military *works* (when it's not being frittered away by elective wars and occupations). What I see in this superb book is a solid foundation for thinking about three essential reforms to American national security: 1) the creation of a Presidential level inter-agency strategic planning and operational coordination process--no, the National Security Council is *not* capable of doing that; 2) the redirection of theater commands and staffs to become truly inter-agency, with men of the caliber of Bob Oakley and Mark Palmer serving as Peace CINCs with military four-star deputies; and 3) the doubling of the Special Operations Forces through the creation of a "white hat" "armed peace corps" that can deliver sewing machines, water purification, and the myriad of other things, including law enforcement under combat conditions.The book also does for Marine Corps General Tony Zinni what Ron Suskind's book "The Price of Loyalty" does for Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neil--it gives us some deep insights into Tony Zinni as one of the most extraordinary men to ever serve the American people, and a man who is clearly well-qualified to be one of the top five to ten people in any future Administration. Although I am a former Marine and know Zinni's reputation among Marines as both a warrior's warrior and a thinking general (there are very few of those, even in the Marine Corps), I had not realized the depth and breadth of his brilliance until I read this book. In particular I was moved by his intuitive demand for tribal-level intelligence, his focus on nuances and context at all times, and his insistence that a major aspect of US national security policy must

Comments on the Mission

I first read this book in March of this year while the invasion of Iraq was taking place.Many of the points which Dana Priest made in this book have been borne out by subsequent events.The big problem that the US faces in Iraq is that not only does it want to get rid of Sadaam Hussein's regime (which it has),but it also wants to decide what government the Iraqis will have in the postwar period.As Ms Priest points out in the book American troops are not suited either by training or temperment for peace-keeping.Nor are they suited for nation-building.In the meantime while they are supposed to be doing this they also have to be on alert against possible attacks carried out against them by a hostile population.Is it any wonder then that at the moment things aren't going that well in Iraq? This is what I took to be the main point of the book:that too often politicians use the military as a bandaid solution to fix difficult problems.Got a problem with ethnic violence in Bosnia and Kosovo, send the military in to deal with the problem.Civil war in Liberia, let's send the Marines in to do the job.Can't find other countries that are willing to contribute troops to re-build Iraq, well then we'll just use the troops we already have there to do the job.And so on and so on.It's unfortunate that not enough people have read this book because it adresses some serious issues concerning America's military that the American people need to look at.

How to understand Iraq and Afghanistan

Unfortunately, this book helps explain why we will be having very limited peace-making success in Iraq and Afghanistan. Priest is very sympathetic to the military and, like many of its officers, she sees that the US has allowed virtually all other aspects of foreign policy to atrophy. This is in stark contrast to the 1950s, when the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe. It is as if our leaders (in both parties) think that the free market will rebuild these nations by magic. Sad to say, that is not how it works.

Where is $380 billion in tax money a year going?

AN excellent look at the how the US military and it's leaders are becoming diplomats, aid workers, and psychologists ...sometimes against their will.Priest describes the American military empire and partially explains the distrust and hatred of the US overseas. A disturbing book that is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the world today.