The Eagle's Talons - The American Experience at War

Americans have traditionally viewed war as an aberration in the normal course of events. Although paying lip service to the Clausewitzian dictum that war and politics are two parts of a tightly knit whole, we have traditionally waged wars as great crusades divorced from political realities. Thus we have been nonplussed in the last half of the twentieth century by our involvement in limited wars waged for limited objectives. America's responsibilities as a superpower with worldwide interests forced upon us the unpleasant notion of using our armed forces as practical instruments of political policy. The reality of this notion has been difficult for many Americans to understand and accept. Col Dennis M. Drew and Dr. Donald M. Snow have performed a significant service by producing a volume that places the American experience at war in its proper political context. Going further, they have also placed the American experience in a technological context and analyzed how political and technological factors influenced the conduct of American wars. In addition, they have combined all of these factors and analyzed their influences on the outcomes of our wars, what Sir Basil Liddell Hart called "the better state of peace," which is the fundamental objective of warfare. One can find a number of military, political, and technological histories that address the American experience at war. However, I know of no other single volume that addresses all of these aspects in such a concise and readable fashion. But Eagle's Talons is much more than just a history of the American experience. If gaining insights about where we are going requires an understanding of where we have been, Colonel Drew and Dr. Snow provide a key to understanding how and why the United States might employ its military power in the future.