Andrew J. Bacevich

Prophets and Poseurs: Niebuhr and Our Times

As pastor, teacher, activist, moral theologian, and prolific author, Reinhold Niebuhr was a towering presence in American intellectual life from the 1930s through the 1960s. He was, at various points in his career, a Christian Socialist, a pacifist, an advocate of U.S. intervention in World War II, a staunch anti-Communist, an architect of Cold War liberalism, and a sharp critic of the Vietnam War. For contemporary Americans, inclined to believe that history began anew on September 11, 2001, the controversies that engaged Niebuhr’s attention during his long career appear not only distant but also permanently settled and therefore largely irrelevant to the present day. At least among members of the general public, Niebuhr himself is today a forgotten figure. Among elites, however, evidence suggests that interest in Niebuhr has begun to revive. When historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who knew Niebuhr well and admired him greatly, published an essay in 2005 lamenting that his friend had vanished from public consciousness, the first indications of this resurgent interest had already begun to appear. Today politicians like John McCain and Barack Obama cite Niebuhr as a major influence. Pundits like neoconservative David Brooks and neoliberal Peter Beinart embellish their writings with references to Niebuhr. A new edition of Niebuhr’s classic 1952 meditation on U.S. foreign PROPHETS AND POSEURS Niebuhr and Our Times

U.S. Conduct in the Vietnam War: Commentaries by Andrew J. Bacevich, Edwin Moïse, and Mark Atwood Lawrence on Bernd Greiner's War without Fronts

Three leading experts on the Vietnam War and U.S. foreign policy offer separate evaluations of Bernd Greiners book War without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam. The book presents a harsh and controversial appraisal of the conduct of U.S. troops in Vietnam, depicting the My Lai massacre not as an aberration but as one of a long series of atrocities committed by U.S. personnel. The three commentators diverge in their assessments of the book. Andrew Bacevich and Edwin Moïse sharply criticize the book, which they see as one-sided and often tendentious, selective, and inaccurate in its use of evidence. Bacevich argues that the book is intended in part, if only subconsciously, to bolster revisionist German claims about the conduct of Germany during the Second World War, and Moïse casts doubt on Greiners use of key sources. Mark Lawrence, by contrast, praises the book and believes that it will help to refocus study of U.S. conduct in Vietnam. The forum concludes with a reply by Greiner to the three commentaries.

Vietnam : the early decisions

More than twenty years have passed since American military personnel finally withdrew from Vietnam, yet haunting questions remain about our involvement there. Perhaps the most persistent of these - and certainly the most unanswerable - is the question of what would have happened if President Kennedy had lived beyond 1963. Would he have ended American involvement in Vietnam? For many Americans, Oliver Stones powerful film JFK answered the question by leaving no doubt that before his assassination Kennedy had determined to quit Vietnam. Yet the historical record offers a much more complex answer. In this fresh look at the archival evidence, noted scholars take up the challenge to provide us with their conclusions about the early decisions that put the United States on the path to the greatest American tragedy since the Civil War. The tensions and turmoil that accompanied those decisions reveal the American presidency at the center of a storm of conflicting advice. The book is divided into four sections. Part one delves into the political context in which the early decisions were made, while part two considers the military context. Part three raises the intriguing questions of Kennedys and Johnsons roles in the conflict, particularly the thorny issue of whether Kennedy did, in fact, intend to withdraw from Vietnam and whether Johnson reversed that policy. Part four reveals an uncanny parallel between early Soviet policy toward Hanoi and U.S. policy toward Saigon.

The Design of Armies

In Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler predicted that “Th e place of the permanent armies as we know them will gradually be taken by professional forces of volunteer war-keen soldiers, and from millions we shall r evert to hundreds of thousands ” 1 Th e purpose of this short essay is to evaluate that prediction.