[C19fan]

JFK read a book that stood the test of time and now political and military push a book that turned out to be a fraud, Three Cups of Tea.

[Rockingham]

Tuchman and her much-lauded book are not without controversy. Although the book was about Europe’s stumble into World War I, during the 60s and 70s, the Left broadly cited it for the thesis that military planning inherently generated a drive to war. Tuchman, who had moved Left herself, did little to contradict this canard.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

An interesting parallel to this story is written in "Dereliction of Duty" by H.R. McMaster. In his historical narrative about the runup to the Vietnam War, he posits that the positive crisis solving experience that men like McNamara and Bundy received from the Cuban Missle Crisis meant to them that they could completely forgo the advice of the joint chiefs of staff while formulating their Vietnam policy. We know how that story turned out.

So while the leaders of the country cannot fully rely on their military leaders advice, they cannot fully discard it either. There has to be a happy medium between listening to their military leaders in the formulation of foreign policy, especially when the military is involved. Oh, and the maligned Curtis Lemay's (at least in this blog post) advice on Vietnam? Go full bore and win the thing or get out. No half measures. In hindsight, that sounds like it was pretty good advice...

[Grut]

Well, we're still here and the Soviet Union isn't, so the book's influence couldn't have been too pernicious.

As far as WW1 goes, I maintain that if, after the first month of Verdun, the troops on both sides had mutinied, shot their generals, hanged their politicians and gone home, the Twentieth Century would have been quite different. It's one of the reasons I don't think infinitely well of military discipline.