United States - World War II - Homefront, Participation & Pluralism in Democracies, Military - Strategy, 20th Century American History - World War II, United States - World War II Armed Forces, Armed Forces - United States - Organization & Management, U.S

Allies and Adversaries

Name: Allies and Adversaries
Author: Mark A. Stoler
ISBN: 9780807855072

by Mark A. Stoler

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Overview

During World War II the uniformed heads of the U.S. armed services assumed a pivotal and unprecedented role in the formulation of the nation's foreign policies. Organized soon after Pearl Harbor as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, these individuals were officially responsible only for the nation's military forces. During the war their functions came to encompass a host of foreign policy concerns, however, and so powerful did the military voice become on those issues that only the president exercised a more decisive role in their outcome.

Drawing on sources that include the unpublished records of the Joint Chiefs as well as the War, Navy, and State Departments, Mark Stoler analyzes the wartime rise of military influence in U.S. foreign policy. He focuses on the evolution of and debates over U.S. and Allied global strategy. In the process, he examines military fears regarding America's major allies—Great Britain and the Soviet Union—and how those fears affected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies, interservice and civil-military relations, military-academic relations, and postwar national security policy as well as wartime strategy.

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Editorials

From the Publisher

This is a soundly researched book that will be found of value to specialists in the development of foreign and military policy. (American Historical Review)

Stoler's work is seminal, forcing us to rethink radically much about the war we thought we knew so well. (Intelligence & National Security)

A lucid, logical examination of US military thinking about the world from the late 1930s through to the end of the Second World War. (Times Literary Supplement)

Allies and Adversaries marks Stoler as one of the finest military and diplomatic historians of his age. (ARMY)

In making so much of the familiar terrain of policy-making seem new, Stoler has provided an altogether worthy study. (Washington Post Book World)

Times Literary Supplement

This is not an institutional history. Rather it is a lucid, logical examination of US military thinking about the world from the late 1930s through to the end of the Second World War.

American Historical Review

This is a soundly researched book that will be found of value to specialists in the development of foreign and military policy.

Reviews in American History

Stoler's book will be the starting point for anyone seeking to understand civil military relations during the Second World War. This is military-diplomatic history at its best.

Times Literary Supplement

This is not an institutional history. Rather it is a lucid, logical examination of US military thinking about the world from the late 1930s through to the end of the Second World War.

ARMY

Stoler has produced a fascinating and informative account of the role of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS in the formation of U.S. global strategy.

Washington Post Book World

In making so much of the familiar terrain of policy-making seem new, Stoler has provided an altogether worthy study.

Washington Post Book World

In making so much of the familiar terrain of policy-making seem new, Stoler has provided an altogether worthy study.

Booknews

Stoler (history, U. of Vermont) analyzes the rise of military influence in U.S. foreign policy during WWII, a period significant in bringing about the first realization of the connections between U.S. security and the Allied powers. The author examines the evolution of global strategy formed by the U.S. and its major allies (Great Britain and the Soviet Union), and the debates surrounding this development. He considers ways in which President Roosevelt's policies and actions were influenced by the military's fears about the Allies. He analyzes the development of strategies and policies for both the war and the postwar era designed to support the Allies and promote postwar cooperation while still protecting the U.S. against them in the event cooperation failed to occur. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)