The Perfect War: Technowar in VietnamAtlantic Monthly Press, 2000 - 523 من الصفحات In this groundbreaking book, James William Gibson shatters the misled assumptions behind both liberal and conservative explanations for America's failure in Vietnam. Gibson shows how American government and military officials developed a disturbingly limited concept of war -- what he calls "technowar" -- in which all efforts were focused on maximizing the enemy's body count, regardless of the means. Consumed by a blind faith in the technology of destruction, American leaders failed to take into account their enemy's highly effective guerrilla tactics. Indeed, technowar proved woefully inapplicable to the actual political and military strategies used by the Vietnamese, and Gibson reveals how U.S. officials consistently falsified military records to preserve the illusion that their approach would prevail. Gibson was one of the first historians to question the fundamental assumptions behind American policy, and The Perfect War is a brilliant reassessment of the war -- now republished with a new introduction by the author. |
المحتوى
Trailing the Beast | 3 |
Legacies of Resistance Vietnamese Nationalism against the Chinese and French | 28 |
The Permanent War Begins 19401954 | 44 |
America Comes to Vietnam Installing the Mechanisms 19541964 | 69 |
Technowar at Ground Level SearchandDestroy as Assembly Line | 93 |
The Tet Offensive and the Production of a Double Reality | 155 |
Forced Draft Urbanization and the Consumer Society Come to Vietnam | 225 |
Pacification War in the Countryside | 270 |
The Structure of Air Operations | 357 |
The Redistribution of Air War Laos 19681973 | 383 |
Closing Out the War Cambodia and North Vietnam 19691973 | 403 |
Finding the Light at the End of the Tunnel | 421 |
Surveying the Wreckage The Limits of Conventional Criticism and the Reproduction of Technowar | 433 |
The Warriors Knowledge Social Stratification and the Book Corpus of Vietnam | 461 |
Notes | 477 |
Index | 509 |
Air War over North Vietnam Bombing as Communication | 319 |
Structural Dynamics of Escalation in Theory and Practice 19661967 | 335 |
طبعات أخرى - عرض جميع المقتطفات
عبارات ومصطلحات مألوفة
air force aircraft American military artillery ARVN attacks battalion battle became body count bombing called Calley Cambodia casualties Chiefs of Staff civilian Colonel combat commanders Communist COSVN defeat Defense destroyed Diem Division dollars doublethink economic enemy estimated fight fire foreign French gooks guerrillas hamlet Hanoi helicopters Ibid increased Indochina infantry intelligence Joint Chiefs Jonathan Schell killed Kissinger knowledge Komer leaders Lieutenant MACV major Marine McNamara million Minh missions namese National Nguyen North Vietnam officers operations pacification Pathet Lao peasants Pentagon Papers percent planes political President production refugees regime reports Republic of Vietnam rules Saigon search-and-destroy social soldiers sorties South strategy structure target Technowar Tet Offensive tion trucks U.S. Army U.S. forces U.S. Government United Vang Pao victory Viet Vietcong Vietminh Vietnam War Vietnamese village war-managers warfare weapons Westmoreland wounded York zone