War by Land, Sea, and Air : Dwight Eisenhower and the Concept of Unified Command

by David Jablonsky

• ISBN13: 9780300153897
• ISBN10: 0300153899
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2010-03-23
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In this book a retired U.S. Army colonel and military historian takes a fresh look at Dwight D. Eisenhower's lasting military legacy, in light of his evolving approach to the concept of unified command. Examining Eisenhower's career from his West Point years to the passage of the 1958 Defense Reorganization Act, David Jablonsky explores Eisenhower's efforts to implement a unified command in the U.S. militarya concept that eventually led to the current organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and that, almost three decades after Eisenhower's presidency, played a major role in defense reorganization under the Goldwater-Nichols Act. In the new century, Eisenhower's approach continues to animate reform discussion at the highest level of government in terms of the interagency process.

Author Biography

 David Jablonsky is a retired U.S. Army infantry colonel and is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and Staff College and the U.S. Army War College. His awards and decorations include the Silver Star and Purple Heart. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle, PA, where as professor of national security affairs he held the Elihu Root Chair of Strategy; the George C. Marshall Chair of Military Studies; and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Chair of National Security Studies.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: The Past as Prologue	p. 1
Formative Years, 1903-1941
Reform and Education, 1903-1928	p. 7
Reform and Experience, 1929-1941	p. 21
Wartime Unified Command, 1941-1942
Beginnings of Combined and Joint Command, December 1941-January 1942	p. 35
Unified European Theater Command, February-June 1942	p. 47
Wartime Unity of Command and Effort, 1942-1945
Unity in Theory: London, June-November 1942	p. 63
Testing the Theory: North Africa, November 1942-May 1943	p. 75
Unity in Practice: Sicily and Italy, May-December 1943	p. 94
The Lessons of Unity Applied: London, January-May 1944	p. 106
The Lessons of Unity Vindicated: Normandy to the Elbe, June 1944-May 1945	p. 122
Peacetime Unification, 1945-1950
Unified Command in Washington, June 1945-July 1946	p. 141
Creation of the National Security State, July 1946-March 1950	p. 159
Peacetime Unity of Effort and Command, 1950-1952
The Great Debate, April 1950-March 1951	p. 185
The European Command Test, February 1951-May 1952	p. 201
Peacetime Unification and Unity of Effort and Command, 1952-1958
Executive Reform and the New Look: Strategic Strains on the Concept of Unified Command, 1953	p. 221
The Strains Deepen: The President and the JCS, 1954-1956	p. 241
Impetus from Space: New Life for the Unified Command Concept, January 1957-January 1958	p. 258
Reform Proposals and Congressional Gauntlet, January-June 1958	p. 275
Executive-Legislative Reform: The 1958 Defense Reorganization Act, June-December 1958	p. 295
Epilogue The Unified Command Legacy: Goldwater-Nichols and Beyond	p. 307
Notes	p. 327
Index	p. 379
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