The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace With America's Military

by PRIEST DANA

• ISBN13: 9780393010244
• ISBN10: 0393010244
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc

Summary

Walk with America's generals, grunts, and Green Berets through the maze of unconventional wars and unsettled peace. Four-star generals who lead the military during wartime reign like proconsuls abroad in peacetime. Secretive Green Berets trained to hunt down terrorists are assigned to seduce ruthless authoritarian regimes. Pimply young soldiers taught to seize airstrips instead play mayor, detective, and social worker in a gung-ho but ill-fated attempt to rebuild a nation after the fighting stops. The Mission is a boots-on-the-ground account of America's growing dependence on our military to manage world affairs, describing a clash of culture and purpose through the eyes of soldiers and officers themselves. With unparalleled access to all levels of the military, Dana Priest traveled to eighteen countriesincluding Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Kosovo, Indonesia, and Nigeriatalking to generals, admirals, Special Forces A-teams, and infantry troops. Blending Ernie Pyle's worm's-eye view with David Halberstam's altitude, this book documents a historic and thought-provoking trend, one made even more significant in the aftermath of September 11 as the country turns to its warriors to solve the complex international challenges ahead. 16 pages of b/w photographs.

Author Biography

Washington Post reporter Dana Priest now reports on the CIA and writes and lectures about military and intelligence issues. She is the recipient of the 2001 Gerald R. Ford Award for Distinguished Defense Reporting; she lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Pax Americana	11	(10)
A Different Kind of World	21	(20)
The Rise of the American Military	41	(20)
THE COMMANDERS
The CinCs: Proconsuls to the Empire	61	(17)
The Royal CinCdoms of the Persian Gulf	78	(21)
The Invisible Front Line of Central Asia	99	(22)
THE SPECIAL FORCES
Inside the Wire with Special Forces	121	(20)
A-Teams in Afghanistan	141	(34)
Below the Radar in Nigeria	175	(20)
Gambling with Green Berets in Colombia	195	(21)
The Indonesian Handshake	216	(31)
THE CINC AND HIS SOLDIERS IN KOSOVO
Force Trumps Diplomacy in the Balkans	247	(28)
Waging Peace in Kosovo	275	(17)
Drita's Kosovo	292	(11)
Ellerbe's 82nd Airborne Division	303	(17)
Vitina and the New Mafia	320	(23)
Dishonoring Merita	343	(23)
Vitina, One Year Later	366	(19)
Afterword: The Mission	385	(10)
List of Interviews	395	(2)
Acknowledgments	397	(2)
Notes	399	(8)
Index	407