One of the great surprises in modern military history is the collapse of the Soviet Armed Forces in 1991--along with the party-state with which it was inextricably intertwined. In this important book, a distinguished United States Army officer and scholar traces the rise and fall of the Soviet military, arguing that it had a far greater impact on Soviet politics and economic development than was perceived in the West.

General William E. Odom asserts that Gorbachev saw that dramatically shrinking the military and the military-industrial sector of the economy was essential for fully...

Security depends on intelligence, and in this book a leading authority discusses basic problems in American intelligence and how to fix them. For this edition he provides a new preface in which he assesses the security recommendations of the recently released Congressional committee report on 9/11.
Praise for the earlier edition:
"Odom's important and thought-provoking book . . . couldn't be more timely."--Eric Lichtblau, New York Times Book Review (front cover)
"Indispensable . . . a formidable contribution to the difficult work ahead in realigning the intelligence...

William E. Odom combines expertise in political science and military affairs to challenge both conventional and unconventional wisdom about insurgencies and political development. The author concludes that in all three components of U.S. strategy for counterinsurgency--political, economic, and military--faulty notions of causation inform policy. U.S. advice to embattled governments fails to recognize the inherent clash of development goals; direct fiscal aid hurts more often than it helps recipient governments; and the focus of U.S. military assistance on fighting insurgents plays to their...