The Cold War marked a new era for America's military, one dominated by nuclear weapons and air power that seemed to diminish the need for conventional forces. Ingo Trauschweizer chronicles the U.S. Army's struggles with its identity, structure, and mission in the face of those challenges, showing how it evolved, redefined its mission more than once, and ultimately transformed itself.

Trauschweizer describes how, beginning in the 1950s, the army faced an unprecedented problem: how to maintain a combat-ready fighting force that could operate on both conventional and nuclear battlefields....

Since the end of the Cold War era, a new dynamic has arisen within the international system, one that does not conform to established notions of the state s monopoly on war. In this changing environment, the United States, its allies, and the global community must decide how to respond to the challenges posed to the state by military threats, political and economic decline, and social fragmentation.
"Failed States and Fragile Societies" considers the phenomenon of state failure and asks how the international community might better detect signs of state decay at an early stage and devise...

Since the end of the Cold War era, a new dynamic has arisen within the international system, one that does not conform to established notions of the state s monopoly on war. In this changing environment, the United States, its allies, and the global community must decide how to respond to the challenges posed to the state by military threats, political and economic decline, and social fragmentation.
"Failed States and Fragile Societies" considers the phenomenon of state failure and asks how the international community might better detect signs of state decay at an early stage and devise...

At the end of World War II, the Allies were unanimous in their determination to disarm the former aggressor Germany. As the Cold War intensified, however, the decision whether to reverse that policy and to rearm West Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet threat led to disagreements both within the U.S. government and among members of the nascent NATO alliance. The U.S. military took the practical view that a substantial number of German troops would be required to deter any potential Soviet assault. The State Department, on the other hand, initially advocated an alternative strategy of...