Getting It Right: American Military Reforms After Vietnam to the Gulf War and Beyond

Dunnigan, a commercial war-gamer and military history buff, and Macedonia, a retired colonel and also a war-gamer, have written a book that poses an important question. How did the American military after Vietnam go from a demoralized, in some cases undisciplined, and certainly discontented armed force to the confident, well-trained and well-equipped legions that stormed Kuwait?

The book's chatty exposition (Doctrine du Jour is one section title) and its choppy presentation obscure the answer.

The discipline of footnotes and bibliography (both absent here) would have forced the authors to document their facts and perhaps temper their historical judgments. There remains much for scholars to describe, but this is a start.