America's War Machine

September 7, 2015
National-security journalist McCartney had mostly finished this ponderous attempt to explain the problems with the American military when he died in 2011. Though McCartney’s career spanned 50 years of changes in the military, beginning with Eisenhower’s 1961 “military-industrial complex” speech, his manuscript—which his widow lovingly completed—nebulously ascribes everything in the so-called Washington game to a tug over money. With industry at the wheel and an appetite for oil still driving conflicts in the Middle East as if nothing has changed in 50 years, Congress gorges on pork while think tanks and the news media agitate for war. The “time for a reckoning has come,” McCartney asserts, but he never delivers on the promise to elucidate how—let alone why—America is unable to get off a “permanent war footing.” The prescriptions for change are familiar and warmed over, but the truth of what McCartney learned about American militarism in his long career never gels. America’s “vested interests in war” remain elusive to the end; McCartney’s book closes, as it begins, with a personal tale of pain and remembrance, an old soldier lost in battle. Agent: Ronald Goldfarb, Goldfarb & Associates.

October 1, 2015

Although we often consider the United States a peace-loving nation, we have been engaged in numerous conflicts in the years since World War II. In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the potential of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex in the future course of American history. That influence is the subject of this riveting account of America's defense establishment over the past half-century. James McCartney worked on the national security desk of Knight Ridder's newspapers for more than 30 years before passing away in 2011. His widow, Molly, saw to completion the publication of his mostly completed manuscript. James believed that the United States had a sophisticated war machine that operated pretty much on its own, with little oversight from a cowed and compliant Congress and White House. Today the defense budget is nearly one trillion dollars and comprises a significant portion of our nation's financial resources. This sobering yet essential account of the defense industry is for anyone curious about the evolution and influence of our contemporary military industrial complex. VERDICT Recommended for collections devoted to U.S. military and political history.--Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

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