The Cost of Loyalty
Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military
New York : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
Format: Book
Description: xi, 386 pages ; 25 cm
A damning look at the separate society of the U.S. military - from the inside perspective of a West Point Professor of law. Veneration for the military is a deeply embedded but fatal flaw in America's collective identity. In twenty years at West Point, whistleblower Tim Bakken has come to understand how unquestioned faith isolates the U.S. armed forces from civil society and leads to catastrophe. Pervaded by chronic deceit, the military's insular culture elevates blind loyalty above all other values. The consequences are undeniably grim: failure in every war since World War II, millions of lives lost around the globe, and trillions of dollars wasted. Bakken makes the case that the culture he has observed at West Point influences whether America starts wars and how it prosecutes them. Despite fabricated admissions data, rampant cheating, epidemics of sexual assault, archaic curriculums, and shoddy teaching, the military academics produce officers who maintain their privileges at any cost to the nation. Dissenters are crushed. Bakken revisits all the major wars the United States has fought, from Korea to the current debacles in the Middle East, to show how the military culture produces on failure after another. The Cost of Loyalty is a powerful, multifaceted revelation about the United States and its singular source of pride. One of the few federal employees ever to win a whistleblowing case against the U.S. military, Bakken, in this brave, timely, and urgently necessary book, and at a great personal risk, helps us understand why America loses wars. -- From dust jacket.
Contents:
Preface: The collapse -- Introduction: Breaking the myth -- The origins of the separate world -- Unfounded hubris -- Conformity and cronyism: one and the same -- Supreme values: how loyalty creates dishonesty -- A culture of silence: censorship and retaliation -- Criminality, abuse, and corruption -- Violence, torture, and war crimes -- The consequences of separation.
Subjects:
United States Military Academy.
Sociology, Military -- United States.
United States -- Armed Forces.
United States -- History, Military -- 20th century.
United States -- History, Military -- 21st century.
United States Military Academy.
Sociology, Military -- United States.
United States -- Armed Forces.
United States -- History, Military -- 20th century.
United States -- History, Military -- 21st century.
ISBN:
9781632868985
Availability | |||
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Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
HISTORY Military Bak | Main (Downtown) | Third Level, Nonfiction | In |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [291]-368) and index.