A Cavalryman's Story: Memoirs of a Twentieth-Century Army General by Hamilton H. HowzeReview by: Eliot A. CohenForeign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1997), p. 130Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20048058 .

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Recent Books

"top ten" lists ofthe best and most over

rated commanders, best examples of

tactical brilliance, and greatest military disasters. Thus while Robert E. Lee

is given credit for one ofthe ten best

examples of tactical brilliance at Chan

cellorsville, he also is cited as one ofthe

ten most overrated commanders. Yet no

criteria are offered for selection, ensuring that this rewarding volume will also

stimulate discussion and debate.

ANDREW KREPINEVICH

Out in Force: Sexual Orientation and the

Military, edited by Gregory m.

HEREK, JARED B. JOBE, AND RALPH

M. carney. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1996,337 pp. $65.00

(paper, $18.95). This is at once a collection of analytical

essays and a work of policy advocacy;

unfortunately, the latter dominates the

former. Some ofthe studies (for example, on foreign militaries' policies) are quite good; others are tendentious. The authors,

including some Defense Department

analysts, generally share the view that re

strictions such as the "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy on gays in the military are retrogade, unwarranted, and doomed.

The arguments for this position are varied, and include reference to the experiences of

other professions, the practices of foreign

countries, opinion data, and, to a prob lematic degree, mere assertion. A more

balanced approach might have included not only some dissenting views, but essays

by operational commanders and military

historians, who have a different vantage

point. Psychologists and sociologists are

not the sole or necessarily the best judges of policy choices bearing

on military disci

pline and combat effectiveness.

A Cavalryman's Story: Memoirs of a

Twentieth-Century Army General, by

Hamilton h. HOWZE. Washington:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996,

316 pp. $24.95. Here is a general of whom few save sol

diers have heard, but he made as large a

mark on the American army as any chief

of staff. Howze, who began his military career with horses, ended up pioneering the military

use of helicopters. Rotary

wing aviation now supports not merely

casualty evacuation (its first function in

military service) but the tactical move

ment of troops and materiel, and the

direct application of firepower. That the United States has led the way in this

field, to include having an entire divi sion (the 101st) built around this mode of transportation, is largely due to the efforts of this pioneer, who skillfully describes the various obstacles that lay in his path. The general seems to have

written the memoir by himself, and his

soldierly qualities as a leader come

through all the more clearly for that.

Managing "Command and Control" in the

Persian Gulf War. by mark d.

M?NDELES, THOMAS C. HONE, AND

sanford s. terry. Westport:

Praeger, 1996,170 pp. $55.00.

M?ndeles, Hone, and Terry, the primary authors ofthe U.S. Air Force's Gulf War

Air Power Survey volume on "Command

and Control," clearly and persuasively chronicle how the "fog" and "friction" of

war, and the limitations of large, complex

military organizations, hampered the

U.S. air campaign. In great, sometimes

excruciating, detail, the authors discuss

the missing links and lapses in the U.S.

air command structure. No Air Force

[130] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume76No.3

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