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Out in Force: Sexual Orientation and the Military by Gregory M. Herek; Jared B. Jobe; RalphM. CarneyReview 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/20048057 .
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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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