Breach of Trust
How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country
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ISBN10: 1250055385
ISBN13: 9781250055385
Trade Paperback
256 Pages
$19.00
CA$25.00
The United States has been "at war" for more than a decade. Yet as war has become normalized, a yawning gap has opened between America's soldiers and the society in whose name they fight. For ordinary citizens, as former secretary of defense Robert Gates has acknowledged, armed conflict has become an "abstraction" and military service "something for other people to do." In Breach of Trust, bestselling author Andrew Bacevich takes stock of the damage this disconnect has wrought.
National defense, he argues, should become the business of "we the people." Should Americans refuse to shoulder this responsibility, the prospect of endless war, waged by a "foreign legion" of professionals and contractor-mercenaries, beckons. So too does bankruptcy—moral as well as fiscal.
Reviews
Praise for Breach of Trust
"Scorching . . . heartbreaking . . . Bacevich dismantles the warrior myth we civilians and politicians so enjoy worshiping from afar, and replaces that idol with flesh and blood, vulnerable humans, who deserve better than the profligate, wasteful way in which we treat them."—Rachel Maddow, the New York Times Book Revie
"A powerful critique . . . splendid . . . Bacevich has written a book that precious few people in Washington will like, at least those people...who are connected in one way or another to what Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 called the ‘military-industrial complex.'"—The Washington Post
"Breach of Trust is a necessary and important commentary on modern American life . . . I can almost guarantee that, in these war-weary times, this timely and informative read will change the way you think."—James Carville, The Hill
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
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1
PEOPLE'S WAR
War is an unvarnished evil. Yet as with other evils—fires that clear out forest undergrowth, floods that replenish soil nutrients—war's legacy can include elements that may partially compensate (or...
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Andrew Bacevich on CSPAN's Q&A
Andrew Bacevich discusses 'Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country' on CSPAN's Q&A.
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Andrew Bacevich interviewed on Democracy Now! Andrew Bacevich interviewed on WBUR's Here & Now. Andrew Bacevich interviewed on Moyers & Company.About the author
Andrew J. Bacevich
