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Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly lnsightful Expose of Our Military Conundrum!
Review: As a recent refugee from a career spent as a civilian `foot soldier' in the midst of the military's war against itself that Greider describes in this book, it is interesting and surprising that someone so singularly uninvolved with this country's long-term weapon acquisition system can catch so precisely the malady that confronts us. Greider's analysis captures the horns on which the dilemma is caught quite well, although I must admit to being disappointed to notice he downplays the way in which rampant military careerism plays into this disastrous recent history of misappropriation and wasting of billions of dollars in military funding. Officers are so intent on practicing self-advancement that they confuse personal success with accomplishing the mission. Thus, when forced to decide between making difficult decisions regarding allowing troubled acquisition programs to proceed, they invariably choose to paper over the problems so as to substantially enhance their own chances of getting promoted and moved to their next assignment before the deck of cards fall for their successor. The successor must then ask the contractor to help him rebuild the deck of cards, which means the military inevitably become ethically and legally compromised fellow-travelers in the nonperformance and endless technical shortcomings the contractor incurs. In short, they lose their effective management by unwitting or unethical collusion with contractors who deliberately underbid for contracts knowing they will never have to produce a contract meeting the stated competitive requirements because of the insidious and self-defeating corruption within the professional military acquisition corps. Also, Greider's take on the way in which short-term tactical thinking is endangering the long-term force readiness is illuminating. The truth of the matter is that one does much better assuming the reasons we buy certain weapon systems in various numbers has more to do with Congressional prerogatives and rampant corruption than it does with any sort of objective force structure analysis. Contractors bypass the military by influencing Congressional representatives and their staffers. Thus, even if a military program manager does attempt to steer the straight and narrow course by trying to force the contractor to conform to contract requirements, he often finds himself outgunned and outmaneuvered by Contractors influencing his superiors and other federal officials. Another way in which the current crisis manifests itself is through the militarization of civil service responsibilities, under which hundreds of thousands of Department of Defense civilians (most citizens do not realize that over ninety percent of all federal downsizing since 1990 has been accomplished within the several services comprising the DOD) have been laid off or forced out in favor of contracting the work out to contractors (read retiring military officers here) who will conform to do the bidding of their military employers without ever raising the kinds of knowing and informed ethical and legal objections a professionally-trained civilian acquisition corps does. Since it is certainly a commonplace observation that military preparedness and internal corruption are historically found to be an endemic problem for peacetime professional military forces in all industrial democracies, there may in fact be no useful way to constrain the negative influence careerism has on our country's force readiness. But there is much we can do to limit the negative influence the military has on weapon system acquisition and wiser use of federal tax dollars in support of national defense policy. We must remove the exclusive program management prerogative we have given them in favor of empowering a resurgent professional civilian acquisition corps. Yet Greider's analysis is a start in the right direction in terms of initiating a more vigorous national debate regarding how that money is allocated and subsequently obligated and spent by the several branches of the military. I recommend this book to anyone interested in how those several trillion dollars are spent over the next ten years.
Rating: 
Summary: Important book for Americans to read.
Review: As I write this, we are at war in the Balkans. The cost of air strikes and further military actions there will all have to come from extra billions of our tax money--the Pentagon budget already goes to the gigantic weapon systems that Grieder's book pictures so effectively. The U.S. public has little awareness of how our Cold War level defense budgets robs our society of social programs such as good schools and health care. "Fortress America" is a rare inside look at how a handful of corporations keep their stranglehold on our society in peace as well as war.
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Summary: Fortress America: Weapons for yesterday's war.
Review: As mentioned in an earlier review this book reads like a glorified newspaper article. Less emphasis should be placed on policy banishing and more on created suggestions to the problem. Additional material by this author follows the same blame game attitude.
Rating:
Summary: BREAK THE IRON TRIANGLE
Review: Congress must be made to know that this vast military spendingmust be hewn down. The current "defense" spending is notabout making us a secure nation but about keeping the corporate welfare hogs...LockMartin, Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, and others pacified and happy. Mr. Greider shows us the overall picture of this collision of corporate-military-legislative arena in FORTRESS AMERICA. Is there anyone else out there who feels that $300 billion dollars can be spent somewhere else?
Rating: 
Summary: Sad case of overblown newspaper story, worth half star
Review: I thought this book would try to analyze the economic consequences of the outbreak of peace at the early 1990s, with perhaps some views regarding the development of the US military thrown in. What I got was a reader's digest style collection of anecdotes about the overblown size of the us military and the cosy relationship the weapons industry and the military enjoy, et the expence of the taxpayer. To make it worse, Greider concludes the book with an incoherent rave against capitalism and capital flows, contradicting these to high ideals like democracy. The book could be summarised in a few sentences: The US army wastes money, some companies make money on weapon industry, the army should cut back on everything and international capital flows should be controlled because they force debtors pay up every now and then. The only interesting point in the book was bypassed with just a mention, the fact that the US is up to gills in hock to the japanese, so that the next time their interests collide, it takes about half an hour for the japanese to bankrupt the US governemtn and banks by dumping some hundreds of trillions of US bonds on them. I guess I should have considered the author against the claimed contents of the book before buying it. Greider seems like a good human interest headline journalist for any tabloid, but nothing deeper than that. Analysis, insight, acutal data....Go elsewhere
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Summary: How We Got Here
Review: In 200 startling pages, William Gireder tells America how our insatiable appetite for all things military has led us into a national dilemma, the economic and global implications of which are frightening. Grieder's 'wake up call' details a bloated military industrial machine which has consumed much of our national wealth, and now has nowhere to direct its massive inventories. Greider examines the political, social and economic effects from the perspectives of generals, line workers and politicians alike. The book has an excellent read, which will hold your interest through every paragraph. You will not be tempted to sigh and page ahead. Grieder tells us how we got here, and offers a thesis to explain the current administration's obsession with finding a new boogey man to justify the continued propping up of a military industrial complex whose utlity expired along with the threat it geared up to face for decades - the Soviet Union.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful, Not Moving
Review: This book contains useful facts and analysis, but I doubt it's moved many people to action. (Of course the policies it advocates have not been adopted by the Bush II regime.) People like me who would like to see our military drastically reduced and who have little faith in the good intentions of anyone involved in it are likely to be turned off by Greider's more middle of the road views and what appears to be his reluctance to express some of the anti-military views he does hold. People who long for an ever bigger military are unlikely to be converted by this book. I think Greider wanted to avoid preaching to a choir, but walking down the middle, or pretending to, has found him fewer readers than his information and ideas deserve. He ought to have passionately argued a case (a moral case, not a strategic or economic one) for radical change. Those inclined to agree would have been more likely to get their hands on the book, and those inclined to disagree would have ended up picking it up too in order to know their opponent. Some would have been persuaded. On page 10, Greider predicts a decrease in military ("defense") spending because this is what the public wants. On page 172 Greider points out a yawning chasm between what the public wants and what happens. This is illustrative of a gradual shift. The book starts out sounding like an article in the Washington Post and concludes sounding like one in the Nation. The corruption analyzed along the way is not terribly new to readers of the Nation, but it's useful to have these facts and anecdotes in one place. The fact that a single aircraft carrier costs $5 billion, the same price as a proposed National Housing Trust Fund, is the sort of thing that cannot be restated enough. What we could have used much more than this book was a plan for tying opposition to military waste into campaigns for positive public spending. We have for too long desperately needed to transform tax-and-spend proposals into axe-the-military-and-spend proposals. We NEED to work out the politics of proposing and fighting a grassroots campaign for specific public school or Medicaid improvements tied to specific eliminations of military pork. And quit calling it "defense" for godsake!
Rating:
Summary: Useful, Not Moving
Review: This book contains useful facts and analysis, but I doubt it's moved many people to action. (Of course the policies it advocates have not been adopted by the Bush II regime.) People like me who would like to see our military drastically reduced and who have little faith in the good intentions of anyone involved in it are likely to be turned off by Greider's more middle of the road views and what appears to be his reluctance to express some of the anti-military views he does hold. People who long for an ever bigger military are unlikely to be converted by this book. I think Greider wanted to avoid preaching to a choir, but walking down the middle, or pretending to, has found him fewer readers than his information and ideas deserve. He ought to have passionately argued a case (a moral case, not a strategic or economic one) for radical change. Those inclined to agree would have been more likely to get their hands on the book, and those inclined to disagree would have ended up picking it up too in order to know their opponent. Some would have been persuaded. On page 10, Greider predicts a decrease in military ("defense") spending because this is what the public wants. On page 172 Greider points out a yawning chasm between what the public wants and what happens. This is illustrative of a gradual shift. The book starts out sounding like an article in the Washington Post and concludes sounding like one in the Nation. The corruption analyzed along the way is not terribly new to readers of the Nation, but it's useful to have these facts and anecdotes in one place. The fact that a single aircraft carrier costs $5 billion, the same price as a proposed National Housing Trust Fund, is the sort of thing that cannot be restated enough. What we could have used much more than this book was a plan for tying opposition to military waste into campaigns for positive public spending. We have for too long desperately needed to transform tax-and-spend proposals into axe-the-military-and-spend proposals. We NEED to work out the politics of proposing and fighting a grassroots campaign for specific public school or Medicaid improvements tied to specific eliminations of military pork. And quit calling it "defense" for godsake!
Rating:
Summary: A good book on the United States current militay
Review: This book gives in good detail how are militay funding is being spent. This tells the stories from the army to the Air force on the military spending and budget. This is a good book to read if you are interested in the United States military and it's issues.
Rating:
Summary: An Uninformed Bit Of Pop Reporting
Review: This book shows almost no real knowledge of the United States military. I wasted my time reading it. Greider shows a complete ignorance of the United States Military. The Claim that the Army has so many tanks that we are dumping them into the sea and still buying more for instance. Greider is purposefully deleting the context to make a piece of pop fluff so people can read and knowingly shake their heads at the absurdity and wastefullness of the military. Truth be told we are dumping OBSOLETE tanks that are not even fit for reserve duty into the ocean because instead of saving money by selling them for scrap we are providing fish habitat. We ARE NOT dumping brand new M-1A2s into the drink and buying more to replace them. This is but one example of the These types of errors, lack of context, oversimplifications and distortions of the truth are seen throughout the book. In my opinion Mr. Greider is a Rolling Stone editor who wants to be Bob Woodard and attacking the military is an easy target and a contemporary issue that makes him look like a multitalented person. SHAME
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