The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace With America's Military [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING] Priest, Dana [Fine] [Hardcover]

Description

Fine unread condition beige boards with a dark blue spine, gold front cover decoration and gold spine lettering contained in a fine condition non price-clipped color illustrated dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication; Introduction: Pax Americana; Afterword: The Mission; List of Interviews; Acknowledgments; Notes; and Index. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs and maps. ""Few Americans realize how deeply the military is now involved in American foreign policy. Dana Priest's revealing, close-up look at this dramatic new development is especially timely as we view the challenges of the post-9/11 world."" - Richard Holbrooke. ""Walk with America's generals, grunts, and Green Berets through the maze of uncoventional wars and unsettled peace. Four-star generals who lead the military during wartime reign like preconsuls abroad in peacetime. Secretive Green Berets trained to hunt down terrorists and wage guerrilla wars are assigned to seduce ruthless authoritarian regimes. Teenage soldiers schooled to seize airstrips instead play detective and social worker in a gung-ho but ill-fated attempt to rebuild a nation after the fighting stops. The Mission is a boots-on-the-ground account of America's growing dependence on the military to manage world affairs. It describes a clash of culture and purpose through the eyes of soldiers and officers themselves. In the aftermath of September 11, this trend has ony accelerated, as the country turns to its warriors to solve the complex international challenges ahead. People in the military understand that they are on an unheralded, unnamed mission -- The Mission -- one largely unknown to most Americans. Through the author's unparalleled access to all levels of the military, much of the book unfolds in front of her eyes. The Mission blends Ernie Pyle's worm's-eye view with David Halberstam's altitude. Full of scoops, insider dialogue, and insight into the nation's top military leaders, the stories bring you to battlefields with Special Forces A-Teams in Afghanistan and Kosovo, palaces in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the jungles of Colombia and Nigeria, and the Byzantine politics of Indonesia. To write this book, Dana Priest, who covered the military for the Washington Post, traveled to twenty countries, visiting the miliitary's most important arenas of engagement. The result is the first full examination of new and historic policy -- the ever-widening role of our soldiers as America seeks to change and to pacify the world."" - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.