Dereliction of Duty (1998 book)

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Colonel H.R. McMaster, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, wrote Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam. The book took 5 years to research and was completed in 1997 as a part of McMaster's Ph.D. thesis at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Much of the book details the lies and manipulation perpetrated by Robert McNamara and U.S> President Lyndon B. Johnson's staff, who were more concerned with political victories in the US, than military victories in South Vietnam. In his opinion, the military, particularly The Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered little to no help in charting a successful plan of action to pacify a Viet Cong insurgency in the south, nor did they provide a coherent set of military objectives to be attained against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), Viet Cong (VC), or any of the military and political infrastructure north of the 19th parallel.

Colonel McMaster goes into well researched detail to explain why military actions intended to indicate "resolve" or to "communicate" ultimately failed when trying to accomplish sparsely detailed, confusing, and conflicting military objectives. In his opinion, the military is not a political or diplomatic tool, but force to be used appropriately to inflict massive casualties and cause maximized damage to enemy forces in order to meet objective military targets and goals.

This recurring theme in the book is best expressed by 19th century German military theoretician, Carl von Clausewitz:

"The first duty and the right of the art of war is to keep policy from demanding things that go against the nature of war, to prevent the possibility that out of ignorance of the way the instrument works, policy might misuse it."

[edit] Impact

Dereliction of Duty may become a critical treatise in the area of modern military doctrine due to its possible influence on the Bush policy in Iraq, as well as on the Iraq Study Group Report. McMaster was recalled from Iraq in 2005 to debrief The Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 12 October, 2006 edition of the Los Angeles Times reports:

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has asked several strategists to take a new look at the issue. These include Army Col. H.R. McMaster and Army Col. Pete Mansoor, who is director of the Army-Marine counterinsurgency school at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., according to a person close to the group who was not authorized to speak for it.

CNN also reports, regarding the influence of the book:

Pace said he and the other joint chiefs were debriefing commanders just back from the front lines, including one colonel recognized as a rising star and creative thinker -- Col. H.R. McMaster, the author of 1997 book "Dereliction of Duty," considered the seminal work on military's responsibility during Vietnam to confront their civilian bosses when strategy was not working.