| Popis: |
The subject of this thesis is the late-Vietnam Army (1968-1972), and my purpose is to examine how a military service grappled with the dual challenges of strategic and institutional failure amidst the converging social, economic, and political changes of the late Cold War. I argue that the Army’s leaders titled backward and inward to shift the institution forward and outward in order to prepare it for a vision of future warfare it preferred: mid-intensity conflict along the inter-German border. The Army’s leaders learned selective lessons from a conflict it would neither seek nor promote again while managing its deleterious consequences. Institutional culture acted as a drag factor throughout the Army’s extended withdrawal from southeast Asia. This thesis uses primary-source documentation from the official papers and oral histories of the U.S. Army’s senior leaders, the institution’s top-level studies, and the “gray literature” from an emergent generation of officers. |
