Harvey Sapolsky

This book provides an accessible overview of US defense politics for upper-level students. This new edition has been updated and revised, with new material on the Trump Administration and Space Force.

Analyzing the ways in which the United States prepares for war, the authors demonstrate how political and organizational interests determine US defense policy and warn against over-emphasis on planning, centralization, and technocracy. Focusing on the process of defense policy-making rather than just the outcomes of that process, US Defense Politics departs from the traditional style of many textbooks.

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This book provides an accessible overview of US defense politics for upper-level students. This new edition has been fully updated and revised, with a new chapter on veterans and new material on topics such as cyberwarfare and lobbying.

Analyzing the ways in which the United States prepares for war, the authors demonstrate how political and organizational interests determine US defense policy and warn against over-emphasis on planning, centralization, and technocracy. Emphasizing the process of defense policy-making rather than just the outcomes of that process, US Defense Politics departs from the traditional style of many other textbooks.

Designed to help students understand the practical side of American national security policy, the book examines the following key themes:

• US grand strategy;
• who joins America's military;
• how and why weapons are bought;
• the management of defense;
• public attitudes toward the military and casualties;
• the roles of the president and the Congress in controlling the military;
• the effects of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror on security policy, homeland security, government reorganizations, and intra- and inter-service relations.

The third edition will be essential reading for students of US defense politics, national security policy, and homeland security, and highly recommended for students of US foreign policy, public policy, and public administration.

This book explains how the US military reacted to the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA), and failed to innovate its organization or doctrine to match the technological breakthroughs it brought about.

Many called for the transformation of the US military in the years after the end of the Cold War, seeking the changes in organization and doctrine that would complete the RMA innovation and a commitment to counter-insurgency, peace keeping and nation building missions. This volume describes the origins, uses, and limits of the RMA technologies, examines how each of the five US armed services (categorising the Special Operations as a separate service) made their adjustments both to the technologies and the use of force, and how the role of the civilian officials and the defense industry altered in this process of change and avoidance of change.

The book examines the internal politics of the services as well as civil/military relations to identify the external pressures on the services for significant change in their doctrine and weapons. Many have noted the failure of the services to innovate in what can be called the 'Second Inter-war Period' (the years after the Cold War). This book offers explanations for this failure and arguments about the possible range and desirability of military innovation in the post-Cold war era.

This book will be of great interest to students of strategic studies, US defence politics, military studies, and US politics.

Addressing all those interested in the history of American science and concerned with its future, a leading scholar of public policy explains how and why the Office of Naval Research became the first federal agency to support a wide range of scientific work in universities. Harvey Sapolsky shows that the ONR functioned as a "surrogate national science foundation" between 1946 and 1950 and argues that its activities emerged not from any particularly enlightened position but largely from a bureaucratic accident. Once involved with basic research, however, the ONR challenged a Navy skeptical of the value of independent scientific advice and established a national security rationale that gave American science its Golden Age. Eventually, the ONR's autonomy was worn away in bureaucratic struggles, but Sapolsky demonstrates that its experience holds lessons for those who are committed to the effective management of science and interested in the ability of scientists to choose the directions for their research. As military support for basic research fades, scientists are discovering that they are unprotected from the vagaries of distributive politics.

To many the goal of the Polaris program seemed unachievable when first proposed: to produce a ballistic missile with a range of over a thousand miles that would be capable of being launched from a submerged submarine. Today a fleet of Polaris-carrying submarines constantly patrols beneath the seas as a key element in a national strategy of deterrence. Harvey Sapolsky examines the Polaris missile program, one of the most costly and successful ever undertaken by the federal government, and describes the bureaucratic strategies the Polaris proponents employed to control the threatening environment.

Sapolsky points out that the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), which gained the program a worldwide reputation for managerial innovativeness, was as much a device to protect the program from external interference as an effective management tool. The book should be valuable to those concerned with bureaucratic politics, management techniques, weapons procurement, and arms control problems as well as to those who seek to understand the operations of American government.