Military Review English Edition March-April 2014 | Page 85

BOOK REVIEWS

critique of the Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional
Authority and its early efforts to “rebuild” Iraq.
Given Chandrasekaran’s position and liberal outlook, one might expect that he would be gentler
in his evaluation of “Obama’s war.” This is hardly
the case. While the author offers a sympathetic
portrayal of individual soldiers and marines and
their frustrating efforts to win the fight in Helmand,
his description of life inside the insulated, alcoholdrenched, and ignorant American communities
in Kabul is damning. Chandrasekaran finds that
civilians willing to venture outside the fortified enclaves—like the State Department’s Kael
Weston and Carter Malkasian—were far too rare.
Little America covers the period from Obama’s
surge in 2009 to the beginning of the drawdown in
2011. In describing these events, Chandrasekaran’s
theme seems to be about cross-purposes: senior
military leaders operating at cross-purposes with
presidential guidance, marines fighting at crosspurposes with the Army, Richard Holbrooke working at cross-purposes with national security advisors, U.S. efforts to build legitimacy launched at
cross-purposes with the hopelessly corrupt Karzai
government, America’s best intentions placed at
cross-purposes to American cultural ignorance,
etcetera, etcetera. Chandrasekaran’s bleak assessment: “For all the lofty pronouncements about
waging a new kind of war, our nation was unable
to adapt . . . . Our government was incapable of
meeting the challenge.”
The last segment in the story of America’s
longest war has yet to be written. Little America
may serve as a deeply depressing draft of that final
chapter. This book is highly recommended.
Scott Stephenson, Ph.D.,
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

THE NORTH AFRICAN AIR CAMPAIGN:
U.S. Army Air Forces
from El Alamein to Salerno
Christopher M. Rein, University Press of Kansas,
Lawrence, 2012, 290 pages, $31.08

E

XACTLY HOW DOES air power win wars?
Does strategic bombing, with its massive
killing power, ability to knock out industries, and
MILITARY REVIEW

March-April 2014

capacity to destroy resources, do the job? Does tactical
bombing, with its support of the ground troops and interdiction closer to the front line, win the day? Historian
Christopher Rein tackles this conundrum in The North
African Air Campaign. This well-researched book
explains the buildup of American air power in both the
Eastern and Western Campaigns and their contribution
to Allied victory in the Mediterranean Theater.
The book is broken down into six chapters. The
introduction asks the question: how should air forces
be deployed? The following chapters cover prewar
theory and doctrine; the 9th Air Force fighting under
the British in the western desert; Operation Torch
and the creation of the 12th Air Force; the Tunisian
Campaign; the Sicilian Campaign; and Ploesti and
Salerno.
Rein points out that the 9th and 12th Air Forces
suffered under the relentless Air Force generals
who wanted to prove the theory of strategic bombing. Despite the two air forces’ success supporting
ground troops, their comman