Description
Book SynopsisOffers the first in-depth historical study of the development and evolution of modern army reserve forces. In doing so, Andrew Lewis Chadwick explores how a confluence of military, political, and socio-economic developments since the First World War has forced armies preparing for major war to increase their dependence on reservists.
Trade ReviewAndrew Chadwick presents a very important assessment of the structures and uses of armed forces reserves in contemporary history and he posits serious questions about the readiness of the US military.
Send in the Reserves! shows that the US could, in the wake of the wars of the draft era, return to its traditional volunteer system while stressing professionalism and preparedness. Yet that created a situation wherein reservists have become an integral part of the fighting force despite limited training and incomplete mastery of increasingly complex technology. Chadwick’s broader point is that we now have a system in place that has solved the challenges of the nineteenth and early twentieth century (mechanization; firepower and movement in conventional war) but that has not rendered reserves well prepared for what faces them in the twenty-first century. This is a deeply researched book with great insights for military historians and students of the World Wars, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era." - Ingo Trauschweizer, professor of history, Ohio University, and author of
Maxwell Taylor’s Cold War: From Berlin to Vietnam and
The Cold War U.S. Army: Building Deterrence for Limited WarTable of Contents
- List of Tables
- Series Editor’s Foreword
- Preface
- 1. The Reserve Dilemma
- 2. The United States Confronts the Reserve Dilemma
- 3. The National Guard as an Operational Reserve
- 4. The Heights of Israeli Reserve Performance
- 5. The Decline of the Israel Defense Forces Army Reserve
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
