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The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army |  | Authors: Greg Jaffe, David Cloud
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
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Seller: nicolemary
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 15538
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1St Edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307409066
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.0092273
EAN: 9780307409065
ASIN: 0307409066
Publication Date: October 13, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780307409065 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
They were four exceptional soldiers, a new generation asked to save an army that had been hollowed out after Vietnam. They survived the military's brutal winnowing to reach its top echelon. They became the Army's most influential generals in the crucible of Iraq.
Collectively, their lives tell the story of the Army over the last four decades and illuminate the path it must travel to protect the nation over the next century. Theirs is a story of successes and failures, of ambitions achieved and thwarted, of the responsibilities and perils of command. The careers of this elite quartet show how the most powerful military force in the world entered a major war unprepared, and how the Army, drawing on a reservoir of talent that few thought it possessed, saved itself from crushing defeat against a ruthless, low-tech foe. In The Fourth Star, you'll follow:
•Gen. John Abizaid, one of the Army's most brilliant minds. Fluent in Arabic, he forged an unconventional path in the military to make himself an expert on the Middle East, but this unique background made him skeptical of the war he found himself leading.
•Gen. George Casey Jr., the son of the highest-ranking general to be killed in the Vietnam War. Casey had grown up in the Army and won praise for his common touch and skill as a soldier. He was determined not to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam but would take much of the blame as Iraq collapsed around him.
•Gen. Peter Chiarelli, an emotional, take-charge leader who, more than any other senior officer, felt the sting of the Army's failures in Iraq. He drove his soldiers, the chain of command, and the U.S. government to rethink the occupation plans–yet rarely achieved the results he sought.
•Gen. David Petraeus, a driven soldier-scholar. Determined to reach the Army's summit almost since the day he entered West Point, he sometimes alienated peers with his ambition and competitiveness. When he finally got his chance in Iraq, he–more than anyone–changed the Army's conception of what was possible.
Masterfully written and richly reported, The Fourth Star ranges far beyond today's battlefields, evoking the Army's tumultuous history since Vietnam through these four captivating lives and ultimately revealing a fascinating irony: In an institution that prizes obedience, the most effective warriors are often those who dare to question the prevailing orthodoxy and in doing so redefine the American way of war.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
 Good Insider History February 27, 2010
David W. Southworth (Alexandria, VA United States)
This book provides a great inside look into how the US Army has developed for those not already in or closely watching. Tracing the careers of four eventual four star generals from their commissioning through various assignments over the last 30 years that had the highest impact on their futures, Cloud and Jaffe provide a good history of how a few generals from differing backgrounds have developed their mindsets. How these generals then reacted to the unfolding situation in Iraq through 2008 is the subject of the second half of the book, much of which has been reported elsewhere. However, the book is still valuable for highlighting certain aspects of army life, such as the role combat leadership, interaction with the Social Science department at West Point, and experience in the Middle East shaped how these careers were made and how each commander reacted to Iraq.
My only question for the authors is why these four? General Petraeus is an obvious choice. Same goes for General Casey. But why not Generals Odierno, McChrystal, or even Franks?
Overall, this is a good effort at peeling back the onion of the 21st century army. I highly recommend this book.
Excellent February 13, 2010
Zap3v (Olympia, WA USA)
I am an active duty Soldier and found this book to have a lot of background information and is a great took for professional development for any military officers.
Excellent Read February 9, 2010
DC Reader (Washington DC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was straightforward and very insightful. I highly recommend that everyone read it to understand how the current leaders of the U.S. Army came to be and what we can expect from the next generation of U.S. Army leaders.
 What is the future of the US Army February 1, 2010
Bryan Heath Lewis
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book is a fairly low level potted biography of 4 American generals. It had little to do with the future of the US Army.
It would seem that the future of the US army centers round such issues as:
1. Will the army remain a fighting force to destroy enemy military formations or will it become the American Colonial Service in all but name?
2. The Army's sucess depends on its ability to bring the enemy to battle and deliver a shattering blow to its physical materiel, infrastructure and to the enemies will to fight. It's failure in Iraq arose from its failure to bring substantial elements of the enemy to battle and so to break their spirit. How will it accomplish this objective in a rapidly changing military environment? If this can be accomnplished by drone and similar attacks as in Pakistan what is the future of the army?
3. How will the army's proposed role of fighting in space and cyberspace relate to its other duties?
4. How will fighting responsibilities be divided between regular army and paid mercenaries?
5. How will the changing duties of the army relate to the Army being organised into several major units each with responsibility for a large part of the globe?
These and other questions are barely touched on.
Must-read for military officers -- and those interested in the modern US Army January 1, 2010
A. Courie (Freedom's Fortress)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Greg Jaffe's and David Cloud's "The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army" tells the parallel stories of four of America's top generals and how their leadership was shaped by their unique backgrounds. The four generals are: General Abizaid, former head of Central Command; General Casey, former commander of all forces in Iraq and current Chief of Staff of the Army; General Chiarelli, former commander of both a division and a corps in Iraq and current Vice Chief of Staff of the Army; and General David Petraeus, former commander of all forces in Iraq and current Central Command commander.
Using personal access to the generals and many others in the Army, Jaffe and Cloud tell the personal stories of these four officers and how their backgrounds influenced the generals they became. Abizaid took a non-traditional approach to his career, focusing in Middle Eastern studies, and was uniquely educated and prepared to work in the Arab world. Casey was the son of a general killed in Vietnam with no aspirations to stay in the Army, and his conservative and shepherding approach to leadership resulted in a conservative leader who presided over the deterioration in Iraq. Petraeus was the brilliant, driven leader who became a disciple of counterinsurgency warfare in the 1990s. And Chiarelli was the thorough leader who saw firsthand as a division commander early on in Iraq what was needed and worked hard within the system to do this.
As they rose through the ranks these leaders' careers often intersected, and finally all have played important, and differing, roles in the Iraq War and the shaping of the current US Army.
(One episode in the book, if true, really disturbed me. After the successful Iraqi elections in January 2005, according to the book Casey and his aide toasted the day with some grappa. Soldiers in Iraq are not allowed to drink, but their commander did.)
This is a very enlightening book about four of the top leaders of the modern US Army. More importantly, it tells the story of their ideas on how to lead and fight a modern war. It is not a comprehensive story but instead based more on anecdotal stories. Despite the overstated title (this book doesn't tell the story of an "epic struggle"), this is an excellent book that should be read by anyone interested in current military affairs.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
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