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The Generals' War : The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf | 
 enlarge | Authors: Michael R. Gordon, General Bernard E. Trainor
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $10.03
You Save: $9.96 (50%)
New (21) Used (23) Collectible (2) from $8.58
Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 14744
Media: Paperback
Pages: 576
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4
ISBN: 0316321001
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.70442
EAN: 9780316321006
ASIN: 0316321001
Publication Date: November 9, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: H20080822210137T
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Good Reading For Any Desert Storm Vet September 4, 2008
CrustyOldSarge (Illinois)
I was in the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia)in the U.S. Army, from October '90 to August '91 as part of Desert Shield/Storm. This was the first book I've read on the subject. The ground war was so short(100 hours), and had such an anti climatic feel after waiting months for something to happen, that I didn't feel any book would be very good reading. This book was very good,though not great. Very revealing.
The first part of the book leading up to the air campaign kind of dragged a bit at times. It was interesting to read about the preperations at the higher levels, and the in-fighting amongst the services. Saddam Hussein's blunders early on are explained very well. I had never heard of any of these arguments before.
The book left me with a very negative view on Colin Powell. He was willing to leave 400,000 troops sitting in the desert (99% of us who would be living in tents) for over a year waiting for economic sanctions to work. Go to Death Valley and live in a tent, General!!!
Once the air campaign starts, the book reads like a Tom Clancy novel. Very riveting.
General Schwarzkopf comes off as an egotistical hothead, and a bit of a 'screw-up'. He fails to seriously heed intelligence on the poor morale and combat effectivenewss of the Iraqi troops. There also seemed to be a lot of blundering getting the ground campaign off on the right track.
Schwarzkopf was also overly generous to the Iraqi's after thier defeat. He allowed them to fly helicopters, which they used to slaughter thousands who rose up against Saddam.
General McCaffrey, who commaned the 24th Mech Division, comes off as one of the Army's best generals, to bad he wasn't in charge of the whole operation.
After reading this book I realized that this was not such a great victory as advertised. Mainly due to a very political JCS Chairman (Powell), various other politicians, and an egotistical (Jonathan Winters look alike) General Schwarzkopf, who had his memoirs planned before it was all over.
The military acronyms used might be a problem for someone never in the military, but the authors do a good job of explaining them at the outset.
There is not to much 'high tech' mumbo jumbo either. The book flows decently.
The First Gulf War: A Necessary Corrective... March 3, 2008
D. S. Thurlow (Alaska)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"The Generals' War", by correspondent Michael Gordon and retired General Bernard Trainor, is a well-researched historical account of the First Gulf War, with a focus on general officer-level decision-making. Published in 1995, the authors took full advantage of access to senior participants and declassified records to publish a necessary corrective to the triumphalism that immediately followed the end of hostilities in 1991.
DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM were the largest military operations conducted by the United States since the end of the Vietnam War. The operations were also a proving ground of modern weaponry and of doctrine for joint and coalition warfare. Shining a 20/20 hindsight spotlight, Gordon and Trainor found that the making of war was far messier than was advertised at the time. Rivalries between CENTCOM and the Washington Beltway hindered integrated planning, while joint conduct of the war suffered from the attempts of each of the services to carve out their own piece of the action.
The hype that accompanied the release of "The Generals' War" was a bit overdone. Few of Gordon's and Trainor's findings should be surprising to dedicated students of warfare, let alone to participants in the war itself. Wars are inherently political in planning. Execution is inherently messy and subject to all kinds of friction. For a national security structure with limited experience in the planning and conduct of war, the Bush Administration by and large did a very acceptable job. The point is well-taken that the Bush Adminstration might have done a better job of warning off Saddam from invading Kuwait prior to August 1990; it remains unknowable what if any actions might have produced different results. The point is also well-taken that the ground war was ended before the destruction of the Republican Guards, based on incomplete reporting from the battlefield. The service jostling for participation was inevitable, given the expectation that post-war budgeting would be based on wartime performance. That JCS Chief General Powell did a good job of deflecting these service pressures is to his credit.
"The Generals' War" is a very useful dissection of a complicated conflict, one that is a direct precusor to our current ways of conducting military operations. It is highly recommended to students of warfare as a detailed and generally balanced account.
 Wrong Book November 3, 2007
quadpaws (alaska)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Bought this by mistake, thought it was a diffewrent one. Will read it sometime in the futre or donate it to local library.
 How not to conduct Joint Warfare September 6, 2006
A. B. Powers
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Trainor and Gordon do a commendable job explaining the operational level planning and execution of the first Gulf War. I unreservedly recommend this book as the best description of the events comprising Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm that I have read. "The Generals' War" explains the challenges of joint integration and deconfliction, the intricacies of fighting with allies, and the blend of political and military concerns faced by a regional combatant commander.
Desert Storm is often described in service schools as a shining example of joint warfare, however the authors expose this statement as overblown and explain the shortfalls in interservice cooperation that plagued Schwarzkopf's CENTCOM, and demonstrate how each service ultimately did its own thing. "The Generals' War" demonstrates that Desert Storm was not so much a campaign that combined joint effects to achieve a goal, as it was a campaign that piled each service's effects onto the enemy forces until they collapsed.
The books does not pull punches and examines how problems with phasing and operational tempo allowed many enemy formations to escape capture or destruction.
"The Generals' War" will appeal to the military professional and the average reader alike. Well done.
An insiders look at the Gulf War May 27, 2006
Art (Virginia, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The General's War is a well written insider's look at the operational planning and execution of Operation Desert Storm. The detailed discussion of the operational planning teams that designed campaign plan was the highlight. It provided a rare glimpse into the extremely important, but often overlooked subject of campaign planning. While the high-tech smart bombs are what most people remember about the war, it was these small teams of mid-level officers that came up with the plan the liberated Kuwait in 100 hours that deserve much of the credit. The early stumbles at "jointness" are evident throughout the book, as old service rivalries dominated many issues. I can see why this book is the standard at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College for the study of the Gulf War.
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