" ... the story of the all-volunteer force, from the draft protests and policy proposals of the 1960s through the Iraq War"--Jacket.

Can America continue to maintain its military commitments without conscription?

As U.S. military forces appear overcommitted and some ponder a possible return to the draft, the timing is ideal for a review of how the American military transformed itself over the past five decades, from a poorly disciplined force of conscripts and draft-motivated "volunteers" to a force of professionals revered throughout the world. Starting in the early 1960s, this account runs through the current war in Iraq, with alternating chapters on the history of the all-volunteer force and the analytic background that supported decisionmaking. The author participated as an analyst and government policymaker in many of the events covered in this book. His insider status and access offer a behind-the-scenes look at decisionmaking within the Pentagon and White House. The book includes a foreword by former Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird. The accompanying DVD contains more than 1,700 primary-source documents-government memoranda, Presidential memos and letters, staff papers, and reports-linked directly from citations in the electronic version of the book. This unique technology presents a treasure trove of materials for specialists, researchers, and students of military history, public administration, and government affairs to draw upon.

Includes 47 coloured plates of uniforms.

In A Guide to the Volunteers of England 1859-1908, the second of his 'Guides' series, Ray Westlake presents details of the several branches of the Victorian system that saw men from all walks of life give up their spare time to prepare for any invasion, should it take place.

Shaping the debate on how to save the military from itself. The first part recognizes what the military has done well in attracting and developing leadership talent. The book then examines the causes and consequences of the modern military's stifling personnel system and offers solutions for attracting and retaining top talent.

The Routledge Handbook of Defence Studies provides a comprehensive collection of essays on contemporary defence studies by leading international scholars. Defence studies is a multi-disciplinary study of how agents, predominantly states, prepare for and go to war. Whereas security studies has been broadened and stretched to cover at times the near totality of international and domestic affairs, and war studies has come to mean not just operations and tactics but also experiences and outcomes, defence studies remains a coherent area of study primarily aimed at how defence policy changes over time and in relation to stimulating factors such as alterations in power, strategy and technology. This new Handbook offers a complete landscape of this area of study and contributes to a review of defence studies in terms of policy, security and war, but also looks forward to new challenges to existing conceptions of defence and how this is changing as states and their militaries also change. The volume is divided into four thematic sections: Defence as Policy; Defence Practice; Operations and Tactics; and Contemporary Defence Issues. The ability to review the field while also looking forward to further research is an important element of a sustainable text on defence studies. In as much as this volume is able to highlight the main themes of defence studies, it also offers an in-depth look into how defence issues can be examined and compared in a contemporary setting. This Handbook will be of great interest to students of defence studies, strategic studies, war studies, security studies and IR.