Success in war ultimately depends on the consolidation of political order. Nadia Schadlow argues that the steps needed to consolidate a new political order are not separate from war. They are instead an essential component of war and victory.
The challenge of governance operations did not start with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US Army’s involvement in the political and economic reconstruction of states has been central to all its armed conflicts from large-scale conventional wars to so-called irregular or counterinsurgency wars. Yet, US policymakers and military leaders have failed to institutionalize lessons on how to consolidate combat gains into desired political outcomes. War and the Art of Governance examines fifteen historical cases of US Army military interventions, from the Mexican War through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Improving future outcomes will require US policymakers and military leaders to accept that plans, timelines, and resources must be shaped to reflect this reality before they intervene in a conflict, not after things go wrong.
Schadlow provides clear lessons for students and scholars of security studies and military history, as well as for policymakers and the military personnel who will be involved in the next foreign intervention.
In late 1942, along with so many others who signed up to support the war effort, thirty-year-old Mildred Radawiec left a comfortable position as a nurse at the University of Michigan Hospital and postponed her marriage to a soon-to-be doctor to volunteer as a surgical nurse in the major battle theaters of the war. Radawiec was one of thirty volunteers from the hospital surgical staff that comprised the University of Michigan Unit, the 298th General Hospital, as the University of Michigan Hospital was called.
Radawiec's first-person history recounts her wartime experience with sharp detail and grace and sets the stage for a you-are-there experience---from the thrill of signing up and shipping out; to the harrowing ocean crossing and the arduous trip through the Sahara; to dangerous air raids and moving at a moment's notice, often at night with the lights off to avoid attacks. Radawiec was near Omaha Beach in France soon after D-Day, June 6, 1944, and details stories of marathon stints assisting the injured on the front lines as they poured in by the hundreds. Radawiec also traveled to Belgium and Germany and set up in the area near Aachen in the fall of 1944. In Germany she experienced Buzz Bombs---pilotless flying bombs---and even witnessed the death of a fellow nurse in a bombing attack in which medics brought in wounded soldiers by the truckload. Radawiec also leavens her story with uplifting tales of heroism and courage and intersperses the narrative with poignant letters from her family and fiancé.
This stirring personal account of war will mesmerize anyone interested in World War II history and women's too-often-overlooked role in it.
Mildred A. MacGregor is ex. Lieutenant Mildred A. Radawiec, Army Nurse Corp. She was part of the Third Auxiliary Surgical Group in World War II and was stationed in England, North Africa, France, and Germany. She is 95 and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is her first book.
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