Military Review English Edition July-August 2014 | Page 97

BOOK REVIEWS

the bloodiest. Commitment problems result when
states have difficulty trusting their opponent to bargain
in good faith. In an insightful variation of standard
realist arguments, Weisiger contends declining powers
attack to preclude their relative decline. The most destructive long and intense conflicts are a subset of those
in which the defender survives the initial onslaught and
concludes the attacker is inherently aggressive. These
wars defy negotiated settlement because defending
states believe security cannot be assured short of the
attacker’s unconditional surrender.
Logics of War does not claim predictive knowledge
per se. Indeed, much of the book’s reasoning relies
on initial or continued misjudgment by leaders and
decision makers. The author’s explanations are based
on results rather than forecasts. Nonetheless, practitioners can make good use of Logics of War’s insights.
Weisiger’s theories can inform and be applied to the
design of policy and campaigns. Alternatively, they
may be used to more swiftly discern operating causal
mechanisms once war is already engaged. Logics of
War’s frameworks potentially add rigor to the analysis
of strategic and operational environments.
Richard E. Berkebile, Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas

GIs IN GERMANY:
The Social, Economic, Cultural, and Political History
of the American Military Presence
Eds. Thomas Maulucci and Detleff Junker, Cambridge
University Press, New York, 378 pages, $89.10
Is in Germany is a compilation of 15 essays
that explains the “complex” relationship
between the United States and Germany. The
essays are grouped into select topics: strategy
and politics, the impact of military communities,
tensions between the two countries, the making of the
Bundeswehr, and the contentious period covering the
1970s through the 1980s.
Germany’s opinion of U.S. presence in Europe was
positive as the U.S. status turned from that of occupier
to that of a more benign “protector” role. However,
the relationship suffered during the U.S. involvement
in Vietnam, the ensuing U.S. economic downturn,
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2014

recurring U.S. soldier criminal activity and racial conflicts, and the poor state of U.S. military readiness in
the 1970s and early 1980s. The two countries’ relationship evolved less from efforts in diplomacy and more
from social, military, and cultural interactions shaped
by the permanent, multi-generational presence of U.S.
troops and their families.
After the start of the Korean War, new Cold War
battle lines were drawn across the face of Europe.
The question was how to defend the continent with
Germans insisting on a far-forward defense while U.S.
leaders desired a more cautionary defense. Through
compromise, Germany’s approach was adopted and
the country acquiesced to rebuilding a formidable
conventional force right after it regained its sovereignty
in 1955. The paradox to building the Bundeswehr was
how to make the military force “stronger than Russia
but weaker than France.”
Although the Federal Republic embraced U.S.
superior air technology, it adopted its own form of
mission command (Auftragstaktik) and a conscription
force based on inner civic leadership. Simultaneously,
the United States provided conventional forces at the
pivotal Fulda Gap, stationed families on a permanent
basis in Germany, and backed up its commitment
with nuclear weapons assuredness. Although political
leaders intended to maintain a permanent U.S. presence in Europe, it was the U.S. military that was kept in
a state of flux as politicians argued over overseas troop
levels. This flux resulted in low standards of living for
military members and their families as infrastructure
investments were kept on hold for decades at a time.
It wasn’t until the 1990s, when major troop redeployments out of Europe were imminent, that the Defense
Department recapitalized facilities overseas, only to see
many of the renovated and modernized bases handed
back to the host nation.
American family members lived alongside allied
military forces and the local German population in
Berlin, even during the tense periods of the Berlin
Airlift in the late 1940s, and later in 1961, and when
the Berlin Wall was built. In contrast, the Soviets evacuated their family members. Family member presence
in Germany had a multi-fold strategic mission: to show
the Germans that the United States was committed
to protection of the Federal Republic and to send a
signal to the Soviets that the U.S. mission in Europe was
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