On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War

Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983. Second Printing. fair to good, fair to good. 225, map, notes, appendix, bibliography, index, ink underlining and yellow highlighting to text, sm tears/creases/chips to DJ edges. Ink name inside front flyleaf. An important study of the war by a career officer, applying Clausewitz's principles to the actual conduct of the war. A controversial study even before publication, this has since come to be recognized as one of the pieces of writing to formally articulate the "lessons of Vietnam" in a way that attempts to understand the mistakes and build for the future from the basis of that understanding. Summers focused on the questions at the intersection of military strategy and national policy, and the effect of his (and later, others') analyses of such questions has been amply demonstrated in the U.S. conduct of the Gulf War, for example.