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The Vietnam War is one of the longest and most controversial in US history. This book seeks to explore what lessons the US military took from that conflict as to how and when it was appropriate for the United States to use the enormous military force at its disposal and how these lessons have come to influence and shape US foreign policy in subsequent decades. In particular this book will focus on the evolution of the so called ‘Powell Doctrine’ and the intellectual climate that led to it.

Looking at the restructuring of armed forces through three different lenses—doctrine and strategic framework, budget and resource allocation, and force structure and deployment—the key issues addressed in this book relate to how these factors interact in shaping transformation. This study provides valuable insights into the extent to which armed forces manage to adapt to the emerging strategic and operational challenges they have to face and illustrates the weight of institutional legacies, resource constraints and inter-organizational learning in shaping transformation. The book provides an innovative viewpoint on military transformation and significantly contributes to our understanding of contemporary security.