The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam by General Bruce PalmerReview by: Andrew J. PierreForeign Affairs, Vol. 63, No. 2 (Winter, 1984), p. 414Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20042200 .

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414 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

An extended trans-Atlantic discussion, still in its early stages, over

improving conventional defense in Europe is the natural follow-up to the debates of recent years over "no first use" and the INF deployments. The

essays in this book, written mainly by faculty members at West Point, constitute an excellent framework or guide for the discussion. Ideas for

developing new conventional technologies and for adopting new military tactics (such as "deep-strike" into the rear echelons of the Warsaw Pact

forces) have now been tabled within NATO. But their political, economic and military costs and benefits need to be more fully examined. This book

makes a useful contribution to that end.

THE 25-YEAR WAR: AMERICA'S MILITARY ROLE IN VIETNAM.

By General Bruce Palmer, Jr. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984, 236 pp. $24.00.

The author, deputy to General William Westmoreland in Vietnam and Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1973, writes from first hand experience. General Palmer notes some defects in the Army's opera tional performance in Vietnam, but his most severe criticism is of the wider

strategy?too much faith in the effectiveness of air offensives, for exam

ple?and the lack of clarity in our political aims. He articulates admirably the by now conventional post-Vietnam wisdom that wars should not be

entered into if they are not manifestly in the national interest and do not

have adequate public support at home.

ARMS PRODUCTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. Edited by James Everett Katz. Lexington (Mass.): Lexington Books, 1984, 370 pp. $30.00.

Separate chapters on the armament industries of such countries as Brazil,

Israel, Argentina, Egypt, India and China make this a useful volume. Arms

production is a growing phenomenon in the Third World, one that is by now recognized but little studied. A significant addition to the arms-transfer bookshelf.

General: Economie and Social

William Diebold, Jr. AFTER HEGEMONY: COOPERATION AND DISCORD IN THE

WORLD POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Robert O. Keohane. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1984, 320 pp. $30.00 (paper, $8.95). In the postwar world there has been more international cooperation

than ever before, but there is more discord than cooperation. Interdepend ence adds to both. Much of the past cooperation, and especially the

"regimes" that have been created for money, trade and other matters?

more or less lasting arrangements that involve rules, commitments and

accepted ways of doing things?date from the time when the United States

had a far more dominant position than it does now. Can cooperation increase if there is no hegemony? Yes, says Professor Keohane in this

outstanding book. The case rests on the demonstration that states, by

adjusting their national policies to one another, thereby enhance their

ability to serve their national interests. The author's painstaking consider

ation of difficulties and objections should show how often narrow assump

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