Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, Robert D. Kaplan
Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, Robert D. Kaplan
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Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts
The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground

Author: Robert D. Kaplan

Narrator: Don Leslie

Abridged: 8 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/04/2007


Synopsis

In this extraordinary book, Robert D. Kaplan lets readers experience up close the American military worldwide in the air, at sea, and on the ground: flying in a B-2 bomber, living on a nuclear submarine, and traveling with a Stryker brigade on missions around the world. Provided unprecedented access, Kaplan moves from destroyers off the coast of Indonesia to submarines in the central Pacific, from simulated Iraqi training grounds in Alaska to technology bases in Las Vegas, from army and marine land forces in the heart of the Sahara Desert, to air bases in Guam and Thailand and beyond.

Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts provides not only a riveting ground-level portrait of the Global War on Terrorism on several continents, but also a gritty firsthand account of how U.S. soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are protecting sea-lanes, providing disaster relief, contending with the military rise of China, fighting the war in Iraq, and crafting contingency plans for war with North Korea and Iran.

Expanding on Kaplan’s acclaimed Imperial Grunts, the first volume of his exploration of the American military, which “offers the reader an enlightened way to understand what is happening in the world” (San Francisco Chronicle), Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts shifts focus to the Pacific, where emerging Asian powers present vexing diplomatic and strategic challenges to U.S. influence. In this volume, Kaplan completes his analysis of army Special Forces and the marines, while also taking readers into the heart of the myriad tribal cultures of the air force, surface and subsurface navies, and the regular army’s Stryker
brigades. Kaplan goes deep into their highly technical and exotic worlds, and he tells this story through the words and perspectives of the enlisted personnel and junior officers themselves–men and women who, as he writes, have “had their national identities as Americans engraved in sharp bas-relief.”

This provocative and illuminating book, like Imperial Grunts before it, not only conveys the vast scope of America’s military commitments, which rarely make it into the news, but also shows us astonishing and vital operations right as they unfold–from the point of view of the troops themselves.

About The Author

Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of twenty books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including Adriatic, The Good AmericanThe Revenge of Geography, Asia’s Cauldron, Monsoon, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He was a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and the U.S. Navy’s Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.”


Reviews

-De los cimientos en los que se apoya una Hiperpotencia y, casi sin querer, de sus potenciales desafíos geopolíticos.- Género. Ensayo. Lo que nos cuenta. Paseo por diferentes acuartelamientos del ejército norteamericano, de la mano de un periodista, que le llevarán de una brigada Stryker en Alaska, a......more

A fast paced, straight-forward, honest talk on the state of the American military forces spread all over the world, updated until late 2006. Filled with lively analysis and real soldiers' opinions on their reasons for fighting and their viewpoints on country, freedom and life in general. Soldiers' t......more

Goodreads review by John

I didn't read "Imperial Grunts", but after thoroughly enjoying this second of Mr. Kaplan's trilogy, I may. HIs writing style is easy and flowing, and he keeps you on the edge of your seat. Current through 2006, the author gives the reader an idea of what modern combat is like, in the air, on and belo......more

Goodreads review by Hank

This is an excellent insight into the life of an American military member executing his/ her duties in an operational theater. Dr. Kaplan weaves the individual experiences into the historical and political context of the mission resulting in enlightening an entertaining descriptions of our military......more


Quotes

“A valuable bridge across the country's widening civil-military divide. It is an important contribution to our understanding of how this military works in the 21st century.”—The New York Times“No one understands better the burdens carried by today's men and women in uniform. If you aren't reading Kaplan, you aren't fully informed.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune"Again and again in this book, we see how military service, even in peacetime, provides the catalyst that allows common men to perform uncommon deeds." —The Wall Street Journal“Recommended reading for anyone seeking to understand the full reach of America's global military power, or trying to comprehend the incredibly complicated, but increasingly important, soft-power demands being placed on today's military.” —The Boston Globe