Breach of Trust cover art

Breach of Trust

How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

Preview

Free with 30-day trial
Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Breach of Trust

Written by: Andrew Bacevich
Narrated by: Sean Runnette
Free with 30-day trial

₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹134.00

Buy Now for ₹134.00

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A blistering critique of the gulf between America’s soldiers and the society that sends them off to war, from the best-selling author of The Limits of Power and Washington Rules.

The United States has been "at war" for more than a decade. Yet as war has become normalized, a yawning gap has opened between America’s soldiers and the society in whose name they fight. For ordinary citizens, as former secretary of defense Robert Gates has acknowledged, armed conflict has become an "abstraction" and military service "something for other people to do".

In Breach of Trust, best-selling author Andrew Bacevich takes stock of the separation between Americans and their military, tracing its origins to the Vietnam era and exploring its pernicious implications: a nation with an abiding appetite for war waged at enormous expense by a standing army demonstrably unable to achieve victory. Among the collateral casualties are values once considered central to democratic practice, including the principle that responsibility for defending the country should rest with its citizens.

Citing figures as diverse as the martyr-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the marine-turned-anti-warrior Smedley Butler, Breach of Trust summons Americans to restore that principle. Rather than something for "other people" to do, national defense should become the business of "we the people". Should Americans refuse to shoulder this responsibility, Bacevich warns, the prospect of endless war, waged by a "foreign legion" of professionals and contractor-mercenaries, beckons. So, too, does bankruptcy - moral as well as fiscal.

©2013 Andrew J. Bacevich (P)2013 Macmillan Audio
Military Political Science United States

What listeners say about Breach of Trust

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.