Bacevich, Andrew J. 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born July 5, 1947, in Normal, IL; son of Andrew J. Bacevich (a physician) and Martha E. Greenis (a homemaker); married; wife's name Nancy Sue; children: Jennifer Maureen, Amy Elizabeth, Andrew John, Kathleen Therese. Ethnicity: "Lithuanian." Education: U.S. Military Academy, West Point, B.S.; Princeton University, M.A. (American history), Ph.D. (American diplomatic history). Politics: Independent. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Boston University, Department of International Relations, 154 Bay State Rd., Ste. 201, Boston, MA 02215. E-mail—bacevich@bu.edu.

CAREER:

U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY, assistant professor of history, 1977-80; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, professorial lecturer in strategic studies, 1992—, professorial lecturer in political science, 1995—; Foreign Policy Institute, Washington, DC, executive director, cofounder and executive director of Center for Strategic Education; Boston University, Boston, MA, professor of international relations, 1998—, director of Center for International Relations. Military service: U.S. Army, former officer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellowships at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Council on Foreign Relations.

WRITINGS:

The Pentomic Era: The U.S. Army between Korea and Vietnam, National Defense University Press (Washington, DC), 1986.

(With others) American Military Policy in Small Wars: The Case of El Salvador, Pergamon-Brassey's (Washington, DC), 1988.

Diplomat in Khaki: Major General Frank Ross McCoy and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1949, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 1989.

(With Michael Eisenstadt and Carl Ford) Supporting Peace: America's Role in an Israel-Syria Peace Agreement, Washington Institute for Near-East Policy (Washington, DC), 1994.

(With Eliot A. Cohen and Michael J. Eisenstadt) Knives, Tanks, and Missiles: Israel's Security Revolution, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (Washington, DC), 1998.

(Editor, with Eliot A. Cohen) War over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

(Editor, with Efraim Inbar) The Gulf War of 1991 Reconsidered, Frank Cass (Portland, OR), 2002.

(Editor) The Imperial Tense: Prospects and Problems of American Empire, Ivan R. Dee (Chicago, IL), 2003.

The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy since World War II, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor of articles and reviews to publications, including Foreign Affairs, Journal of Military History, Diplomatic History, Wilson Quarterly, National Interest, Commentary, First Things, New Republic, and Weekly Standard. Member of editorial advisory board, SAIS Review: A Journal of International Affairs, 1994—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andrew J. Bacevich, a former U.S. army officer, teaches courses in U.S. foreign policy and security studies at Boston University, where he is also the director of the Center for International Relations.

In Diplomat in Khaki: Major General Frank Ross McCoy and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1949, Bacevich discusses the life and military career of Major General Frank Ross McCoy. McCoy was an ordinary soldier, but he was involved in many U.S. military matters and served a number of well-known people. Some of McCoy's military duties included being a military aide to Theodore Roosevelt; gathering intelligence in China, Japan, and Colombia; serving as a commissioner to Calvin Coolidge; and serving as Harry S Truman's representative on the Far East Commission during the post-World War II period. Historian contributor Robert H. Ferrell found Bacevich's book "a delightfully written story of a man whose authority reached into many important U.S. matters of state." American Historical Review contributor Joyce S. Goldberg considered it "a most interesting and well-told story."

American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy compares the foreign and defense policies held by presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as those of George W. Bush during his first year in office. Bacevich argues that all three presidents worked to keep the United States as a supreme power in the world and as a world protector. Bacevich shows that these presidents wanted to open up trade and spread democracy to other areas of the world, and used military force when necessary to meet these goals. Bacevich goes into detail about the foreign and defense policies of these three presidents and compares them to the ideas of historians Charles Beard and William Appleton Williams. Foreign Affairs contributor Walter Russell Mead considered the book a "systematic, well-argued work."

In The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, Bacevich examines the ways in which the United States citizenry has moved over the past thirty years from a horror of warfare to an infatuation with it. "Thirty years ago, the U.S. military found itself marginalized in American society, widely discredited and in some quarters openly reviled," stated Taylor McNeill in Bostonia, published on the Boston University Web site. "The war in Vietnam had cast a pall over all things military. Now America is in such thrall to the military—the solution to any problem seems to be sending in the troops—that it is threatening our democracy."

This militarism, Bacevich explained, has only increased since the 9/11 attacks. "Since Vietnam and especially since the end of the Cold War we've developed outsized expectations regarding the efficacy of force," Bacevich declared in an interview for the Adventures of Chester Web site. Bacevich further stated that Americans have "a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness, and a romanticized view of soldiers. Together these constitute a variant of militarism. This militarism is contrary to our interests and is radically at odds with our founding ideals as a nation."

The situation, however, is not irreversible. "Bacevich has a series of proposals that he believes would make U.S. military policy more realistic," MacKubin Thomas Owens wrote in a National Review assessment of The New American Militarism. "We should, he says, return to the intentions of the Founders; revitalize the separation of powers; view force as a last resort; enhance our strategic self-sufficiency; organize the military for national defense rather than the broader concept of national security; revive the concept of the citizen-soldier; and reduce the cultural gap between the military and American society."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, June 20, 2005, "Living by the Sword," p. 24.

American Historical Review, October, 1990, Joyce S. Goldberg, review of Diplomat in Khaki: Major General Frank Ross McCoy and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1949, p. 1301.

American Scholar, spring, 2005, "What Is It Good For? How the U.S. Military Went from Defense to Offense."

Armor, July 1, 2007, Kevin C.M. Benson, review of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, p. 51.

Choice, February, 1990, C.W. Haury, review of Diplomat in Khaki, p. 998.

Commentary, October, 1998, Hillel Halkin, review of Knives, Tanks, and Missiles: Israel's Security Revolution, p. 58.

Commonweal, May 6, 2005, "Taming the Beast," p. 27.

Foreign Affairs, May-June, 2002, Stephen Biddle, "The New Way of War? Debating the Kosovo Model," p. 138; September-October, 2005, Walter Russell Mead, review of The New American Militarism.

Historian, winter, 1991, Robert H. Ferrell, review of Diplomat in Khaki, p. 356.

Independent Review, winter, 2006, review of The New American Militarism, p. 440.

Journal of American History, September, 1990, review of Diplomat in Khaki, p. 694.

Journal of Military History, April, 2002, Richard M. Swain, review of War over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, p. 638.

Middle East Policy, June, 2000, Joshua Sinai, review of Knives, Tanks, and Missiles, p. 176.

Military Review, May 1, 2003, Michael A. Wormley, review of War over Kosovo, p. 92.

National Interest, summer, 2005, "Resisting the Charms of War," p. 142.

National Review, August 8, 2005, MacKubin Thomas Owens, "A Force for Good," review of The New American Militarism, p. 44.

Naval War College Review, winter, 2003, review of War over Kosovo, p. 178.

Orbis, winter, 1989, review of American Military Policy in Small Wars: The Case of El Salvador, p. 151.

Parameters, autumn, 2002, Jeffrey Record, review of War over Kosovo, p. 140; winter, 2005, Robert B. Killebrew, review of The New American Militarism.

Perspective, March, 1987, Garold W. Thumm, review of The Pentomic Era: The U.S. Army between Korea and Vietnam, p. 48.

Publishers Weekly, October 28, 2002, review of American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy, p. 61.

U.S. News & World Report, October 21, 2002, Jay Tolson, "World Disorder?," p. 56.

Wilson Quarterly, summer, 2000, "Fighting Bioterrorism," p. 98.

ONLINE

Adventures of Chester,http://www.theadventuresofchester.com/ (April 8, 2008), "Blog Interview with Dr. Andrew Bacevich, author of ‘The New American Militarism.’"

Boston University Web site,http://www.bu.edu/ (April 8, 2008), "Andrew Bacevich, Department of International Relations," and Taylor McNeill, "Bostonia: Seduced by War," author interview.

Carnegie Council Web site,http://www.cceia.org/ (April 8, 2008), Mary-Lea Cox, "The New American Militarism: Conversation with Andrew Bacevich."

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Web site,http://www.ceip.org/ (April 8, 2008), Anatol Lieven, "The Dilemma of Sustaining an America Empire."

Foreign Affairs Online,http://www.foreignaffairs.org/ (April 8, 2008), Walter Russell Mead, review of American Empire.

Tom Dispatch,http://tomdispatch.org/ (April 8, 2008), "Tomdispatch Interview: Bacevich, the Arrogance of American Power."

Washington Institute Web site,http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/ (April 8, 2008), review of Knives, Tanks, and Missiles.

Washington Times Online,http://www.washtimes.com/ (April 8, 2008), "Are the Bush, Clinton Policies Similar?"