On Strategy

About On Strategy

Stunning in its insight, On Strategy is required reading not just for everyone who is interested in the Vietnam War, but for anyone who is concerned about the place of the United States on the world stage and how America can, and more importantly cannot, employ its immense military force to help bring peace to an increasingly troubled world.

“On Stategy is just about the best thing I have read on Vietnam.”—Drew Middleton, The New York Times
 
“Perhaps the most trenchant single postmortem to date of our defeat in Vietnam . . . a classic . . . compact, subtle—and surprisingly readable.”—Newsweek
 
“At our house, we sleep less easily now that Harry G. Summers Jr., Colonel of Infantry, is no longer defending us. After two wars and 38 years of active duty, Summers has retired from the Army. . . . Every taxpayer should mourn his loss. Colonel Summers is perhaps the most influential thinker of our time: his book On Strategy is required reading at the Army and Naval War Colleges.”—Jack Beatty,  Boston Globe
 
“This investigation of the U.S. army’s role in the Vietnam War is widely recognized as the single most useful postmortem on the unpopular war.”—The Washington Post Book World
 
“The most detailed exposition of this view—that the U.S. threw away whatever chance for victory it may have had through blunders that must not be repeated—comes from Col. Harry Summers, whose book, On Strategy, has become must reading for young officers.”—Time
 
“A masterful analysis of the strategy, or lack thereof, in the Vietnam War . . . The best critique of the war I have read and a book every policy maker in Washington should absorb.”—Max Cleland, Atlanta Journal-Constitution