The Spoils of War

Power, Profit and the American War Machine

Andrew Cockburn

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English

Verso
30 May 2023

Reportage & collected journalism; History; Comparative politics; Geopolitics

"Fully updated from the original edition. As the retreat from Kabul shows, America goes to war not to bring democracy, or glory, but in the pursuit of profit. In The Spoils of War, leading Washington reporter, Andrew Cockburn, reveals the extent of the rot that stretches from the Pentagon and the White House, to Wall St and Silicon Valley.

The American war machine can only be understood in terms of the ""private passions"" and ""interests"" of those who control it - principally a passionate interest in money. Thus, as he witheringly reports, Washington expanded NATO to satisfy an arms manufacturer's urgent financial requirements; the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet deployments were for years dictated by a corrupt contractor who bribed high-ranking officers with cash and prostitutes; senior marine commanders agreed to a troop surge in Afghanistan in 2017 ""because it will do us good at budget time.""

Based on years of wide-ranging research, Cockburn lays bare the ugly reality of the largest military machine in history: squalid, and at the same time terrifyingly dangerous."

By: Andrew Cockburn
Imprint: Verso
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm,
Weight: 240g
ISBN: 9781839763687
ISBN 10: 183976368X
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 30 May 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Andrew Cockburn is the Washington Editor of Harper's magazine and the author of many articles and books on national security, including the New York Times Editor's Choice Rumsfeld and The Threat, which destroyed the myth of Soviet military superiority underpinning the Cold War and Kill Chain: Drones and the Rise of High-Tech Assassin. He is a regular opinion contributor to the Los Angeles Times and has written for, among others, the New York Times, National Geographic and the London Review of Books.

Reviews for The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine

Cockburn is ... an assiduous investigator and skillful narrator. -- Foreign Affairs A compelling case for regarding Rumsfeld as the single greatest villain of the Bush presidency -- Alexander Chancellor * Daily Telegraph [for Rumsfeld] * Richly informative, superbly researched, and utterly illuminating, Kill Chain shines much-needed light on the shadowy theories and theorists, secret military and intelligence programmes, and classified technologies that spawned our current age of remote-controlled assassination. -- Nick Turse * [for Kill Chain] * tells us how computers kill soldiers and civilians, and explains with bone-chilling clarity how generalship gave way to microchips from Vietnam to Afghanistan. A blood-curdling account of the rise of robot warfare, a great story, and a prophecy to be read and heeded. -- Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA * [for Kill Chain] *