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Amazon.com Review

This Tom Clancy real-life military thriller is more nuanced than his novels, because its object is not simply to dramatize armed conflict but to relate the life lessons of his source, jet-pilot-turned-Desert-Storm-air-commander General Chuck Horner. Horner is no war cheerleader like General "Buck" Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove. He loathes the arrogance of the backwards, nuke-happy Strategic Air Command and the madly out-of-touch Vietnam War planner Robert McNamara. McNamara confesses his folly in two books, __ and , but Horner's you-are-there account more vividly demonstrates Vietnam's grim lessons. He flew an F-105 Thunderbird "Thud" fighter in the Wild Weasels, the unit with the highest medals-per-aircrew ratio, knew pilots who were stoned to death by villagers, and realized all the bombing did zero good. "All we really had to do was befriend Ho," says Horner sensibly. "Seems he wasn't part of a monolithic Communist plot, and hated the Chinese more than anything else." Horner is savvy about the screwups, the achievements, and the political maneuvering in and after the Gulf War, as leaders and branches of service battled for PR victories. His idea of a hero is Boomer McBroom's pilot Captain Gentner Drummond, who won a Flying Cross medal for refusing AWACS orders to down a jet that turned out to be a Saudi ally. Horner thinks the interservice and international cooperation in the Gulf War was way better than in Vietnam, but there's ample room for improvement. The action scenes aren't quite as brilliant as those in , but Clancy fans will find plenty to admire. Horner's improbable survival of a 150-m.p.h. near-crash in Libya in 1962 belongs in a Tom Clancy film. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly

Clancy's second study in high command of the U.S. armed forces (after Into the Storm, written with Army general Fred Franks) focuses on Air Force general Chuck Horner, the fighter pilot who was overall air commander for Desert Shield/Desert Storm. This book is less about the Gulf War than about the making of a modern fighter general and the remaking of a modern air force. Horner was part of a new Air Force generation that rejected the Strategic Air Command model of "predictability, order and control" in favor of a holistic approach to air power and air command. A firm believer in central control of air assets, Horner also regarded traditional distinctions between "strategic" and "tactical" air as no longer relevant. What mattered was the appropriate situational use of air power in an integrated war plan. The main text demonstrates Horner's success in implementing his concepts over Iraq. Though the narrative offers no startling insights or revelations, the authors make the important contribution of presenting command friction as a natural consequence of interaction among senior officers with high intelligence and strong wills. The implication is clear: to succeed in an unpredictable international environment, America's armed forces will need tigers at their head. Tigers are dangerous. They challenge each other. They take issue with higher wisdom and higher authority. And, according to the authors, they can be replaced by safely neutered house cats only at the country's peril. 500,000 first printing; $500,000 ad/promo; BOMC main selection; author tour.
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