Into The Storm : A Study In Command

Rating:
Summary: Franks sets the record straight; a real commander at work.
Review: Although not as good a read as Clancy's fiction works, Into the Storm: A Study in Command accomplishes what it set out to do. It provides the reader with a case study of modern military command techniques at work in the harsh, complex environment of Desert Storm.

Through Clany, Franks, often in his own words, guides us through his thought processes in planning and executing the largest movement of armored froces since World War II. Although dry at times, it is a useful study, especially for military officers.

On a personal level, I was more than pleased that Gen Franks received his day in court in light of all the criticism laid at his feet about the pace of VII Corps during the ground war. As a VII Corps vet who was there on the ground, I certainly do not remember a lot of "down time". As a military officer, I was compelled to find out what I always assumed was true; namely, if Schwartzkopf was so concerned about VII Corps tempo, why did he not leave his bunker in the rear and fly into the Corps Area of Operations and see for himself what was going on? While the book does not answer this question for me, it does clarify that Gen Franks never received a speed up order from CENTCOM.

Overall, Into the Storm is a great book for the serious student of military art and science. If you are looking for another Red Storm Rising, this certainly isn't it. It's value lies in the insight it provides on the workings of the American Army at war, under the guidance of skilled, dedicated individuals

Rating:
Summary: A B + Book for any student of military operations & history
Review: I bought the Chancy book based on his reputation for fast action and through plots. Well, I got some of that. Most of the book is not a techno thriller, but it's still a great read. Those looking for a fast action book along the lines of "The Hunt for Red October" will be definitely disappointed by this. What you find here is really three books in one. First, it's the story of the VII Corps in the Gulf War and how this man, LTG Fred Franks, commanded it. Second, it's semi-autobiographical of General Franks. Finally, it's a story of how the Army, in the years after the disaster of Vietnam, changed it doctrine, strategy, and it's entire culture to culminate into the force exhibited in 1991. For me, the development and tenants of AirLand Battle Doctrine are a bit ho-hum. I've been in the Army and Reserve for over ten years now. But the best part of this book is the detailed description of how great an effort it is to mobilize, deploy, supply, and command an army corps. Novices in the area will get a taste of the effort that goes into this endeavor. The planning factors for critical supplies (water, fuel, and ammo are of paramount importance) show why the rule of thumb is that for every man on the front lines, there are ten or so more men behind him. Overall, I'll give this effort an 8. General Franks does dwell on the dispute between himself and GEN Schwarzkopf on final battle of the ground war, and that is a dispute I believe will never be settled completely. But all in all, for a book that gives insight into a ground commander's eye view (I say that because the corps is the largest Army tactical formation), Into the Storm is well written and through.

Rating:
Summary: Too long, too myopic, and too complaining!
Review: I was disappointed with this book. I have really enjoyed Clancy's other fact based books, but this one came up short. With Gen Fred Franks (an American Hero, no doubt, and not to be confused with Tommy Franks from a decade later) Tom Clancy wrote this detailled account of 7 Corps actions during the Gulf War in 1991.

--The book is very long winded. It just doesn't get into the action, and approaches the story with a patronizingly long professorial on military thought that really amounts to little. He spends half the book describing how the US army got itself into trouble from Vietnam and an overfocus on the Cold War which did not address all the mission areas required. That background is important, but it is too long and too academic. Then he goes on to spend pages and pages and pages describing a 4 day drive across the desert, skipping several details -- such as the Air Campaign which made that possible. Make no mistake, the details are there and the story is interesting, but boy does it take a long time to come out. Also -- I am not belittling the valor of our forces then or now. Exciting as the brief ground campaign was in 1991, it pales beside the recent performance of 3 ID, 1 MEF and our Brit allies in Spring 2003. They went a lot further, with less forces and certainty, at a much more rapid pace. That story deserves a long treatment, and I am looking forward to some good books on it when the time comes.

--Into the Storm is also very myopic. Gen Franks perspective is very limited to what his division was doing, and not the entire war. Perhaps without meaning to he neglects the contributions made by the other services and neighboring divisions. Having been thru some battles myself, I know that it is hard to make any sense out of battle. Information is always incomplete, and no one gets the whole picture. Unfortunately, Into the Storm is predictably parochial and blinded to what else is going on. Part of that comes from its focus on justifying the decisions made during the campaign, but of course, without the whole picture, it comes out pretty narrow.

--The most distasteful element of the book was it's nagging tendendany to be at times accusatory, self justifying and bitter. Into The Storm does provide a solid, interesting personal story, but there is also a strong tone of self-righteousness and old fashioned CYA mixed in. Schwarzkpof had many complaints about Franks, and Franks is eager to answer up in this book. That's exactly what poisons the simple story of a four day desert drive, vicious and dangerous as it was. This book was pretty obviously written to explain "Why and How" Gen Franks made his decisions. Although that is interesting enough as a study in command and execution during war, the book's tone gets downright whiny. It has "something to prove", and comes up short, especially as I read it last spring and then witnessed the two division sized elements tearing thru Iraq in 2003: a far greater campaign with more risk, less forces, and hopefully more permanent results. Also, compare this book to Every Man A Tiger, Lt Gen Horner's story of the Gulf War also written by Clancy, and you will notice right away the difference. Horner had nothing to prove, but just a grand story to tell of American Heroes (and allies/coalition partners) in battle in the desert in 1991. I am proud that the story has continued, and was not left with the bitter tone that comes from Into The Storm.

------> If you're wondering why I have this perspective, I will say that I am an Airman and believe that maneuver thru the skies and precision engagement -- coupled with all the force and support that airpower brings -- is the key to our victories since WWII. I read this book while I was stationed with the Army Command in Kuwait last Spring just prior to and during our team's rapid defeat of the entire Iraqi army, terrorists, and thugs from assorted countries. I also spent years patrolling the border of Iraq from the air, and am very gratified to see the end of that. My prayers and thoughts go to all our servicemen and women still in Harm's Way.

Rating:
Summary: Great Look at the Ground War
Review: Clancy really did an average job with this book. I have also read the other book in this new series he is putting out "Every Man A Tiger" and I have to say that Into the Storm is a second to it. I think that as this was his first attempt at this type of book, he used it as a learning tool and the second book got better. Then again maybe the co-author was just a better writer. Clancy has teamed up with the General that was in charge of the ground war in the Gulf War.

The book is basically three parts, the first section talks about the Generals career in the Army, the Army's development from Viet Nam to the Gulf War and a touch of the politics involved within the different military branches. The second section of the book deals with the build up to the ground war. The final section deals with the ground war both the stand-alone part and as a joint effort with the air war.

The author does not give you an action packed, inside the tank type of story. What we do get is the process for building up the forces, developing a plan, working with the other countries and military forces and finally the execution of the plan. I found the discussions of attack plan creation and the relationship between the air and ground element to be the most interesting. Overall this is a well-written and constructed book. It has a lot of value if you are interested in the Gulf War or just how current U.S. battles are planned and fought. A good compliment to this book is "The Commanders" by Woodward; it deals more with the U.S. politics involved in setting up the coalition and the interaction between the main U.S. players.

Rating:
Summary: Leadership in Print
Review: This book should be rated as one of the top three books dealing with OPERATION DESERT STORM. This is General Frederick Franks' story complete with inspiring leadership vignettes from Vietnam, the amputee ward in the (former) Valley Forge Army Hospital, to the pulverized dirt and sand of Southwest Asia. The cover of the book is somewhat misleading as Tom Clancy's name is in giant bold print larger than that of General Franks. From my reading of this fine reference the credits should be reversed with General Franks'name in the large print. Thankfully most of the book is General Franks' story, and a very detailed one at that, with scattered narrative interruptions by Clancy. Having personally served in the US VIIth Corps with the 1st Armored Division during DESERT STORM, General Franks' recounting of the corps' "bigger picture" and the decision process behind them enlightened me more about the drive into Iraq and Kuwait than I ever experienced at the maneuver Brigade level. I am well satisfied with the hard cover copy of this book and would recommend its purchase in hard or soft cover to any leader, military or business, or DESERT STORM historian.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent study in the requirements of leadership
Review: There are a lot of books out there about leadership, but most of them are useless and stupid. This book, however, is extremely valuable as a tool to teach leadership. The book examines General Franks' life and command, and his theory of leadership.

If all leaders operated as he did in the first Gulf War, then there would be far fewer problems. There is a lot of minutia and detail in this book as in all Clancy works and collaborations, but those details just go to show you how good leadership basics allow a person to lead even critical and complicated efforts.

Scrap all those vapid management books that the worst managers read, and find out how a man with a proper understanding of leadership works.

Rating:
Summary: No thanks to Schwarzkopf
Review: This book describes General Fred Franks' life and especially his experiences during Desert Storm, the war in the Persian Gulf to kick Iraq out of Kuwait.

To really like this book you need to be a bit of a military fanatic. Fred Franks repeats so many times how wonderful it is to be a soldier, and how great the "warrior ethos" is, that you realize that for him the military is practically a religion.

The thing in this book that I found the most interesting are the descriptions of the magnitude of military might that was fielded during Desert Storm.

The VII Corps (commanded by Gen. Franks) included 146,000 soldiers, 50,000 vehicles (incl. 1,600 tanks) and 800 helicopters. Not only are these numbers huge, but the logistics involved are mind-boggling: the soldiers need food and water, and the vehicles and aircraft burned an incredible 3.2 million gallons of fuel each day. When fighting the VII Corps expended 2,500 tons of ammunition every day.

And VII Corps was only part of the military forces involved. There was another Army corps, there were Marine units, there was the Air Force and the Navy. An amazing marshalling of military forces, and all under the command of General Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf (more about him later).

I found the book interesting, but it does have a lot of problems. It's way too long, mostly due to repetitiveness. With some editing it could have been cut down by at least 30% with no loss of information.

Another problem is that there are no useful maps. There are a lot of small maps, about 1/3 of a page each, but they simply don't show enough detail. Again and again you find the text referring to some town or road or river and they simply aren't on the maps.

Another major problem is the lack of a glossary with definitions for all the military abbreviations that are used.

And then we have General Schwarzkopf, who is not thanked in the acknowledgements. Gen. Franks is very careful to thank everyone from his parents to his family to all of his subordinates, and then goes on to thank Colin Powell, Sec. of Defense Dick Cheney and President Bush. But not Gen. Schwarzkopf.

It turns out that Gen. Schwarzkopf wrote an autobiography, "It Doesn't Take a Hero", and in that book he criticized Gen. Franks for the way he commanded VII Corps during Desert Storm.

Gen. Franks uses this book to return the favor. I won't go into extensive details (and Gen. Franks keeps his criticism fairly low-key), but Franks basically claims that Schwarzkopf liked having his butt kissed by his subordinates, was prone to throwing temper tantrums, wasn't competent to understand or command armored (tank) operations and made several tactical errors. In particular, not giving VII Corps more operational room to the north, not using the Air Force to prevent the Iraqi Republican Guards from escaping northwards and declaring "victory" a couple of days prematurely were big mistakes. The result was that Washington decreed a ceasefire and a large portion of the Republican Guards avoided destruction.

I actually found this dispute between Franks and Schwarzkopf to be quite interesting, and it's so very human to want to get back at someone who's done you dirt. So whether Franks or Schwarzkopf is right, the dispute does add flavor to Franks' story.

Rating:
Summary: An insight into modern warfare
Review: This book is part biography, part history and part modern combat command handbook. General Fred Franks commanded the US VII Corps during Desert Storm and therefore had direct operational responsibility for the success or failure of the ground offensive against Iraq. This book offers what I think is an insightful analysis of modern warfare and the mentality of some of those who wage it.
The book initially charts Franks' career in the army, including his tour in Vietnam where he suffered the loss of a leg. Turning to the Gulf war, we discover Franks' involvement in the planning and organization of the operation. His most difficult task initially involved the movement of VII Corps from Germany to Saudi Arabia and its change in doctrine from a defensive to an offensive role.
Through his own first-person accounts we quickly gain an appreciation of the complexity and difficulty of mounting an operation the scale of Desert Storm in a modern military context. The sheer size of the force involved and the logistics necessary are staggering. The book then presents an hour-by-hour account of the actual battle, which coherently describes Franks' decisions and influence on the outcome. Through all this he comes across as a thoughtful and dedicated professional, as committed to safeguarding the lives of the men under his command as much as achieving his objectives.
Desert Storm was controversial due to the feeling in some quarters that the ground operation was somewhat mishandled, leading to a partial rather than complete destruction of the Iraqi Republican Guard. Since he occupies a key position in this debate, Franks therefore clearly presents his reasons for conducting the offensive the way he did, i.e. to achieve the Coalition's stated aims and objectives without unnecessary casualties to his own forces. Time and again, Franks stresses that although it would have been possible to perhaps to push his command faster and harder, the higher risk of heavier casualties would not have been justified. Victory in a sense was inevitable, therefore in Franks' view it was his responsibility to ensure needless loss of life was averted. In pursuing this argument, Franks is also responding to certain accusations of hesitancy made by General Schwarzkopf in his own autobiography. It is hard to tell if this issue ever had any real substance as, like Schwarzkopf, there is an element of shadow boxing on Franks' part on paper.
As General Franks went on to command the US Army's Training and Doctrine Command after the war, the book therefore could be viewed as a unique insight into the mentality of the modern US Army, as well as a fascinating and enlightening portrait of modern technological warfare. Hence this poses some interesting questions in today's current events context. Has the complexity of modern full scale warfare, and the ethos of minimum casualties as propounded so graphically here, been significantly responsible for the preference for only using small, specialized, mobile forces or air power alone to decide campaigns, as in Kosovo and Afghanistan? What are the implications for a possible US invasion of Iraq? Will the logistics prove to be manageable? Will the casualties be acceptable? Will a reluctance to incur heavier losses inhibit the commanders? Perhaps we should ask General Franks.

Rating:
Summary: War Strategies and Techniques
Review: Oh boy this book was incredible. Anyone who has ever wanted to be general or military leader this book tells you what you need. The book revolves around the life of General Franks and his expereiences from Vietnam to the Gulf War.
It also shows how the US Army was pretty much shattered after Vietnam.... I was also surprised to learn of all the controversy involving the higher up's and with Franks.
The best part of the books for me was how Franks tells you detail by detail how the US Army figths and the tactics and strategies it tries to implement against the enemy. You really get into the mind set of a general in the US Army.
The book at times gets pretty heavy in military jargon but if you really want to learn how the military operate this is it. I strongly recommned it and definately should be required reading at any military institution.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating as biography, flawed as history
Review: Since this is one of the relatively few popularly-available, yet widely-distributed, histories of the Gulf War published to date, I approached this with certain mixed feelings. Tom Clancy's involvement was a plus and a minus - he is a moderatly capable writer (though his ability to craft character, vs. technology, is sub-optimal), but he has become something of a military-industrial complex on a small scale in and of himself, the McDonalds franchise of military fiction.

Fred Franks was, at the time I bought the book, somewhat less well-known, but as a corps commander in an operation I wanted to understand much better than existing published material would allow, he was a more credible source.

What results from this mix is an unexpected melange - mostly for the better (relative to, say, Clancy's take on potential Russian/Chinese conflict, which was abysmal), but with certain flaws. Franks certainly has the expertise, credibility, and transferable wisdom to lend some real substance to Clancy's usual wanna-be star-stricken jingoism. The background on Franks' experience as a junior, and then senior, officer in the Army during and after Vietnam also help provide valuable context to close the vast conceptual gulf between 1973 and 1991, socially, personally, and militarily.

What is lacking is a coherent, detailed story of the overall Desert Storm (versus VII Corps-perceived) operation itself - a story that is implied, if not promised, by the book's title and stated premise. At times, the narrative loses focus and does not follow the overall action closely enough; at other times, it dives into tantalizing description of individual unit actions that are not fully placed in context or followed up; or divergences into Franks' personal thoughts and schedule, which (though interesting on the level of understanding the blow-by-blow experience of a large-unit commander) do not add much to the overall clarity of the action. Some points of leadership philosophy become repetitive - nor is it clear where the boundary between Franks' (Clancy's?) specific beliefs diverge from some assertion of universal concepts.

At times, the narrative becomes a thinly-veiled personal defense against higher-level criticism of Franks' asserted failings in pursuing the Iraqis in the early stages of the ground action. Given the overwhelming victory achieved and the extremely lopsided casualty ratio, this seems unnecessary - since the internal discussion among theater- and corps-level command in the operation has been largely invisible to the public, it is difficult to assess to what extent the implicit back-and-forth indicated in this book is valid, but the results speak for themselves. Whether the Iraqi Army could have been defeated 207-0, instead of 200-0, seems irrelevant compared to the larger strategic question (still alive today) of whether or not Coalition forces should have gone after Saddam Hussein's regime at its root - a question that was answered at a much higher level than any to which Franks had access. As it is, the nitpicking and (apparently bitter) counter-criticisms that sortof-kindof surface in the book between Franks' VII Corps and CENTCOM (Schwartzkopf) appear to be more a reflection of the power ploys within US command structures than anything that will (ultimately) have any real meaning to anyone but the immediate participants. In real terms, they seem to have relevance primarily to the pros and cons of different styles of leadership and command, rather than to any real possibilities for different outcomes for Desert Storm - given the constraints operating at national command (rather than tactical or even theater) levels.

Ultimately, this is an interesting primer in tactics for (patient and committed) lay readers, and a solid contribution to a future body of first-person perspectives on a critical event in late-20th-century history. However, it is neither objective enough, comprehensive enough, sufficiently researched, nor inclusive enough of Iraqi (or non-US Coalition) perspectives to constitute a major historical contribution to our understanding of this particular conflict.