Dr. Ingo Trauschweizer, Associate Professor of History, recently published several pieces of scholarship based on his ongoing research in U.S. military and diplomatic history.
“Adapt and Survive: NATO in the Cold War,” in Grand Strategy and Military Alliances, is edited by Peter R. Mansoor and Williamson Murray (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Dr. Ingo Trauschweizer
This chapter considers NATO’s evolution from its political origins and emerging military plans and structures built on nuclear deterrence to the great debate over a strategy of flexible response and to the enduring alliance of the latter decades of the Cold War. As an alliance of sovereign nation-states that has now lasted over 65 years and has outlived the Cold War by more than two decades, NATO experienced serious internal crises on questions ranging from financial contributions to strategic outlook. This chapter suggests that we should not lose sight of the overarching success of the transatlantic system in light of the difficulties the allies faced on specific issues. The chapter concludes that NATO was one critical element of a transatlantic alliance that has thrived on prosperity, security, and stability and allowed for the balancing of warfare and welfare states in the West.
“Back to the Cold War: The U.S. Army after Vietnam,” appears in U.S. Military History Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (December 2015).
This article considers the recovery and reform of the U.S. Army in the decade after the Vietnam War, based on tactical and operational doctrine, education, training, and new technology, but also as an extension of pre-Vietnam War strategic and institutional thinking. It challenges the assumption that there were particular lessons that should have been learned from the Vietnam War in the areas of counterinsurgency and pacification. Instead, the strategic environment of the 1970s, political necessity, and mindsets of military and political leaders offered strong incentives to focus attention on conventional and nuclear deterrence in Western Europe.
“Gerald Ford and the Armed Forces,” appears in A Companion to Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, edited by V. Scott Kaufman (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
This chapter presents an interpretive survey of the literature on the defense policy of the Ford administration. It considers major actors in the executive branch, congressional positions and policies, international crises, civil-military relations, and the perspective of the armed services. The chapter concludes that the specialized literature on Ford and the armed forces remains primarily focused on détente, arms control, and the Mayaguez crisis, but that a wider reading in Cold War and military histories allows for tentative conclusions about the vision, intent, and implementation of policy and strategy in the mid-1970s.
For more on Trauschweizer’s research and teaching, visit his History Department profile.
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