The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military

by Tim Bakken

Overview

A courageous and damning look at the destruction wrought by the arrogance, incompetence, and duplicity prevalent in the U.S. military-from the inside perspective of a West Point professor of law.

Veneration for the military is a deeply embedded but fatal flaw in America's collective identity. In twenty years at West Point, whistleblower Tim Bakken has come to understand how unquestioned faith isolates the U.S. armed forces from civil society and leads to catastrophe. Pervaded by chronic deceit, the military's insular culture elevates blind loyalty above all other values. The consequences are undeniably grim: failure in every war since World War II, millions of lives lost around the globe, and trillions of dollars wasted.

Bakken makes the case that the culture he has observed at West Point influences whether America starts wars and how it prosecutes them. Despite fabricated admissions data, rampant cheating, epidemics of sexual assault, archaic curriculums, and shoddy teaching, the military academies produce officers who maintain their privileges at any cost to the nation. Any dissenter is crushed. Bakken revisits all the major wars the United States has fought, from Korea to the current debacles in the Middle East, to show how the military culture produces one failure after another.

The Cost of Loyalty is a powerful, multifaceted revelation about the United States and its singular source of pride. One of the few federal employees ever to win a whistleblowing case against the U.S. military, Bakken, in this brave, timely, and urgently necessary book, and at great personal risk, helps us understand why America loses wars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632868985
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	02/18/2020
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	134,202
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Tim Bakken is the first civilian promoted to professor of law in West Point's history. He became a federal whistleblower after reporting corruption at West Point and, after the Army retaliated against him, became one of the few federal employees to win a retaliation case against the U.S. military. A former homicide prosecutor in Brooklyn, Bakken received law degrees from Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin and is still teaching at West Point. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Preface: The Collapse vii

Introduction: Breaking the Myth 1

Chapter 1 The Origins of the Separate World 21

Chapter 2 Unfounded Hubris 47

Chapter 3 Conformity and Cronyism-One and the Same 75

Chapter 4 Supreme Values-How Loyalty Creates Dishonesty 104

Chapter 5 A Culture of Silence-Censorship and Retaliation 141

Chapter 6 Criminality, Abuse, and Corruption 169

Chapter 7 Violence, Torture, and War Crimes 200

Conclusion: The Consequences of Separation 253

Acknowledgments 289

Notes 291

Index 369

Editorial Reviews

04/27/2020

West Point law professor Bakken debuts with a blistering, top-to-bottom critique of America’s armed forces. Placing revelations about the ongoing epidemic of sexual assault within the military and scandals such as the cover-up of the friendly-fire death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan in 2004 in a broader context, Bakken revisits the conspiracy to conceal the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and documents misrepresentation of admissions rates, violent behavior, increased “dissociation from civilian society,” and prioritization of loyalty over truth at U.S. military academies. He also notes the irony that the American public’s increased deference to the armed services has coincided with “seventy-five years of losses” since WWII. Bakken’s insider perspective, litany of shocking examples, and evidence-based approach combine to paint a grim picture of failures by U.S. political and military leaders and their implications for the future. Though his suggestions for reform, including abolishing the Uniform Code of Military Justice and turning service academies into civilian universities, seem far-fetched, this essential and disturbing account illuminates the state of the problem. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Brave . . . [The Cost of Loyalty] should land like a grenade. Unlike the myriad critiques of the military that wash over the institution from outside the Blob, this one is written by a professor with 20 years on the inside. He knows the instructors, the culture, the admissions process, the scandals, the cover-ups, and how its legendary “warrior-scholars” have performed after graduation and on the battlefield . . . if the real sausage is made at the military academies, then Bakken has invited us in on some of the more distasteful elements going right on under our noses.” - The American Conservative

"[The Cost of Loyalty] reads like an Auditor General’s Report – endless examples of incompetence, bias, total disregard for the constitution, wasted money and unindicted criminal activity. Its actions lead to deaths in the millions. Its extravagance costs taxpayers trillions . . . [Tim Bakken proves] the military simply disregards the civilian world and operates separately, under its own system, totally incompatible with American values and laws." - San Francisco Review of Books

"Strikes hard at the military establishment. The author’s condemnation of the idea of loyalty above all else is not without stark examples. The author has been a target of reprisals for espousing contrary views, yet a steely resolve led him to fight. The power of persuasion is present throughout this work." - Portland Book Review

"A provocative, disturbing argument that a democracy is in trouble when it venerates the military unconditionally." - starred review, Kirkus Reviews

"[The Cost of Loyalty is] a blistering, top-to-bottom critique of America’s armed forces . . . Bakken’s insider perspective, litany of shocking examples, and evidence-based approach combine to paint a grim picture of failures by U.S. political and military leaders and their implications for the future . . . this essential and disturbing account illuminates the state of the problem." - Publishers Weekly

"Hard-hitting and timely . . . Bakken offers withering commentary on the indoctrination that begins in the academies and results in a perverse patriotism that pushes military leaders into an "us vs. them" mentality. This tendency, according to Bakken, combined with resistance to civilian oversight, has cost America countless lives and has resulted in the failure of every major military engagement since the end of the World War II." - Library Journal

"A scalding account of the self-rewarding ethos that permeates (and weakens) today's military leadership from West Point to the Pentagon, Tim Bakken's The Cost of Loyalty should be required reading for all members of Congress." - Lloyd C. Gardener, author of THE WAR ON LEAKERS NATIONAL SECURITY AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, FROM EUGENE V. DEBS TO EDWARD SNOWDEN

"The Cost of Loyalty articulates a glaring and unflattering dilemma within the armed forces, where loyalty is often the principal value chosen over the military services’ common core values. Leaders of character must continue to train and educate the force, and this book is a must read for every military institution—if not all Congressional members and staff." - Major General Antonio Taguba, U.S. Army

"Deeply researched, finely written, and ultimately iconoclastic." - Glenn Raucher, PageTurners Reading Series

"This is a book that needs to be read by all Americans. I do not say that often, in fact, I believe this is the first time. Tim Bakken makes the case for a re-adjustment in the way we as American citizens consider our military and how we determine the issues of war and peace . . . [an] indictment that has long been overdue." - Edward G. White, Vietnam Veterans Against the War

"Traces a path of corruption, barbarism, violence, and unaccountability that makes its way from the United States’ military academies . . . to the top ranks of the U.S. military and U.S. governmental policy, and from there into a broader U.S. culture that, in turn, supports the subculture of the military and its leaders . . . honest and accurate." - American Herald Tribune

"[The Cost of Loyalty] speaks to me at multiple levels simultaneously . . . I found myself unconsciously squirming in my chair while examining [Bakken’s] text in detail. I know and understand this discomfort from personal hard-won experience. It happens when reading an essential truth that I wish was false." - Robert Bruce Adolph, former United Nations Chief Security Adviser and U.S. Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel

"Riveting." - Paul Samuel Dolman, What Matters Most podcast

The Cost of Loyalty is compelling and the subject matter is too important to ignore." - The European Journal of Military Studies

"The most powerful, realistic, and important book I’ve read in thirty years. I cannot recommend it strongly enough." - John Ketwig, Vietnam Veterans Against the War

From the Publisher

02/07/2020

In this hard-hitting and timely delve into the culture of the American armed forces, Bakken (law, United States Military Academy at West Point) traces the miltary's long history of prioritizing "loyalty above all else" and its effect on military success, from the end of World War II through the 2019 trial of Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher. Bakken offers withering commentary on the indoctrination that begins in the academies and results in a perverse patriotism that pushes military leaders into an "us vs. them" mentality. This tendency, according to Bakken, combined with resistance to civilian oversight, has cost America countless lives and has resulted in the failure of every major military engagement since the end of the World War II. This is a dense, though often fascinating, read, likely to be viewed as either controversial or enlightening, depending on the audience. VERDICT For readers and scholars interested in civilian-military relations, military law, and military leadership. An excellent companion to Eliot Cohen's Supreme Command; the two stand together in defiance of Samuel P. Huntington's 1957 classic, The Soldier and the State.—Elan Marae Birkeland, Okinawa, Japan

Library Journal

★ 2019-11-19
A West Point professor deconstructs the many failures of America's most beloved institution: the armed forces.

Bakken—the first civilian hired to teach law at West Point who was also a whistleblower and won a retaliation case against the U.S. military—delivers an angry polemic, arguing that America's military is commanded by men of limited intelligence but self-serving loyalty to their institution. This didn't matter before World War II, when peacetime forces were tiny and neglected. Since 1945, however, they have swollen massively, dominating civil society and operating free of constitutional restraints thanks to several Supreme Court decisions and fawning civilian leaders. Fervently admired—approval in polls never drops below 70%—the military has attained untouchable status from its commander in chief. Every president after Dwight Eisenhower has proclaimed unqualified esteem, and Congress, which last declared war in 1942, has surrendered its authority. Yet despite performing with spectacular incompetence in most wars since WWII, no general has been fired. Bakken places much blame on the service academies (West Point et al.), mediocre institutions awash in money whose draconian discipline and teaching methods date from their founding. Most instructors are junior officers with no specialty in their subject who rotate through for a few years, following a rigid syllabus from which they cannot deviate. Readers may pause in their fuming to recall that brilliant people rarely choose a career in the military—or law enforcement. Rather, members of the military join for the action and value courage and loyalty above all. They consider themselves a band of brothers, indispensable defenders of the nation, most of whose effete citizens lack their selfless dedication. Warriors have always believed this, which is a mostly harmless situation unless they are calling the shots, which the author states is happening—and they are making a mess of it.

A provocative, disturbing argument that a democracy is in trouble when it venerates the military unconditionally.

Kirkus Reviews

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