Focusing on the challenges faced by the US military in responding to "operations other than war" in the post-Cold War era, Rudolph Barnes makes a plea for the US government to address the "organizational bias for combat" and "narrow traditionalist view of military professionalism" within the Pentagon, which, he argues, are serious obstacles to developing an effective capabiilty for operations other than war. He draws on examples from Vietnam to the mismanagement of US military involvement in Somalia.

Military legitimacy concerns the delicate balance between might and right. It begins with the law - operational law (OPLAW) and the law of war (LAW) - but it goes beyond the law to its moral underpinnings. Moral and cultural standards in the area of operations must be respected to ensure legitimacy. Personal and national values provide the framework for military decision making. The potential conflict between civilian and military perceptions of these values represents a continuing threat to military legitimacy because, in a democracy, public support is both a requirement and a measure of such legitimacy. This book provides an overview of the concept of legitimacy as it applies to military operations, especially in peacetime. It is argued that legitimacy was hardly an issue during the Cold War as it was defined in terms of combatting the Soviet threat. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and diminishing defence resources, there must be a new under-standing of military legitimacy and its relationship to new strategies. The diplomat-warrior personifies legitimacy in peacetime and is an effective means of filling the gap between the limits of diplomacy and conventional military operations.