The Perpetual Soup - by Michael Fitzpatrick (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The untold story of American and German partnership reveals how mutual learning across the Atlantic profoundly reshaped modern warfare doctrine. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army strategically reoriented from counter-insurgency operations in Southeast Asia toward deterrence and preparation for potential conflict with the Soviet Union in Central Germany. This pivotal shift catalyzed a comprehensive transformation characterized by institutional reform, doctrinal development, and technological innovation. Fitzpatrick demonstrates that between 1973 and 2001, the U.S. Army and West German Bundeswehr effectively mobilized their defense institutions to undertake a period of intensive, collaborative, and mutually beneficial reform. The primary objective of this work is to illuminate the mechanisms of this exchange and establish how this partnership proved instrumental in developing both of the U.S. Army's significant late-Cold War land warfare doctrines. The Perpetual Soup demonstrates that transatlantic military cooperation with West Germany fundamentally reshaped technology, doctrine, and operations beyond in ways that previous scholarship has not fully recognized.

About the Author

Michael Fitzpatrick is currently a Post-Doctoral fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he works with the DPAA on its accounting mission. He also research issues at the nexus of war, society, strategy and foreign policy. He is the author of several articles appearing in Parameters, the Journal of American-East Asian Relations, and elsewhere.