Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century

by Stan Goff

Goff’s career as an NCO in the Special Forces (Delta Force, US Rangers, Special Ops) took him from the invasions of Panama, Grenada and Haiti, to the training grounds of the Colombian Army (ostensibly in drug interdiction), to a semester as a West Point lecturer, to Mogadishu at the time of the operation immortalized in Black Hawk Down. Unlike the typical soldier’s memoir, Goff does not in machismo or heart-searching. He draws lessons from his past, lessons about foreign policy, lessons about the police-actions designed to create stable environments for US corporations in the Western Hemisphere, lessons about how the days of the American Imperium are numbered. The books covers such subjects as: the slow collapse in Armed Forces morale due to the ongoing reductions in health and pension benefits; the continual overestimation of the ability of technology to work in hostile terrain; the moral in the story of Odoacer, the Germanic mercenary who turned against his Roman employers and sacked Rome in AD 476; new American Empire ignorance of the lessons of history; the failure of "intelligence" as a result of racist stereotyping of countries unwilling to submit to US hegemony.

Genres: War, Politics, Nonfiction, History

252 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 2004

Reviews

[Stan · Rating 4 out of 5]

How things change, eh.

[Smiley III · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those invaluable documents from an apostastical insider, Stan Goff's second book reveals the day-to-day slog of an average-to-Special-Forces soldiers who has the time, inclination, and experience to "go Left" — the problem here is Imperialism, stupid, and our collective complicity in-and-with it.

Sound boring? It's not. Goff's prose has all the rat-a-tat-tat of Hemingway or Burroughs, and takes you places you'd feel uncomfortable going without a sympathetic guide; rest assured, you'll come out of this trip looking at the world with (a bit) steelier-eyes!

Highly recommended. Borderline mandatory.

[Matteo · Rating 3 out of 5]

i am impressed by Stan Goff - i met him, and had a chance to talk to him. his book has many fascinating insights about the US armed forces, that people on the left ought to be aware of.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the propects of unending wars stretching ahead, and increasing military budgets, Stan Goff illuninates the past and posits a bleak future. Goff retired from Army Special Forces in 1996 after a military career that took him through Vietnam, Grenada, Haiti, Columbia, Panama and Somilia. He taught military science at West Point and pulls no punches in this critique of U.S. foriegn policy and the economc system it serves.
Two quotes from the book: "Soldiers know the concrete possibilities of socialism better than the rest of us. They've lived them" and "Revolution is not a choice between capitalism and socialism. It is a choice between the violent overthrow of the existing order or our extermination by that order. Is that clear enough? Do we need a little sugar with that?"

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book, but very heavy on the theoretical end of things - it snapped me right back into my Poli Sci days at school, and right into the classes I did the worst in...But he makes the material both more realistic and more accessible than any other author I can think of, and besides that, he's got more experience dealing with the reality on the ground than any pundit I can think of.

[Jamey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about militarism, masculinities, war, feminism, Haitian history, and the bullshit nature of the U.S. "defense" establishment. Written by an ex-Special Forces officer who was an excellent soldier and can write extremely well.

[Josephus FromPlacitas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was really interesting and I'd been meaning to read it (and his first book, Hideous Dream) for years, ever since I read Goff's columns in Counterpunch and on his Feral Scholar blog in the Bush years. It felt a little uneven in some ways: the mix of memoir and revolutionary socialist analysis didn't flow together in a completely smooth stylistic mix, but it was rough mine full of gems.

His own experiences were the most prosaically and best rendered parts, his dialectical analysis less so, though it was very thought-provoking. I always appreciate an inside look at the US military's grotesque imperial adventures from another "Gimlet Eye" like Smedley Butler, someone willing to be honest about the racket of war for big business and its manifold absurdities. Some of Goff's big predictions seemed a little overblown, others came to pass more or less accurately. I was drawn to his calls for better thinking and better humanizing treatment of others, and his call for people to look more at institutions and less at individual motivations.

I'm working on a cartoon journal entry about his claim that an armed revolutionary wing of leftist struggle is the only possible route to success. Adrian Bonenberger's blog Wrath-Bearing Tree also wrote about this recently, as have others through the years, and I don't know what I think of that claim yet.