Who Defends America?: Race, Sex, and Class in the Armed Forces

This book explores the increasingly significant role of blacks in the nation’s armed services. Blacks represent only 12 percent of the U.S. population but comprise 20 percent of all active duty military personnel and about 30 percent of the army’s soldiers. Should these statistics bother us? To answer this and related questions, Who Defends America? includes the views of leading experts from government and academia. Contributions include: ‘Introduction’ by Edwin Dorn; ‘The National Security Context’ by McGeorge Bundy; ‘The Pentagon’s Perspective’ by Lawrence J. Korb; ‘A View from Capitol Hill’ by Les Aspin; ‘Statistical Trends’ by Alvin J. Schexnider and Edwin Dorn; ‘Standardized Tests and Black Youths’ by Elsie Moore; ‘The Influence of the Marketplace on the AVF’ by Charles C. Moskos; ‘Choice, Justice, and Representation’ by Robert K. Fullinwider; ‘Public Attitudes’ by A. Wade Smith; ‘Lessons from Other Times, Other Places’ by Cynthia H. Enloe; and ‘Right Issues, Wrong Questions’ by Roger Wilkins.