Gian Gentile
Gian P. Gentile (October 9, 1957) is a retired US Army colonel, who served for many years as a history professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point.Gentile has also been a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations[1] and a senior historian at the RAND Corporation.[3] He served two tours in Iraq, first as the executive officer of a combat brigade in Tikrit in 2003[4] and then as a squadron commander in western Baghdad in 2006.Reflecting on Gentile’s work, the book review editor for The Journal of Conflict Studies wrote that “strategic bombing seems to have adapted itself nicely to the exigencies of democratic government; providing a way of waging limited war at arm's length, minimizing casualties on both sides of the conflict, and satisfying both domestic population and politician.” But that “it is left to Gian Gentile ... to pose the question US policy-makers should be asking: How effective is strategic bombing?” The reviewer opined that “Gentile's answers are fresh because he ... show[s] the reader that the question has rarely been answered honestly or even, in some cases, competently.” He also echoed Gentile’s central point that “the US Air Force among others has frequently, and sometimes purposely, failed to distinguish between the effects of strategic bombing and its effectiveness,” emphasizing that the “effects, physically observed and measured, are relatively easy to see and to report--and impress the public with.” However, “the effectiveness of same is wide open for debate.”[6] Gentile's second book, Wrong Turn: America's Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency, appeared in July 2013.[14] Following Andrew Bacevich, Gentile believes that the prominence of counterinsurgency has led to an unrealistic view of the American military's power and capacity to change the world.