Race riots at military stockades, fights over Confederate flags, the extreme overrepresentation of African American troops as defendants in the military justice system, desertion, and rampant drug use—the social crisis of the US Army in Vietnam following the Tet Offensive in 1968 is well established. Alexander Vazansky makes an important intervention in this rich literature and explores how racial conflict, antiwar activism, and drug abuse among soldiers threw the US Army, Europe (USAREUR) into turmoil, a situation complicated by the unique dynamics of the US presence in West Germany.

Vazansky takes a two-tiered approach to the social conflicts within USAREUR. He centers the experiences of enlisted soldiers, examining sources of discontent and how soldiers protested and advocated for their rights. Vazansky then turns to how officers responded to soldiers’ protests and actions. His analysis draws on the theories of sociologist Lawrence B. Radine on professional paternalistic control and cooptive rational control. Vazansky argues that General James H. Polk, commander in chief of the US Army, Europe in 1967–1971 adopted a leadership style premised on professional paternalistic control—if only soldiers knew the army regulations and that each soldier would be treated fairly, then the social crisis would dissipate. Instead of calming the situation, Polk's successor, General Michael S. Davison, faced an explosive situation when he assumed command of USAREUR in 1971. According to Vazansky, Davison adopted a strategy of cooptive rational control. Davison's leadership emphasized open communication and procedures that allowed soldiers to air their grievances and “frustrations could be channeled before they exploded” (91). Vazansky draws on an impressive source base, including official and underground newspapers, activist organizations, oral histories, personal papers, investigations by Congress, the Department of Defense, and the NAACP, and other materials from archives in the United States and Germany.

An Army in Crisis is divided into three parts. Part 1, which is the core of Vazansky's analysis, covers race relations in USAREUR. Chapter 1 dismantles two common narratives: that race relations within the US Army were relatively good and that Black soldiers experienced unparalleled freedom in Germany. Although Harry Truman's 1948 decision to integrate the military meant that the army never became a focus of the civil rights movement, discrimination remained rampant. USAREUR officers denied that discrimination existed. And although Black soldiers experienced more freedom in Germany than in many parts of the United States, they still confronted discrimination in housing, eateries, and in relationships. When forced to acknowledge off-base discrimination, commanders blamed it on local German customs. Chapter 2 covers how these simmering race problems exploded in 1969. Inspired by the Black Power movement, Black soldiers were no longer willing to settle for formal integration. Instead, they asserted Black racial pride, founded organizations, and protested discrimination in promotion, in the German community, and the military justice system.

Chapters 3 and 4 then compare the responses of Generals Polk and Davison. Polk resisted all evidence that the army and USAREUR had a structural race problem. Though Polk implemented some reforms, the culture of USAREUR remained unchanged and race problems continued. In contrast, Davison openly admitted race problems in USAREUR to the public, soldiers, and officers. He argued that racial conflicts reflected a failure of leadership and created a sense of responsibility and accountability among officers using both professional incentives and punishments. Open communication was the centerpiece of Davison's reforms. Davison sought to create a reliable and fair system that could address grievances before they exploded, and to do so Davison established training and inspection teams, worked with the media, and reformed military justice. By the time Davison left USAREUR in 1975, racial problems remained but protests and physical conflicts between white and Black soldiers had decreased dramatically.

Part 2 covers antiwar activism and other forms of dissent within the US Army and USAREUR. Chapter 5 provides a brief overview of soldiers’ activism within the United States, as well as how much commanders feared such activism. Chapter 6 then narrows in on the situation in USAREUR. Few soldiers became politically active despite efforts by American and German civilian activists to radicalize soldiers. These civilian activists frequently adopted common GI complaints, such as poor housing conditions and haircut regulations, and even achieved some success in addressing minor grievances in living conditions. The few soldiers who did join the antiwar movement faced a harsh crackdown by commanders under both Polk and Davison, neither of whom was willing to tolerate political dissent.

An Army in Crisis then addresses drug abuse among soldiers in part 3. Vazansky provides a survey of the US government's shifting approaches toward drug abuse and prevention among the general population in chapter 7. The next chapter discusses Davison's actions to control drug abuse within USAREUR. As with race problems, Davison emphasized open communication and established programs to address education and prevention, law enforcement, and rehabilitation. In a familiar pattern, by the end of the 1970s, drug use remained a problem in USAREUR, but it no longer represented a crisis. Vazansky closes with a final chapter on shifting German attitudes toward USAREUR between 1968 and 1975. West Germans came to view the US military presence in a more complicated light as a result of widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, disillusionment with American democracy due to social upheaval, increased crime rates around military bases, and the decreased purchasing power of soldiers. Yet even at the height of the social crisis in USAREUR, the West German government and the majority of the German public remained committed to the presence of US troops in Germany.

Vazansky's narrative is an important contribution to literatures on the Vietnam War, long-term occupations, and the US Army. However, an editor's touch might have helped the author further prove his point. Although Vazansky's evidence is compelling, at times the argument can get lost in the writing. Even so, An Army in Crisis provides a critical initial examination of the US Army's social crisis within the context of Germany.