The Cost of Loyalty

Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military

De: Tim Bakken

Narrado por: Lance C. Fuller

Bloomsbury presents The Cost of Loyalty by Tim Bakken, read by Lance C Fuller.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020

A courageous and damning look at the destruction wrought by the arrogance, incompetence, and duplicity prevalent in the U.S. military—from the inside perspective of a West Point professor of law.

Veneration for the military is a deeply embedded but fatal flaw in America’s collective identity. In twenty years at West Point, whistleblower Tim Bakken has come to understand how unquestioned faith isolates the U.S. armed forces from civil society and leads to catastrophe. Pervaded by chronic deceit, the military’s insular culture elevates blind loyalty above all other values. The consequences are undeniably grim: failure in every war since World War II, millions of lives lost around the globe, and trillions of dollars wasted.

Bakken makes the case that the culture he has observed at West Point influences whether America starts wars and how it prosecutes them. Despite fabricated admissions data, rampant cheating, epidemics of sexual assault, archaic curriculums, and shoddy teaching, the military academies produce officers who maintain their privileges at any cost to the nation. Any dissenter is crushed. Bakken revisits all the major wars the United States has fought, from Korea to the current debacles in the Middle East, to show how the military culture produces one failure after another.

The Cost of Loyalty is a powerful, multifaceted revelation about the United States and its singular source of pride. One of the few federal employees ever to win a whistleblowing case against the U.S. military, Bakken, in this brave, timely, and urgently necessary book, and at great personal risk, helps us understand why America loses wars.©2020 Tim Bakken (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Axe to grind?

As a retired (female) military officer myself, I’m familiar with much of what the author had to say. On many occasions I found myself thinking “so true!” However, in many other moments I felt the author just hates Westpoint (WP) and military officers. It didn’t help that he tells us straight out that WP senior officers didn’t listen to him and he felt wronged by WP. He makes gross generalizations about officers and characterizes military personnel as incompetent monsters. He was also very very partisan which for me lowers the veracity of one’s analysis. Overall, I felt like the author was forming an obviously biased brief about an organization he is hell bent on taking down. He drew conclusions to a lot of matters that he couldn’t possibly know the complexity of as authoritative and absolute. Because of this, I found myself questioning the legitimacy of his references and wondered if he broad brushed other media to find other authors whose views matched his own. Finally, a drinking game could be made with the number times the author used “penchant,” “hubris,” and “Westpoint.”

At last, the truth!!!

Fantastic, refreshing, gratifying...and horrifying. We need more people like Tim to help make our world a better place.

Must Read

If you were ever in the military you must read this book. The author tell you all about the military academies.

Trust is What Makes Armies Function

I completed this book a few weeks ago. However, in the environment of COVID, George Floyd and Vanessa Guillen, its premises on flaws within the military deserve inspection and review. While I dismissed some of the hyperbole from his time at West Point based on my perspective as a non-Academy grad instructor, I could appreciate Bakken's perspective. His critique of the services, to include combat performance, management of criminal justice (to include sexual assault / harassment and drugs), and the aftermath of conflict (Tillman, Gallagher, and Lorance) are worth reflection. While many of his recommmendations appear unsuitable, infeasible, or impractical, they may be under consideration by the national politic if we fail to act. In an era where our “dissociation from civilian society,” and perception of prioritizing loyalty over truth can have long lasting effects on civil-military relations, this book is a reminder to not let the hubris of our past impact leading our military formations of tomorrow.

Interesting, realistic take weakened by tone

I enjoyed the book and are very familiar with the material discussed. My real complain is that the author sabotaged himself with the overall tone he applied to the book: he sounds like an extremely grieved person venting. The facts he focused so much on the Academies, specifically west point adds to that notion. He could have made this a more profound, objective book by focusing less on west point, and more on the experience in the actual force. That would have required more research than just citing readily available material like he did. I understand it most be difficult, but it would have added effectiveness to his argument.

Biased, Inconsistent, & Incoherent Rant

I struggled to get through this audiobook. From the very onset, it was clear that the author was extremely biased. I ended up doing some research on him and discovered that he still works at West Point. Protected under Federal Whistleblower laws, the author is clearly using his protected status to poke West Point, the Army, and greater Department of Defense in the eye with this smear. The information appears largely inaccurate and inconsistent as the author goes on ranting for hours upon hour. Only in the final 20 minutes does he actually present any recommendations, which essentially boil down to getting rid of the military academies, replacing all military leaders, and essentially getting rid of the military.

Personally, I think the author is simply upset by his life choices. Never having served in the military, I think he feels inadequate compared to his military and veteran colleagues at West Point. Despite his continuous claims of military hubris, I think the author is the one that has some serious issues. Somehow, he thinks, despite lacking any military experience, should be the Dean or Superintendent at West Point.

I also question his “facts.” He made several mistakes throughout, such as talking about “M5” assault rifles (really talking about M4) and staring that retired Colonels collect over $200,000 a year in pensions ( a retired Colonel with 28 years service receives just $108,000 a year). The blatant errors and falsehoods make me question the authors other claims. Overall, his clear lack of knowledge with regard to the military suggested to me that the last place this guy should be working is the United States Military Academy.

I ended up returning the book after I finished listening.... I hardly ever do that.

Interesting discussion

Definitely highlights troubling issues that face the American military and nation as a whole. A little too focused on West Point being the center of the Army universe, which it is not, and comes across as myopic.

Trash

This was filled with so many factual falsehoods I couldn’t finish. Utter waste of money.

Try’s to sell his disgruntled opinion as truth

Let me first start with say I am a native duty infantryman that has served for 17 years and why the military has some real issues these aren’t them. The author is not military he is a civilian professor of law at West Point. He is far from an expert in anything military. West Point is the Army’s military academy where cadets go to get their collage education. Why this is a prestigious collage it is not the military in practice or spirit and this is where the author pulls his experiences from. Further more he will largely complain about privileges that he wasn’t afford that professors that were active duty military were and falsely states that it is unfair and doesn’t acknowledge that these were benefits of their active duty service not as a professor. I use this as an example of how the officer will spin the truth through out the book he won’t lie but per say but he will leave out info either through ignorance or intentionally to spin the narrative. I read this book as a recommendation from one of my PLs as an exercise in listening and understanding someone else’s option even if you can’t stand it and that is what this book is good for. I repeat this author has not served and did not work with the US military in any actual capacity with soldiers or operational at any level. Further more he will get simple facts wrong like calling the M-4 carbine an M-5 rifle. This may have been corrected in later publications but this was the case originally as an example of the authors ignorance on a lot of the topics. Lastly the entire book is written with a huge oversight which once again the author could have no idea of because he taught cadet’s which is officers are only half the equation as what make the US military so unique in our leadership is our NCO core which he doesn’t address as he has no experience with it. If you think this is a book of the military’s dirty laundry don’t waist your time you aren’t getting the truth. Like I said the military has its faults they are numerous and some times egregious but this book isn’t on the mark. This book belongs in the fiction section.