Recent BooksMarch/April 2020 171in the later stages o the war in Afghani-
stan. Although mercenaries tend to be the
focus o research on private contractors,
only a relatively small number o these
contractors serve in armed roles. Still,
logistical work can be hazardous and
deadly. Moore has undertaken detailed
research, including interviews with
workers, to explore the labor force
buttressing the U.S. military. He traces
patterns o recruitment (especially in
Bosnia and the Philippines), ¥nds
evidence o exploitative and discrimina-
tory labor practices, and explores how
the military’s recruitment o legions o
workers aects their countries o origin.The Fire and the Darkness: The Bombing
of Dresden, 1945
BY SINCLAIR MCKAY. St. Martin’s
Press, 2020, 400 pp.On February 13, 1945, two days o air
raids on the German city o¤ Dresden
began with 796 British bombers drop-
ping blockbuster bombs and incendiar-
ies, setting o a ¥restorm that left the
city gutted and at least 25,000 dead.
With Germany on the edge o defeat
and Soviet troops closing in, there was
little strategic need for this exercise in
destruction. But years o war had
blunted moral sensibilities. The Royal
Air Force embraced the doctrine o city
bombing with the conviction that
killing huge numbers o civilians was
worthwhile i it brought the war to a
speedier end. Dresden had a rich
artistic and cosmopolitan heritage, but
it had already lost its Jews to the
Holocaust, and its dogmatic Nazi
leadership was still committed to the
war eort. In this evocative and poign-
ant account, McKay describes the¥res, oods, droughts, and hurricanes—is
becoming hard to avoid. The administra-
tion’s stance has placed U.S. o¾cials
charged with preparing for future
military contingencies in an absurd posi-
tion. Thousands o military installations
on U.S. soil are vulnerable to extreme
weather events. Rising water levels and
temperatures may have dire eects on
key allies and aggravate conicts within
and between states. Klare has cleverly
used the Pentagon’s continuing assess-
ments o the impact o climate change and
the military’s experience o dealing with
its eects to illuminate not only the folly
o denialism but also the seriousness o
the potential climate threats. He traces a
“ladder o escalation,” climbing from
humanitarian disasters, to oil shocks, to
disrupted supply chains, to collapsing
states, to major-power conicts (perhaps
over water disputes). The book’s title is
derived from a scenario in which the U.S.
military must confront multiple warming-
related crises abroad after ¥res and rising
sea levels have immobilized it.
Empire’s Labor: The Global Army That
Supports U.S. Wars
BY ADAM MOORE. Cornell University
Press, 2019, 264 pp.
Coverage o U.S. military operations
often focuses on the ashier areas o
combat and technology, ignoring the
extraordinary logistical eorts required to
sustain these operations. Moore avoids
this trap in this useful survey o the army
o workers who support the U.S. military.
Private contractors maintain a global
network o bases. In some cases, more
foreign workers than U.S. military
personnel are engaged in servicing U.S.
military campaigns—four times as many