Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Containment and Credibility
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1971
WEBSITE:
CITY: Fort Polk
STATE: LA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Also wargames developer * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Proctor * https://www.amazon.com/Pat-Proctor/e/B003OIGF2W * https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-proctor-phd-b477575/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2011058399
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2011058399
HEADING: Proctor, Pat, 1971-
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100 1_ |a Proctor, Pat, |d 1971-
670 __ |a Task Force Patriot and the end of combat operations in Iraq, 2010: |b ECIP datasheet (Pat Proctor; b. June 14, 1971)
953 __ |a rf21 |b rf21
PERSONAL
Born June 14, 1971; married; wife’s name, Aree; children: Amy, Jonathan.
EDUCATION:Purdue University, B.S.; US Army Command and General Staff College, master’s degree in military arts for strategy; School of Advanced Military Studies, master’s degree in Military Arts for Theater Operations; Kansas State University, Ph.D.; also attended US Army War College.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author, wargame developer, and military historian. Founder, ProSIM Company, Manhattan, KS.
MIILITARY:U.S. Army, lieutenant colonel; served in Afghanistan, Iraq, 2007, 2009, and in Jordan.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals and media outlets, including Armchair General, Historian, Journal of Strategic Security, Military Review, Military Simulation & Training, Parameters, US Army Command and General Staff College Journal, US Army War College Journal, and Wargaming.com.
SIDELIGHTS
Lieutenant Colonel Pat Proctor is both a military strategist and a wargames planner, with active service in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the Kingdom of Jordan, working to combat terrorism. He “is also an active freelance writer,” explained the contributor of a short biographical blurb appearing on the ProSIMCo Website, “specializing in current nonfiction topics of interest to military history and current affairs enthusiasts, national security policy-makers, and military professionals.” In addition, as the founder of ProSIMCo, he serves as a consultant and advisor to companies that produce wargames and military simulations.
Media War
In Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq, Proctor wrote about the American campaign in Iraq in the early 2000s and the ways in which greatly expanded coverage—made possible by the advancements in technology over the previous decade—influenced both the way the war was fought and the way that it was won and lost. Goals, he pointed out, had changed; the battles of the campaign in Iraq were not about seizure of territory but about the ability to command public opinion “The sad truth, which Proctor demonstrates … is that this was not a war that fought badly, with poor planning,” declared Peter Suciu in Armchair General, but “… that the invasion of Iraq was a controversial decision, and Proctor shows that the media essentially made it nearly impossible for it to succeed, as the U.S. military and the insurgents fought not just each other but to influence the coverage they received.”
The lessons of the Iraq War, Proctor concluded, were ones that would have a significant impact on military planning in the future. “In Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Proctor wrote in his introduction to Media War, “insurgent and terrorist groups have developed the capability to use small, relatively insignificant tactical attacks, amplified through the megaphone of the media, to erode the will of the American public to prosecute the war. This capability has neutralized the overwhelming advantage the US military has in firepower in Iraq by bypassing it completely. Recent trends … suggest that this capability is proliferating and will characterize every enemy the US military faces for the foreseeable future. Left unchecked, this capability will cripple the United States’ ability to project military power for all but the most finite … conflicts.
Containment and Credibility
In Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception That Plunged America into the Vietnam War, Proctor looks at the similarities and differences between the modern war on terror and the Vietnam War of the mid-twentieth century. He suggests “that the Vietnam War containment and credibility framework,” stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “has had a lasting influence on U.S. foreign policy.” Cold War ideology, out of which the Vietnam War emerged, “was forged in the fire of World War II, the bloodiest conflict in the history of mankind,” the author stated in his introduction to Containment and Credibility. “It blossomed in American politics amid fear of atomic annihilation and paranoia about Communist infiltration in the 1950s. By 1964, an entire generation had grown up known no other framework for public debate over foreign policy; the American public believed that it was necessary to contain Communist expansion, using military force if necessary. President Johnson tapped into this ideology when he insisted that communists were trying to expand into Southeast Asia through South Vietnam … and had to be opposed by force.” His study, Proctor continued in his introduction, “is a history of the mass politics of the war—the public struggle between supporters and opponents of the Vietnam War to influence American public opinion about the war. This public struggle was waged primarily in the print and broadcast media, but also through demonstrations, acts of civil disobedience, and even occasionally through violence.” Containment and Credibility, Proctor continued, examines “arguments that were being made for and against the war, the people who were making these arguments, and why they were making them.”
Proctor goes on to suggest that the ideology of the Cold War strongly influenced the ways in which the war against terrorism is being prosecuted. Two incidents in the war—the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the Tet Offensive—were key in reshaping the debate over the war itself. Controversy over the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which an American naval vessel, the U.S.S. Maddox, was attacked off the coast of North Vietnam, led to a great expansion of presidential control over the U.S. military (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) and, eventually, to a congressional investigation questioning if the Johnson administration had misled Congress and the American people. The North Vietnamese Tet offensive of January 1968 demonstrated that, contrary to the Johnson administration’s claims, the Communists were fully capable of continuing the war indefinitely. As a result, the Johnson administration—and to an extent all U.S. administrations since then—lost credibility. “Proctor warns that the current ideology of Americans defeating terrorists abroad,” wrote Library Journal reviewer Jason L. Steagall, “… could potentially lead to a century of … warfare.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Proctor, Pat, Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq, ProSIM Company, Inc. (Manhattan, KS), 2010.
Proctor, Pat, Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception That Plunged America into the Vietnam War, Carrel Books (New York, NY), 2016.
PERIODICALS
Library Journal, October 1, 2016, Jason L. Steagall, review of Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception That Plunged America into the Vietnam War. p. 91.
Publishers Weekly, October 3, 2016, review of Containment and Credibility, p. 111.
ONLINE
Armchair General, http://www.armchairgeneral.com/ (January 19, 2011), Peter Suciu, review of Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq.
ProSIMco, http://www.prosimco.com/ (July 5, 2017), author profile.
Colonel Pat Proctor, PhD. is a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with 24 years of service in command and staff positions from Fort Hood, Texas to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Colonel Proctor most recently deployed to Jordan, on the front lines of the war with ISIS, where he served as a battalion commander. In 2009, Pat deployed to Iraq, directing operations for an artillery-turned-infantry battalion in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. In 2007, Pat worked at the senior military headquarters in Iraq, fighting on the front lines of the media war. During his tour, Pat was drafted to work as part of a handpicked, 20-man team which included such luminaries as Ambassador Robert Ford (then-US Ambassador to Algeria), Colonel H.R. McMasters (Author of "Dereliction of Duty"), and Dr. Stephen Biddle (Council on Foreign Relations). This team was commissioned by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker to create a new strategy for the war in Iraq. Pat worked with a State Department counterpart to write the vast majority of the strategic communications plan for what has since become known as the Iraq "surge."
Pat has written on current affairs, military history, and military simulation topics for the US Army War College journal, Parameters, the US Army Command and General Staff College journal, Military Review, the Phi Alpha Theta history honor society journal, The Historian, the Henley-Putnam University journal, the Journal of Strategic Security, and consumer magazines including Armchair General and Military Simulations & Training. Pat has also published articles in the online magazines, Wargamer.com and StrategyPage.com.
Colonel Proctor has a doctorate in History from Kansas State University. He holds a master's degree in Military Arts for Strategy from the US Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC). He also holds a master's degree in Military Arts for Theater Operations from the highly selective School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). He is currently pursuing a third masters, in strategic studies, from the US Army War College. Pat holds a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.
In addition to writing, Pat is also a prolific computer wargame developer. Shrapnel Games, Inc. publishes his six modern combat titles. Several of his titles have been licensed by corporations such as Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and Boeing for use in their own professional-grade simulations.
Pat Proctor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lieutenant Colonel Pat Proctor at COB Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq in 2010
Pat Proctor is an active duty United States Army lieutenant colonel serving at Fort Polk, Louisiana.[1] Lt.Col. Proctor is a graduate of the highly selective School of Advanced Military Studies.[2] Lt.Col. Proctor most recently deployed to Jordan as a battalion commander. In 2009, he deployed as the operations officer for Task Force Patriot (2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery) to Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, Iraq. In 2007, Lt.Col. Proctor worked as part of the Joint Strategic Assessment Team,[3] a team of diplomats, military theorists, and intellectuals assembled by GEN David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to develop the strategy for post-surge Iraq.[4]
About Pat Proctor
Pat Proctor has worked in a broad range of national security, simulation, and commercial gaming positions over the past two decades. He is a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghan wars with twenty-two years of active federal service. Pat has just returned from his latest deployment with his battalion to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the front lines of America's growing war with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Pat is also an active freelance writer, specializing in current nonfiction topics of interest to military history and current affairs enthusiasts, national security policy-makers, and military professionals. Pat's second book, Task Force Patriot and the End of Combat Operations in Iraq, was released by Government Institutes Press (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield) on 15 December 2011. His first book, Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq was published by ProSIM Company. He also coauthored the book, ASVAB AFQT Cram Plan, published by John Wiley & Sons. Pat's articles have appeared in publications such as the Phi Alpha Theta Honor Society journal, The Historian, the US Army War College journal, Parameters, The US Army Command and General Staff College journal, Military Review, The Journal of Strategic Security, and Armchair General Magazine. To see samples of Pat's publications, click here.
Pat's most recent book, Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception that Plunged America into the Vietnam War was published by Carrel Books, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, in November 2016.
Pat holds a Doctorate in History from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas and two Masters of Military Arts and Sciences--in Strategy from the US Command and General Staff College (CGSC) and in Theater Operations, from the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). He also has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.
Pat is also the founder and has served as the president of ProSIM Company, a Kansas-based military simulation developer, since 1998. In connection with this work, Pat has written extensively in the area of computer gaming, including articles for Military Simulation & Training Magazine and Wargamer.com and help tools and manuals for commercial entertainment software.
Proctor, Pat. Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and
Deception That Plunged America Into the Vietnam War
Jason L. Steagall
Library Journal.
141.16 (Oct. 1, 2016): p91.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Proctor, Pat. Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception That Plunged America Into the Vietnam War. Carrel: Skyhorse. Nov.
2016.320p. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781631440564. $39.99. HIST
Lieutenant Colonel Proctor (Task Force Patriot and the End of Combat Operations in Iraq), a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, details
the events leading up to the Vietnam War and the change in strategy of war opponents. Proctor is careful to draw parallels among those events
and more contemporary battles with ISIS and terrorism. In the 1960s, American politicians understood the desire to monitor the spread of
communism. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident was used by then president Lyndon Johnson to justify the Vietnam War. As the conflict continued,
opponents switched from suggesting the United States refocus its efforts to contain communism to clearly attacking Johnson's credibility, namely
that he lied about the events at the Gulf of Tonkin. Ongoing opposition to the war ultimately resulted in Richard Nixon's election in 1968. Proctor
warns that the current ideology of Americans defeating terrorists abroad to prevent them from attacking U.S. soil could potentially lead to a
century of unnecessary and violent warfare. VERDICT Military historians will find in this work a fresh take on the Vietnam War, as well as its
warnings for current conflicts.--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Steagall, Jason L. "Proctor, Pat. Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception That Plunged America Into the Vietnam War." Library
Journal, 1 Oct. 2016, p. 91. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464982292&it=r&asid=cf7f617e161cdd771f99f3823597634e. Accessed 12 June
2017.
6/12/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1497300126677 2/3
Gale Document Number: GALE|A464982292
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6/12/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception
that Plunged America into the Vietnam War
Publishers Weekly.
263.40 (Oct. 3, 2016): p111.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception that Plunged America into the Vietnam War
Pat Proctor. Carrel, $39.99 (532p) ISBN 978-1-63144-056-4
Proctor, a U.S. Army veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, focuses on two aspects of American Vietnam War policy making in this long,
detailed examination of why the U.S. greatly escalated the war in 1964 and why the war ended the way it did in 1975. His theory--which is not
altogether new--is that President Johnson led the nation into the war by selling the American public on the simplistic and disingenuous idea that
the U.S. had to stem the tide of advancing worldwide communism (containment), and that the antiwar movements attack on President Johnson's
and Nixon's truthfulness in explaining their war-making strategies (credibility) was primarily responsible for ending the war. Proctor pays a good
deal of attention to the 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident and the resulting congressional resolution that gave L.B.J. the authority to escalate the war. He
sees L.B.J.'s actions as the ultimate presidential deception. What is new is Proctors sound conclusion that the Vietnam War containment and
credibility framework has had a lasting influence on U.S. foreign policy. Today's "War on Terror," he says, is still being fought with a Cold Warera
foreign policy ideology, which could be a recipe for "a century of costly and fruitless warfare across the globe." (Dec.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Containment and Credibility: The Ideology and Deception that Plunged America into the Vietnam War." Publishers Weekly, 3 Oct. 2016, p. 111.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466166626&it=r&asid=c6138c5733b106afa19642c8c5f6571f. Accessed 12 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466166626
Books and Movies
» Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq – Book Review
Posted on Jan 19, 2011 in Books and Movies
Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq – Book Review
By Peter Suciu
Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq by Lt. Col. Pat Proctor (ProSIM Company, Inc.); Kindle Edition, $4.95
It is often said that the pen is mightier than the sword. This statement often goes hand in hand with another, which is that history is taught by the winners. The former statement certainly is true as the embedded media can record, report on and offer its version of history before any troops return home. Thanks to the changing role of the media, the history is all too often written as it happens – and should the media not like what they see, the historical record can be all the more damning.
The result is in line with yet another statement about war, which is that the first casualty is often the truth.
Lieutenant Colonel Pat Proctor, US Army, experienced much of this first hand, and in his book Media War: The Media-Enabled Insurgency in Iraq he provides his concise view of how the media on the ground, as well as half a world away, were able to control the court of public opinion in the war in Iraq.
To understand this, Proctor notes comparisons to the Vietnam War, which was arguably the first war fought in the living rooms of America, as the nightly news brought the conflict into viewer’s homes each evening. Thus battles could be reported on as they happened, and every action was judged by the viewing public. Proctor writes, “If one accepts the widely held belief that the Tet Offensive was the turning point in the Vietnam War, the point at which America began losing the war, the implications for Iraq are sobering.”
In the digital era it now appears that wars may only be fought on the battlefield, but thanks to the embedded media, edited, condensed, and uploaded in ever increasing speed. Proctor offers the insightful opinion that this was a war fought not just between the U.S. military and the insurgency in Iraq following the U.S. led invasion in 2003, but also between the U.S. military and the insurgency for the will of the American people to actually win the war. In the end the U.S. military lost.
The sad truth, which Proctor demonstrates in this newly released Kindle book (available for download) from Amazon.com, is that this was not a war that fought badly, with poor planning, nor was the U.S. military driven out. The truth is that the invasion of Iraq was a controversial decision, and Proctor shows that the media essentially made it nearly impossible for it to succeed, as the U.S. military and the insurgents fought not just each other but to influence the coverage they received.
Along the way the book offers a detailed look at the role of various media personnel – from full-time reporters to stringers to freelancers – all looking to break that story that no one else had gotten yet. The writer further explains that the changing model of news in America also changed the coverage of said news. While the traditional networks offer two news segments a day – the morning shows and the evening news – which allowed for a story to be created, complete with commentary and context, 24-hour news channels further changed the game. For the all-the-time news outlets – as well as the Internet – this became an endless cycle of coverage, often times with the reporters offering their own commentary and often with misrepresented context thrown into the mix. How could the U.S. military possibly win the war while winning the hearts of minds of not the Iraqis but the Americans back home?
Protor’s work isn’t the most engaging read, in fact it offers so much detail that a background in news operations is almost required to understand some of the key facets. It is however a fascinating book that news junkies will appreciate deeply, albeit one that delves far deeper into the subject that most casual readers would ever dare tread. Hopefully, it is also a book that will take some of the power away from those who wield the pen.