Pentagon is a 1986 political novel by Allen Drury which follows the American military bureaucracy as it reacts to a crisis with the Soviet Union.

[3][4][5] The Soviet Union invades and occupies a sparsely-populated Pacific atoll and proceeds to kill the inhabitants and gradually construct a missile and submarine base.

The review went on to criticize it as a "bloated, wooden novel that lacks the simplest of narrative virtues" and added, "as the Pentagon's mishandling of this crisis reaches near-buffoonery, Drury's attempted critique of a bureaucracy burdened with political infighting, waste and mismanagement unintentionally becomes almost comic for those readers with the endurance to get that far.

Interservice rivalries, conflicting civilian and military purposes, and ugly little human jealousies make a mockery of sincere efforts to get things done.

The explanation for all this offered by one character, Helen Clark, the beautiful and smart assistant secretary of defense for acquisition and logistics, is on target: too much money and too many constituents to satisfy in the Pentagon, in the White House, and in industry.