Why America Loses Wars

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Why America Loses Wars

Author : Donald Stoker
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009220888
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Why America Loses Wars by : Donald Stoker

Download or read book Why America Loses Wars written by Donald Stoker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can you achieve victory in war if you don't have a clear idea of your political aims and a vision of what victory means? In this provocative challenge to US political aims and strategy, Donald Stoker argues that America endures endless wars because its leaders no longer know how to think about war, particularly wars fought for limited aims, taking the nation to war without understanding what they want or valuing victory and thus the ending of the war. He reveals how flawed ideas on so-called 'limited war' and war in general evolved against the backdrop of American conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These ideas, he shows, undermined America's ability to understand, wage, and win its wars, and to secure peace. Now fully updated to incorporate the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Why America Loses Wars dismantles seventy years of misguided thinking and lays the foundations for a new approach to the wars of tomorrow.

Anatomy of Failure

Author : Harlan Ullman
Publisher : Naval Institute Press
ISBN 13 : 1682472264
Total Pages : 150 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (824 download)

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Book Synopsis Anatomy of Failure by : Harlan Ullman

Download or read book Anatomy of Failure written by Harlan Ullman and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why, since the end of World War II, has the United States either lost every war it started or failed in every military intervention it prosecuted? Harlan Ullman's new book answers this most disturbing question, a question Americans would never think of even asking because this record of failure has been largely hidden in plain sight or forgotten with the passage of time. The most straightforward answer is that presidents and administrations have consistently failed to use sound strategic thinking and lacked sufficient knowledge or understanding of the circumstances prior to deciding whether or not to employ force. Making this case is an in-depth analysis of the records of presidents from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama and Donald Trump in using force or starting wars. His recommended solutions begin with a "brains-based" approach to sound strategic thinking to address one of the major causes of failure ----the inexperience of too many of the nation's commanders-in-chief. Ullman reinforces his argument through the use of autobiographical vignettes that provide a human dimension and insight into the reasons for failure, in some cases making public previously unknown history. The clarion call of Anatomy of Failure is that both a sound strategic framework and sufficient knowledge and understanding of the circumstance that may lead to using force are vital. Without them, failure is virtually guaranteed.

Why We Lost

Author : Daniel P. Bolger
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0544370481
Total Pages : 565 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (443 download)

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Book Synopsis Why We Lost by : Daniel P. Bolger

Download or read book Why We Lost written by Daniel P. Bolger and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A three-star general offers an insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, explaining how garbled intelligence, poor decision making, and no clear understanding of the enemy resulted in the failure of both missions.

Between War and Peace

Author : Matthew Moten
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439194629
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Between War and Peace by : Matthew Moten

Download or read book Between War and Peace written by Matthew Moten and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-01-10 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A U.S. Military Academy historian analyzes America's exit strategies in conflicts ranging from the American Revolution to the Gulf War, providing fifteen essays by leading authorities to offer insight into each war's goals, campaigns, and legacies.

The Right Way to Lose a War

Author : Dominic Tierney
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 9780316254885
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (548 download)

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Book Synopsis The Right Way to Lose a War by : Dominic Tierney

Download or read book The Right Way to Lose a War written by Dominic Tierney and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has America stopped winning wars? For nearly a century, up until the end of World War II in 1945, America enjoyed a Golden Age of decisive military triumphs. And then suddenly, we stopped winning wars. The decades since have been a Dark Age of failures and stalemates-in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan-exposing our inability to change course after battlefield setbacks. In this provocative book, award-winning scholar Dominic Tierney reveals how the United States has struggled to adapt to the new era of intractable guerrilla conflicts. As a result, most major American wars have turned into military fiascos. And when battlefield disaster strikes, Washington is unable to disengage from the quagmire, with grave consequences for thousands of U.S. troops and our allies. But there is a better way. Drawing on interviews with dozens of top generals and policymakers, Tierney shows how we can use three key steps-surge, talk, and leave-to stem the tide of losses and withdraw from unsuccessful campaigns without compromising our core values and interests. Weaving together compelling stories of military catastrophe and heroism, this is an unprecedented, timely, and essential guidebook for our new era of unwinnable conflicts. The Right Way to Lose a War illuminates not only how Washington can handle the toughest crisis of all-battlefield failure-but also how America can once again return to the path of victory.

The Day After

Author : Brendan R. Gallagher
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501739638
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Day After by : Brendan R. Gallagher

Download or read book The Day After written by Brendan R. Gallagher and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 9/11, why have we won smashing battlefield victories only to botch nearly everything that comes next? In the opening phases of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, we mopped the floor with our enemies. But in short order, things went horribly wrong. We soon discovered we had no coherent plan to manage the "day after." The ensuing debacles had truly staggering consequences—many thousands of lives lost, trillions of dollars squandered, and the apparent discrediting of our foreign policy establishment. This helped set the stage for an extraordinary historical moment in which America's role in the world, along with our commitment to democracy at home and abroad, have become subject to growing doubt. With the benefit of hindsight, can we discern what went wrong? Why have we had such great difficulty planning for the aftermath of war? In The Day After, Brendan Gallagher—an Army lieutenant colonel with multiple combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan, and a Princeton Ph.D.—seeks to tackle this vital question. Gallagher argues there is a tension between our desire to create a new democracy and our competing desire to pull out as soon as possible. Our leaders often strive to accomplish both to keep everyone happy. But by avoiding the tough underlying decisions, it fosters an incoherent strategy. This makes chaos more likely. The Day After draws on new interviews with dozens of civilian and military officials, ranging from US cabinet secretaries to four-star generals. It also sheds light on how, in Kosovo, we lowered our postwar aims to quietly achieve a surprising partial success. Striking at the heart of what went wrong in our recent wars, and what we should do about it, Gallagher asks whether we will learn from our mistakes, or provoke even more disasters? Human lives, money, elections, and America's place in the world may hinge on the answer.

Planning to Fail

Author : James H. Lebovic
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190935340
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis Planning to Fail by : James H. Lebovic

Download or read book Planning to Fail written by James H. Lebovic and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-14 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States national-security establishment is vast, yet the United States has failed to meet its initial objectives in almost every one of its major, post-World War II conflicts. Of these troubled efforts, the US wars in Vietnam (1965-73), Iraq (2003-11), and Afghanistan (2001-present) stand out for their endurance, resource investment, human cost, and miscalculated decisions. Because overarching policy goals are distant and open to interpretation, policymakers ground their decisions in the immediate world of short-term objectives, salient tasks, policy constraints, and fixed time schedules. As a consequence, they exaggerate the benefits of their preferred policies, ignore the accompanying costs and requirements, and underappreciate the benefits of alternatives. In Planning to Fail, James H. Lebovic argues that a profound myopia helps explain US decision-making failures. In each of the wars explored in this book, he identifies four stages of intervention. First and foremost, policymakers chose unwisely to go to war. After the fighting began, they inadvisably sought to extend or expand the mission. Next, they pursued the mission, in abbreviated form, to suboptimal effect. Finally, they adapted the mission to exit from the conflict. Lebovic argues that US leaders were effectively planning to fail whatever their hopes and thoughts were at the time the intervention began. Decision-makers struggled less than they should have, even when conditions allowed for good choices. Then, when conditions on the ground left them with only bad choices, they struggled furiously and more than could ever matter. Policymakers allowed these wars to sap available capabilities, push US forces to the breaking point, and exhaust public support. They finally settled for terms of departure that they (or their predecessors) would have rejected at the start of these conflicts. Offering a far-ranging and detailed analysis, this book identifies an unmistakable pattern of failure and highlights lessons we can learn from it.

Imperial Hubris

Author : Michael Scheuer
Publisher : Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1597973084
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (979 download)

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Book Synopsis Imperial Hubris by : Michael Scheuer

Download or read book Imperial Hubris written by Michael Scheuer and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2004-06-30 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though U.S. leaders try to convince the world of their success in fighting al Qaeda, one anonymous member of the U.S. intelligence community would like to inform the public that we are, in fact, losing the war on terror. Further, until U.S. leaders recognize the errant path they have irresponsibly chosen, he says, our enemies will only grow stronger. According to the author, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat is to believe-at the urging of U.S. leaders-that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. Blustering political rhetor.

The American War in Afghanistan

Author : Carter Malkasian
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197550797
Total Pages : 601 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis The American War in Afghanistan by : Carter Malkasian

Download or read book The American War in Afghanistan written by Carter Malkasian and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book Winner of 2022 Lionel Gelber Prize The first authoritative history of American's longest war by one of the world's leading scholar-practitioners. The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, is now the longest armed conflict in the nation's history. It is currently winding down, and American troops are likely to leave soon but only after a stay of nearly two decades. In The American War in Afghanistan, Carter Malkasian provides the first comprehensive history of the entire conflict. Malkasian is both a leading academic authority on the subject and an experienced practitioner, having spent nearly two years working in the Afghan countryside and going on to serve as the senior advisor to General Joseph Dunford, the US military commander in Afghanistan and later the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Drawing from a deep well of local knowledge, understanding of Pashto, and review of primary source documents, Malkasian moves through the war's multiple phases: the 2001 invasion and after; the light American footprint during the 2003 Iraq invasion; the resurgence of the Taliban in 2006, the Obama-era surge, and the various resets in strategy and force allocations that occurred from 2011 onward, culminating in the 2018-2020 peace talks. Malkasian lived through much of it, and draws from his own experiences to provide a unique vantage point on the war. Today, the Taliban is the most powerful faction, and sees victory as probable. The ultimate outcome after America leaves is inherently unpredictable given the multitude of actors there, but one thing is sure: the war did not go as America had hoped. Although the al-Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden was killed and no major attack on the American homeland was carried out after 2001, the United States was unable to end the violence or hand off the war to the Afghan authorities, which could not survive without US military backing. The American War in Afghanistan explains why the war had such a disappointing outcome. Wise and all-encompassing, The American War in Afghanistan provides a truly vivid portrait of the conflict in all of its phases that will remain the authoritative account for years to come.

This Republic of Suffering

Author : Drew Gilpin Faust
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0375703837
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (757 download)

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Book Synopsis This Republic of Suffering by : Drew Gilpin Faust

Download or read book This Republic of Suffering written by Drew Gilpin Faust and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An "extraordinary ... profoundly moving" history (The New York Times Book Review) of the American Civil War that reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation. An estiated 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be seven and a half million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality. With a new introduction by the author, and a new foreword by Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On War

Author : Carl von Clausewitz
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis On War by : Carl von Clausewitz

Download or read book On War written by Carl von Clausewitz and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

Author : Chris Hedges
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1610395107
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by : Chris Hedges

Download or read book War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning written by Chris Hedges and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive: “It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.” Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies—corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.

How to Lose the Information War

Author : Nina Jankowicz
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1838607692
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (386 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Lose the Information War by : Nina Jankowicz

Download or read book How to Lose the Information War written by Nina Jankowicz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.

The Afghanistan Papers

Author : Craig Whitlock
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982159014
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis The Afghanistan Papers by : Craig Whitlock

Download or read book The Afghanistan Papers written by Craig Whitlock and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.

American War

Author : Omar El Akkad
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0451493591
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis American War by : Omar El Akkad

Download or read book American War written by Omar El Akkad and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle—this gripping debut novel asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself. From the author of What Strange Paradise "Powerful ... as haunting a postapocalyptic universe as Cormac McCarthy [created] in The Road." —The New York Times Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.

Reign of Terror

Author : Spencer Ackerman
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1984879790
Total Pages : 449 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Reign of Terror by : Spencer Ackerman

Download or read book Reign of Terror written by Spencer Ackerman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2021 "An impressive combination of diligence and verve, deploying Ackerman’s deep stores of knowledge as a national security journalist to full effect. The result is a narrative of the last 20 years that is upsetting, discerning and brilliantly argued." —The New York Times "One of the most illuminating books to come out of the Trump era." —New York Magazine An examination of the profound impact that the War on Terror had in pushing American politics and society in an authoritarian direction For an entire generation, at home and abroad, the United States has waged an endless conflict known as the War on Terror. In addition to multiple ground wars, the era pioneered drone strikes and industrial-scale digital surveillance; weakened the rule of law through indefinite detentions; sanctioned torture; and manipulated the truth about it all. These conflicts have yielded neither peace nor victory, but they have transformed America. What began as the persecution of Muslims and immigrants has become a normalized feature of American politics and national security, expanding the possibilities for applying similar or worse measures against other targets at home, as the summer of 2020 showed. A politically divided and economically destabilized country turned the War on Terror into a cultural—and then a tribal—struggle. It began on the ideological frontiers of the Republican Party before expanding to conquer the GOP, often with the acquiescence of the Democratic Party. Today’s nativist resurgence walked through a door opened by the 9/11 era. And that door remains open. Reign of Terror shows how these developments created an opportunity for American authoritarianism and gave rise to Donald Trump. It shows that Barack Obama squandered an opportunity to dismantle the War on Terror after killing Osama bin Laden. By the end of his tenure, the war had metastasized into a bitter, broader cultural struggle in search of a demagogue like Trump to lead it. Reign of Terror is a pathbreaking and definitive union of journalism and intellectual history with the power to transform how America understands its national security policies and their catastrophic impact on civic life.

How Democracies Lose Small Wars

Author : Gil Merom
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521008778
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (87 download)

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Book Synopsis How Democracies Lose Small Wars by : Gil Merom

Download or read book How Democracies Lose Small Wars written by Gil Merom and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-08-04 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. Introduction 2. Military superiority and victory in small wars: historical observations 3. The structural original of defiance: the middle-class, the marketplace of ideas, and the normative gap 4. The structural origins of tenacity: national alignment and compartmentalization 5. The French war in Algeria: a strategic, political, and economic overview 6. French instrumental dependence and its consequences 7. The development of a normative difference in France and its consequences 8. The French struggle to contain the growth of the normative gap and the rise of the 'democratic agenda' 9. Political relevance and its consequences in France 10. The Israeli war in Lebanon: a strategic, political, and economic overview 11. Israeli instrumental dependence and its consequences 12. The development of a normative difference in Israel and its consequences 13. The Israeli struggle to contain the growth of the normative gap and the rise of the 'democratic agenda' 14. Political relevance and its consequences in Israel.