Author: Chris Mason
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781098969455
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were lost before they began, not on the battlefields, where the United States won every tactical engagement, but at the strategic level of war. In each case, the U.S. Government attempted to create a Western-style democracy in countries which were decades at least away from being nations with the sociopolitical capital necessary to sustain democracy and, most importantly, accept it as a legitimate source of governance. The expensive indigenous armies created in the image of the U.S. Army lacked both the motivation to fight for illegitimate governments in Saigon, Baghdad, and Kabul and a cause that they believed was worth dying for, while their enemies in the field clearly did not. This book examines the Afghan National Security Forces in historical and political contexts, explains why they will fail at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war, why they cannot and will not succeed in holding the southern half of the country, and what will happen in Afghanistan year-by-year from 2015 to 2019. Finally, it examines what the critical lessons unlearned of these conflicts are for U.S. military leaders, why these fundamental political lessons seem to remain unlearned, and how the strategic mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future.
Author: M. Chris Mason
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781584876830
Category : Afghanistan
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were lost before they began, not on the battlefields, where the United States won every tactical engagement, but at the strategic level of war. In each case, the U.S. Government attempted to create a Western-style democracy in countries which were decades at least away from being nations with the sociopolitical capital necessary to sustain democracy and, most importantly, accept it as a legitimate source of governance. The expensive indigenous armies created in the image of the U.S. Army lacked both the motivation to fight for illegitimate governments in Saigon, Baghdad, and Kabul and a cause that they believed was worth dying for, while their enemies in the field clearly did not. This book examines the Afghan National Security Forces in historical and political contexts, explains why they will fail at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war, why they cannot and will not succeed in holding the southern half of the country, and what will happen in Afghanistan year-by-year from 2015 to 2019. Finally, it examines what the critical lessons unlearned of these conflicts are for U.S. military leaders, why these fundamental political lessons seem to remain unlearned, and how the strategic mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future"--Publisher's web site.
Author: M. Chris Mason
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780892064519
Category : Iraq War, 2003-
Languages : en
Pages : 73
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Book Description
Author: David Ryan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134135270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458
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Book Description
More than most post-1970 conflicts involving US forces, the conflict in Iraq has been fought out against a background of frequently invoked memories from the era of the Vietnam War. The essays in this book offer a series of perspectives on connections and parallels between the Vietnam War and the 2003 invasion of, and conflict in, Iraq. The contributors particularly examine the impact of the Vietnam analogy on the War in Iraq, assessing the military tactical lessons learned from the Vietnam War and exploring the influence and persistence of its legacy in US politics, culture and diplomacy. The volume holds up to original interrogation some commonly held assumptions about historical analogy, and several distinguished authorities on the Vietnam War era, in particular, offer their thoughts on the value and applicability of Vietnam-Iraq parallels. If most contributions point out some obvious dissimilarities between the two eras, notably the transformed post-Cold War international environment, the similarities, particularly those relating to the problems of cultural misunderstanding, are also apparent. Vietnam in Iraq will be of great interest for all students and researchers of the Iraq War, strategic studies, international relations and American politics.
Author: Pat Proctor
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826274374
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 503
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Book Description
Colonel Pat Proctor’s long overdue critique of the Army’s preparation and outlook in the all-volunteer era focuses on a national security issue that continues to vex in the twenty-first century: Has the Army lost its ability to win strategically by focusing on fighting conventional battles against peer enemies? Or can it adapt to deal with the greater complexity of counterinsurgent and information-age warfare? In this blunt critique of the senior leadership of the U.S. Army, Proctor contends that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Army stubbornly refused to reshape itself in response to the new strategic reality, a decision that saw it struggle through one low-intensity conflict after another—some inconclusive, some tragic—in the 1980s and 1990s, and leaving it largely unprepared when it found itself engaged—seemingly forever—in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The first book-length study to connect the failures of these wars to America’s disastrous performance in the war on terror, Proctor’s work serves as an attempt to convince Army leaders to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Author: Daniel P. Bolger
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544370481
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 565
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Book Description
A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.
Author: Institute for National Strategic Studies
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 488
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Book Description
Lessons Encountered: Learning from the Long War began as two questions from General Martin E. Dempsey, 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: What were the costs and benefits of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what were the strategic lessons of these campaigns? The Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University was tasked to answer these questions. The editors composed a volume that assesses the war and analyzes the costs, using the Institute's considerable in-house talent and the dedication of the NDU Press team. The audience for this volume is senior officers, their staffs, and the students in joint professional military education courses-the future leaders of the Armed Forces. Other national security professionals should find it of great value as well.The volume begins with an introduction that addresses the difficulty of learning strategic lessons and a preview of the major lessons identified in the study. It then moves on to an analysis of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq from their initiation to the onset of the U.S. Surges. The study then turns to the Surges themselves as tests of assessment and adaptation. The next part focuses on decisionmaking, implementation, and unity of effort. The volume then turns to the all-important issue of raising and mentoring indigenous security forces, the basis for the U.S. exit strategy in both campaigns. Capping the study is a chapter on legal issues that range from detention to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. The final chapter analyzes costs and benefits, dissects decisionmaking in both campaigns, and summarizes the lessons encountered. Supporting the volume are three annexes: one on the human and financial costs of the Long War and two detailed timelines for histories of Afghanistan and Iraq and the U.S. campaigns in those countries. The lessons encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq at the strategic level inform our understanding of national security decisionmaking, intelligence, the character of contemporary conflict, and unity of effort and command. They stand alongside the lessons of other wars and remind future senior officers that those who fail to learn from past mistakes are bound to repeat them.
Author: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publisher: Center for Strategic & International Studies
ISBN: 9780892064502
Category : Iraq War, 2003-
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Following up on his widely praised 2003 book, The Iraq War, Anthony Cordesman now focuses on the war after the war, the lessons to be learned from the "post-conflict" periods, and how they all fit into the broader context of the continuing war on terrorism."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Vinod Kumar Nagpal
Publisher: Notion Press
ISBN: 1648699847
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
In his debut book, Vinod Kumar Nagpal, the author, takes us back to the early 1960s. This is the story of a child who is gullible, inquisitive, and curious about nature, religion, and God while he is still five years old. He poses a lot of questions to his father about mythology, religion, God, and the partition of Bharat, as his parents migrated from Western Punjab of the then undivided Bharat at the time of partition of the country. His father narrates a lot of incidences/mythological stories to his young son and also shares with him painful memories of partition and his struggles thereafter. Incidences/stories told by his father carry many good lessons. But because of his careless nature and aversion to studies, he does not pay heed to those lessons and suffers as a consequence. When he grows up, he realizes his mistakes and tries to re-learn those lessons which he had unlearned. Is he able to resurrect his life? A must-read to recollect childhood memories and get nostalgic. The book also discusses what God wants from us, what the actual meaning of religion is, and how one must conduct oneself.
