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Learning to forget : US Army counterinsurgency doctrine and practice from Vietnam to Iraq / David Fitzgerald.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Fitzgerald, David, 1984-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Counterinsurgency--United States--History.
- Counterinsurgency.
- Vietnam War, 1961-1975--United States.
- Vietnam War, 1961-1975.
- Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Influence.
- Iraq War, 2003-2011.
- United States. Army--History.
- United States.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (x, 285 pages)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 2013.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- Learning to Forget analyzes the evolution of US counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine over the last five decades. Beginning with an extensive section on the lessons of Vietnam, it traces the decline of COIN in the 1970's, then the rebirth of low intensity conflict through the Reagan years, in the conflict in Bosnia, and finally in the campaigns of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ultimately it closes the loop by explaining how, by confronting the lessons of Vietnam, the US Army found a way out of those most recent wars. In the process it provides an illustration of how military leaders make use of history and demonstrates the difficulties of drawing lessons from the past that can usefully be applied to contemporary circumstances. The book outlines how the construction of lessons is tied to the construction of historical memory and demonstrates how histories are constructed to serve the needs of the present. In so doing, it creates a new theory of doctrinal development.
- Contents:
- Front matter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Army’s Counterinsurgency War in Vietnam
- 2 “Out of the Rice Paddies”
- 3 Low-Intensity Conflict in the Reagan Years
- 4 Peacekeeping and Operations Other Than War in the 1990's
- 5 Mr. Rumsfeld’s War
- 6 Counterinsurgency and “Vietnam” in Iraq, 2003–2006
- 7 The Return to Counterinsurgency: FM 3-24 and the “Surge”
- 8 A Never-Ending War?
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
- Notes:
- Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780804786423
- 0804786429
- OCLC:
- 850080159
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