Outmaneuvered : America's tragic encounter with warfare from Vietnam to Afghanistan / James A. Warren.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Warren, James A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Military policy.

United States--History, Military--20th century.

United States.

United States--History, Military--21st century.

Physical Description:

x, 313 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Scribner hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Scribner, 2025.

Summary:

"Since the early 1960s, there have only been twelve years in which American troops have not been in combat, either in a formally declared conflict or otherwise. The vast majority of these have ended in failure, or something close to it. Why has the US been so ineffective, given the fact that the American armed forces are universally recognized as the best in the world? This is the key question James Warren answers here in Outmaneuvered. Most scholars and analysts believe that the primary cause of our abysmal war record since Vietnam has been the US military's overwhelmingly conventional approach-which favors kinetic operations, highly mobile precision firepower, and sophisticated systems of command and control. Here, Warren argues that the more formidable obstacle to success has been pervasive strategic ineptitude at the highest levels of Washington, including the executive branch, congress, and the national security council responsible for shaping US foreign policy. Time and time again, American presidents have committed military forces to operations in foreign countries whose politics and cultures they did not fully understand. Presidents of both political parties, including Kennedy, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Obama have overestimated the capacity of US forces to alter the social and political landscape of foreign nations, and underestimated the ability of insurgents and terrorists to develop strategies that draw out conflict and wage effective propaganda campaigns to curtail Washington's will to carry on the fight. Warren concludes the book by advocating for a less hubristic foreign policy and a broader conception of warfare as a political and military enterprise. For readers of political, military, and US history-as well as anyone interested in international relations and geopolitical strategy-this book offers unparalleled insights into America's prior-and potentially future-military conflicts"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Irregular warfare and the American military tradition

Vietnam : the anatomy of defeat

The Vietnamese communists : masters of irregular warfare

The Iranian Revolution and Washington's thrust into the Middle East

The CIA and the Soviet-Afghan War

Lost in Lebanon, 1982-1984

The indispensable nation syndrome and mission creep in Somalia

The rise of Islamic extremism and al-Qaeda

Terrorism and counterterrorism in the 1990s

The global war on terrorism

The war in Afghanistan : phase one

Invading Iraq

Iraq : stumbling from insurgency to Civil War

Iraq : the surge and afterward

Losing Afghanistan

The rise of special operations forces

Reflections.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Warren, James A. Outmaneuvered.

ISBN:

9781668004555

1668004550

OCLC:

1438666369

Publisher Number:

90101417757