Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download America's Modern Wars PDF full book. Access full book title America's Modern Wars by Christopher A. Lawrence. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Christopher A. Lawrence Publisher: Casemate ISBN: 161200279X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 377
Book Description
“A well researched and well analyzed study of the nature of insurgencies and guerilla warfare” (Military Review). The fighting skills and valor of the US military and its allies haven’t diminished over the past half-century—yet our wars have become more protracted and decisive results more elusive. With only two exceptions—Panama and the Gulf War under the first President Bush—our campaigns have taken on the character of endless slogs without positive results. This fascinating book takes a ground-up look at the problem to assess how our strategic objectives have become divorced from our true capability or imperatives. The book presents a unique examination of the nature of insurgencies and the three major guerrilla wars the United States has fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. It is both a theoretical work and one that applies the hard experience of the past five decades to address the issues of today. As such, it also provides a timely and meaningful discussion of America’s current geopolitical position. It starts with the previously close-held casualty estimate for Iraq that The Dupuy Institute compiled in 2004 for the US Department of Defense. Going from the practical to the theoretical, it then discusses a construct for understanding insurgencies and the contexts in which they can be fought. It applies these principles to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, assessing where the projection of US power can enhance our position and where it merely weakens it. It presents an extensive analysis of insurgencies based upon a unique database of eighty-three post-WWII cases. The book explores what is important to combat and what is not important to resist in insurgencies. It builds a body of knowledge, based upon a half-century’s worth of real-world data, with analysis, not opinion. In these pages, Christopher A. Lawrence, the President of The Dupuy Institute, provides an invaluable guide to how the US can best project its vital power while avoiding the missteps of the recent past. “Provides a unique quantitative historical analysis . . . Logically estimating the outcomes of future military operations, as the author writes, is what US citizens should expect and demand from their leaders who take this country to war.” —Military Review
Author: Christopher A. Lawrence Publisher: Casemate ISBN: 161200279X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 377
Book Description
“A well researched and well analyzed study of the nature of insurgencies and guerilla warfare” (Military Review). The fighting skills and valor of the US military and its allies haven’t diminished over the past half-century—yet our wars have become more protracted and decisive results more elusive. With only two exceptions—Panama and the Gulf War under the first President Bush—our campaigns have taken on the character of endless slogs without positive results. This fascinating book takes a ground-up look at the problem to assess how our strategic objectives have become divorced from our true capability or imperatives. The book presents a unique examination of the nature of insurgencies and the three major guerrilla wars the United States has fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. It is both a theoretical work and one that applies the hard experience of the past five decades to address the issues of today. As such, it also provides a timely and meaningful discussion of America’s current geopolitical position. It starts with the previously close-held casualty estimate for Iraq that The Dupuy Institute compiled in 2004 for the US Department of Defense. Going from the practical to the theoretical, it then discusses a construct for understanding insurgencies and the contexts in which they can be fought. It applies these principles to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, assessing where the projection of US power can enhance our position and where it merely weakens it. It presents an extensive analysis of insurgencies based upon a unique database of eighty-three post-WWII cases. The book explores what is important to combat and what is not important to resist in insurgencies. It builds a body of knowledge, based upon a half-century’s worth of real-world data, with analysis, not opinion. In these pages, Christopher A. Lawrence, the President of The Dupuy Institute, provides an invaluable guide to how the US can best project its vital power while avoiding the missteps of the recent past. “Provides a unique quantitative historical analysis . . . Logically estimating the outcomes of future military operations, as the author writes, is what US citizens should expect and demand from their leaders who take this country to war.” —Military Review
Author: Wesley Clark Publisher: ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
Discusses America's involvement in Iraq, including the risks, triumphs, and repercussions, and offers alternatives to future dealings with Iraq and the War on Terrorism.
Author: Omar El Akkad Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0451493591 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 369
Book Description
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.
Author: William A. Taylor Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: 0700630406 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
“When I became secretary of defense,” Ashton B. Carter said when announcing that the Pentagon would open all combat jobs to women, “I made a commitment to building America's force of the future. In the twenty-first century, that requires drawing strength from the broadest possible pool of talent.” That “pool of talent”—and how our nation's civilian and military leaders have tried to fill it—is what Military Service and American Democracy is all about. William Taylor chronicles and analyzes the long and ever-changing history of that often contentious and controversial effort, from the initiation of America's first peacetime draft just before our entry into World War II up to present-day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. A history that runs from the selective service era of 1940–1973 through the era of the All-Volunteer Force of 1973 to the present, his book details the many personnel policies that have shaped, controlled, and defined American military service over the last eight decades. Exploring the individual and group identities excluded from official personnel policy over time—African Americans, women, and gays among others—Taylor shows how military service has been an arena of contested citizenship, one in which American values have been tested, questioned, and ultimately redefined. Yet, we see how this process has resulted in greater inclusiveness and expanded opportunities in military service while encouraging and shaping similar changes in broader society. In the distinction between compulsory and voluntary military service, Taylor also examines the dichotomy between national security and individual liberty—two competing ideals that have existed in constant tension throughout the history of American democracy.
Author: Christopher H. Hamner Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: 0700617752 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 294
Book Description
Throughout history, battlefields have placed a soldier's instinct for self-preservation in direct opposition to the army's insistence that he do his duty and put himself in harm's way. Enduring Battle looks beyond advances in weaponry to examine changes in warfare at the very personal level. Drawing on the combat experiences of American soldiers in three widely separated wars-the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II-Christopher Hamner explores why soldiers fight in the face of terrifying lethal threats and how they manage to suppress their fears, stifle their instincts, and marshal the will to kill other humans. Hamner contrasts the experience of infantry combat on the ground in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when soldiers marched shoulder-to-shoulder in linear formations, with the experiences of dispersed infantrymen of the mid-twentieth century. Earlier battlefields prized soldiers who could behave as stoic automatons; the modern dispersed battlefield required soldiers who could act autonomously. As the range and power of weapons removed enemies from view, combat became increasingly depersonalized, and soldiers became more isolated from their comrades and even imagined that the enemy was targeting them personally. What's more, battles lengthened so that exchanges of fire that lasted an hour during the Revolutionary War became round-the-clock by World War II. The book's coverage of training and leadership explores the ways in which military systems have attempted to deal with the problem of soldiers' fear in battle and contrasts leadership in the linear and dispersed tactical systems. Chapters on weapons and comradeship then discuss soldiers' experiences in battle and the relationships that informed and shaped those experiences. Hamner highlights the ways in which the "band of brothers" phenomenon functioned differently in the three wars and shows that training, conditioning, leadership, and other factors affect behavior much more than political ideology. He also shows how techniques to motivate soldiers evolved, from the linear system's penalties for not fighting to modern efforts to convince soldiers that participation in combat would actually maximize their own chances for survival. Examining why soldiers continue to fight when their strong instinct is to flee, Enduring Battle challenges long-standing notions that high ideals and small unit bonds provide sufficient explanation for their behavior. Offering an innovative way to analyze the factors that enable soldiers to face the prospect of death or debilitating wounds, it expands our understanding of the evolving nature of warfare and its warriors.
Author: Richard English Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199607893 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 153
Book Description
Warfare is one of the most dangerous threat faced by modern humanity. It is also one of the key influences that has shaped the politics, economics, and culture of the modern world. This book explores the assumptions we make about modern warfare and considers what we can learn from the historical reality.
Author: Thomas Bruce Publisher: ISBN: 9781520760766 Category : Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
Following World War II America made a bold stand against the ambitions of an aspiring USSR. Taking the lead with the recently formed NATO and UN in resisting Communist incursions, the US found itself entrenched in the Korean War, fighting the North Koreans, Chinese and Russians simultaneously. Soon afterward America once again assumed the role of resisting Communist expansion, becoming involved in the quagmire of Vietnam. With a new century approaching and the ever changing worldwide political situation resulting in the relative collapse of Communism around the world, the US was to find itself embroiled in a newly evolving style of warfare in the never ending conflict of the Middle East. Liberating Kuwait from Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, the United States soon returned to the region, invading Afghanistan in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, and attacking Iraq to depose Hussein and thwart his ambitions for a greater Iraq. It is important to understand these wars, as they have transformed the political situation across the globe. From the transition of conventional battlefields to that of the undefined warfare of insurgencies, with the emergence of IED's and the suicide vest as major weapons of terror, to the widespread use of Drones and the rise of ISIS, the very nature of warfare has radically evolved between WWII and today. The factors that led to the US involvement of each of these significant wars is explored, the key historic events of each war are covered in detail, and the long term consequences of each is considered. As well, a unique perspective is presented on the numerous key political, military and geographic factors that influenced the course of each war and ultimately contributed to the step-by-step evolution toward what has become the modern style of warfare.
Author: Stephen Conway Publisher: Hodder Education ISBN: 9780340576267 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 280
Book Description
In 1775, thirteen of George III's North American colonies fiercely and famously rebelled. Localized at first, the trouble spread and eventually took on the character of a world war. By 1783, Britain had been forced to acknowledge the loss of these colonies and a new polity--the United States of America--was born. Conway examines the causes of the conflict and develops an understanding of the war itself that is both global and contemporary. He places the Anglo-American struggle in its broadest possible context by taking account of its Caribbean, European, Indian, and even African dimensions.
Author: Michael S. Neiberg Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190464968 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
America's entry into World War One in April 1917 marked the end of one era in the nation's history and the start of another. As acclaimed historian Michael S. Neiberg reveals in his compelling new work, the Great War erupted in the midst of lively domestic debate as to what America's roleshould be in the global sphere. Whereas Woodrow Wilson was re-elected in 1916 by pledging to stay out of the conflict in Europe, former president Theodore Roosevelt was convinced that the war offered a means for the U.S. to become a dominant power and ensure national security.In The Path to War, Neiberg follows American reactions to such events as the Lusitania, German espionage, and the Zimmermann telegram, shedding light on the dilemmas and crises that the country faced in the war years. In the summer of 1916, German agents detonated the Black Tom railroad terminal inJersey City, New Jersey, leaving only fragments of piers (still visible today); it was the costliest act of domestic terrorism in American history before 9/11 and its effect was galvanizing.Neiberg's book will revive debates around America's entry into World War One, building to Wilson's declaration while examining the forces and shifts that made it all but inevitable. Neiberg establishes beyond question that World War One was not a parenthetical exception in American history but amoment of national and international self-identification, one whose effects still resonate today.
Author: Dominic Tierney Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 9780316254885 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
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.
Author: Christopher A. Lawrence
Author: Christopher A. Lawrence
Author: Wesley Clark
Author: Omar El Akkad
Author: William A. Taylor
Author: Christopher H. Hamner
Author: Richard English
Author: Thomas Bruce
Author: Stephen Conway
Author: Michael S. Neiberg
Author: Dominic Tierney