The End Of Major Combat Operations

Novelist and Time correspondent Nick McDonell brings this stunning account back from the latest iteration of the War in Iraq--an engrossing, ground-level report on the conflict still unfolding under its second commander-in-chief. Traveling to Baghdad and then to Mosul with the 1st Cavalry Division, McDonell offers an unforgettable look at the way things stand now--at the translators stranded in a country that doesn't look kindly on their cooperation, at the infantrymen struggling to make something out of the soft counterinsurgency missions they call chai-ops, at the commanders inured to American journalists and Iraqi officials both--and what the so-called "end of major combat operations" means for where they're going.

To many Americans, the war in Vietnam was, and remains, a divisive issue. But nearly fifty years after the end of major U.S. combat operations in Vietnam, well over half the U.S. population is too young to have any direct memory of the conflict. The massive American commitment--political, economic, diplomatic, and military--to the mission of maintaining an independent and non-Communist South Vietnam deserves widespread attention, both to recognize the sacrifice of those who served and to remember how those events have impacted our nation.U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia began after World War II when elements of the Vietnamese population fought back against the re-imposition of French colonial rule. Although the United States generally favored the idea of an independent Vietnam, it supported France because the Viet Minh rebels were led by Communists and U.S. policy at that point in the Cold War sought to contain any expansion of communism. France's defeat in 1954 led to the division of Vietnam into a Communist North (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and a non-Communist South (Republic of Vietnam). The United States actively supported the latter as it dealt with a growing Communist-led insurgent force (the Viet Cong) aided by the North Vietnamese. The initial mission of training South Vietnam's armed forces led to deepening American involvement as the situation grew increasingly dire for the Republic of Vietnam.By the time President Lyndon B. Johnson committed major combat units in 1965, the United States already had invested thousands of men and millions of dollars in the effort to build a secure and stable Republic of Vietnam. That commitment expanded rapidly through 1969, when the United States had over 365,000 Army soldiers (out of a total of a half million troops of all services) in every military region of South Vietnam, with thousands of other Army personnel throughout the Pacific area providing direct support to operations. The war saw many innovations, including the massive use of helicopters to conduct airmobile tactics, new concepts of counterinsurgency, the introduction of airborne radio direction finding, wide-scale use of computers, and major advances in battlefield medicine. Yet, as in most wars, much of the burden was still borne by soldiers on the ground who slogged on foot over the hills and through the rice paddies in search of an often elusive foe. The enormous military effort by the United States was, however, matched by the resolve of North Vietnamese leaders to unify their country under communism at whatever cost. That determination, in the end, proved decisive as American commitment wavered in the face of high casualties and economic and social challenges at home. Negotiations accompanied by the gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces led to the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, effectively ending the American military role in the conflict. Actual peace was elusive, and two years later the North Vietnamese Army overran South Vietnam, bringing the war to an end in April 1975.The vast majority of American men and women who went to Vietnam did so in the uniform of the U.S. Army. They served their country when called, many at great personal cost, against a backdrop of growing uncertainty and unrest at home. This book, the twelfth volume of the U.S. Army's official history of the Vietnam War, is dedicated to them.

In this gripping first-hand account of the final months of combat operations in Iraq in 2010, author Pat Proctor brings his unique, insider perspective to reveal the unique circumstances that put his battalion, Task Force Patriot, in a position to turn the tide of the Iraq war.

Volume 2, Bringing Order to Chaos: Combined Arms Maneuver in Large Scale Combat Operations, opens a dialogue with the Army. Are we ready for the significantly increased casualties inherent to intensive combat between large formations, the constant paralyzing stress of continual contact with a peer enemy, and the difficult nature of command and control while attempting division and corps combined arms maneuver to destroy that enemy? The chapters in this volume answer these questions for combat operations while spanning military history from 1917 through 2003. These accounts tell the challenges of intense combat, the drain of heavy casualties, the difficulty of commanding and controlling huge formations in contact, the effective use of direct and indirect fires, the need for high quality leadership, thoughtful application of sound doctrine, and logistical sustainment up to the task. No large scale combat engagement, battle, or campaign of the last one hundred years has been successful without being better than the enemy in these critical capabilities. What can we learn from the past to help us make the transition to ready to fight tonight?

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.

The second annual military symposium took place at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas from 14 to 16 September 2004. The symposium brought together civilian historians and military officers for the purpose of discussing a variety of historical case studies and the ways in which they can illuminate current military issues and operations. As the title and subtitle of the symposium indicate, the topics addressed the purpose behind military operations--winning the peace. The US military and its coalition allies have proven themselves adept at achieving military victory in short, decisive, major combat operations. The critical nexus, then, is how battlefield victory translates into political success. The panelists and audience discussed the nature of war, cultural awareness, terrorism, stability operations in the Philippines, Latin America, Lebanon, and Vietnam, as well as operations in Iraq.

Volume 5, Deep Maneuver: Historical Case Studies of Maneuver in Large-Scale Combat Operations, presents eleven case studies from World War II through Operation Iraqi Freedom focusing on deep maneuver in terms of time, space and purpose. Deep operations require boldness and audacity, and yet carry an element of risk of overextension - especially in light of the independent factors of geography and weather that are ever-present. As a result, the case studies address not only successes, but also failure and shortfalls that result when conducting deep operations. The final two chapters address these considerations for future Deep Maneuver.

Recent military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were characterized by the rapid defeat of enemy military forces, by relatively small deployments of American forces, and by a very limited destruction of the critical civilian infrastructure. This success can be credited in large part to the ongoing transformation of the U.S. military evident in its effective use of information superiority, precision strike, and rapid maneuver on the battlefield. The Armed Forces were not nearly as well prepared to respond promptly to the lawlessness, destruction of the civilian infrastructure, and attacks on coalition forces that followed hard on the defeat of the Iraqi military. This has set back plans to restore essential services and to pass the reins to a representative Iraqi government. Moreover, the failure to establish security concurrently with the defeat of the Iraqi military may well have emboldened those who oppose the United States, United Kingdom, and even United Nations presence. It is precisely the success of the U.S. military in transforming its forces to execute rapid decisive operations that makes it imperative to transform how it prepares for and executes stabilization and reconstruction (S AND R) operations. The very rapid defeat of the enemy military means the United States must be ready to field the resources needed to secure stability and begin the reconstruction process promptly-ideally concurrently-with the end of major combat. This can only be done if planning for the stabilization and reconstruction operations is integrated into planning for the conflict from the beginning and if the right skills are in theater to begin operations concurrently with the surrender or collapse of the enemy military.