Uncomfortable Wars

Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since September 11, 2001, the United States has faced daunting challenges in the areas of foreign policy and national security. Threatened by failing states, insurgencies, civil wars, and terrorism, the nation has been compelled to re-evaluate its traditional responses to global conflict. In this timely book, John T. Fishel and Max G. Manwaring present a much-needed strategy for conducting unconventional warfare in an increasingly violent world. In the early 1990s, Manwaring introduced a new paradigm for addressing low-intensity conflicts, or conflicts other than major wars. Termed the Manwaring Paradigm or SWORD (Small Wars Operations Research Directorate) model, it has been tested successfully by scholars and practitioners and refined in the wake of new and significant “uncomfortable wars” around the world, most notably the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Uncomfortable Wars Revisited broadens the definition of the original paradigm and applies it to specific confrontations

This volume aims to operationalize General John R. Galvin's call for a new paradigm to fight the most prevalent form of conflict in the world today-insurgency. It contributes to the understanding needed to formulate and implement efforts in the contemporary international security arena.

During the Irish War of Independence, the British and the Irish sides often reflected one another. Both the Irish and the British did well in some areas, and were deficient in others. But both sides used terror - murder - burnings - shearing women's hair - to intimidate the Irish population. British Field Marshal Henry Wilson said of the Black and Tans "It was the business of the government to govern. If these men ought to be murdered, then the government ought to murder them." Michael Collins could equally chillingly say "Careful application of terrorism is also an excellent form of total communication." The actions of the British and Irish frequently mirrored one another - an uncomfortable reality of the War of Independence. This book examines the trauma of the times - both the exceptional and the ordinary - through a diverse range of topics.

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize The inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars who—against fierce resistance from within their own ranks—changed the way the Pentagon does business and the American military fights wars. The Insurgents is the inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars, led by General David Petraeus, who plotted to revolutionize one of the largest, oldest, and most hidebound institutions—the United States military. Their aim was to build a new Army that could fight the new kind of war in the post–Cold War age: not massive wars on vast battlefields, but “small wars” in cities and villages, against insurgents and terrorists. These would be wars not only of fighting but of “nation building,” often not of necessity but of choice. Based on secret documents, private emails, and interviews with more than one hundred key characters, including Petraeus, the tale unfolds against the backdrop of the wars against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the main insurgency is the one mounted at home by ambitious, self-consciously intellectual officers—Petraeus, John Nagl, H. R. McMaster, and others—many of them classmates or colleagues in West Point’s Social Science Department who rose through the ranks, seized with an idea of how to fight these wars better. Amid the crisis, they forged a community (some of them called it a cabal or mafia) and adapted their enemies’ techniques to overhaul the culture and institutions of their own Army. Fred Kaplan describes how these men and women maneuvered the idea through the bureaucracy and made it official policy. This is a story of power, politics, ideas, and personalities—and how they converged to reshape the twenty-first-century American military. But it is also a cautionary tale about how creative doctrine can harden into dogma, how smart strategists—today’s “best and brightest”—can win the battles at home but not the wars abroad. Petraeus and his fellow insurgents made the US military more adaptive to the conflicts of the modern era, but they also created the tools—and made it more tempting—for political leaders to wade into wars that they would be wise to avoid.

World War I directly and indirectly caused events and social and political trends which defined the history of the world for the rest of the century, including the Russian Revolution and the rise of communism to the Great Crash of 1929 which lead to the Great Depression and the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. It marked a turning point in world history as the end of the historical era of European dominance and the ushering in of a period which accelerated demands for freedom and autonomy in colonial settings. India played a significant role in the war and in the Allied victory on the battlefield. This book explores India’s involvement in the Great War and the way the war impacted upon the country from a variety of different viewpoints including case studies focusing on key individuals who played vital roles in the war. The long and short term impacts of the war on different locations in India are also explored in the chapters which offer an analysis of the importance of the war on India while commemorating the sacrifices which were made. A new, innovative and multidisciplinary examination of India and World War I, this book presents a select number of case studies showing the intimate relationship of the global war and its social, political and economic impacts on the Indian subcontinent. It will be of interest to academics in the field of War Studies, Colonial and Imperial History and South Asian and Modern Indian History.

More than forty years have passed since President Richard Nixon described illegal drugs as “public enemy number one” and declared a “War on Drugs.” Recently the United Nations Global Commission on Drug Policy declared that “the global war on drugs has failed with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” Arguably, no other country has suffered as much from the War on Drugs as Mexico. From 2006 to 2012 alone, at least sixty thousand people have died. Some experts have said that the actual number is more than one hundred thousand. Because the war was conceived and structured by US policymakers and officials, many commentators believe that the United States is deeply implicated in the bloodshed. A War that Can’t Be Won is the first book to include contributions from scholars on both sides of the US–Mexico border. It provides a unique breadth of perspective on the many dimensions of the societal crisis that affects residents of both nations—particularly those who live and work in the borderlands. It also proposes practical steps toward solving a crisis that shows no signs of abating under current policies. Each chapter is based on well-documented data, including previously unavailable evidence that was obtained through freedom-of-information inquiries in Mexico. By bringing together views from both sides of the border, as well as from various academic disciplines, this volume offers a much wider view of a complex problem—and possible solutions.

As the first decade of the twenty-first century has made brutally clear, the very definitions of war and the enemy have changed almost beyond recognition. Threats to security are now as likely to come from armed propagandists, popular militias, or mercenary organizations as they are from conventional armies backed by nation-states. In this timely book, national security expert Max G. Manwaring explores a little-understood actor on the stage of irregular warfare—the gang. Since the end of the Cold War, some one hundred insurgencies or irregular wars have erupted throughout the world. Gangs have figured prominently in more than half of those conflicts, yet these and other nonstate actors have received little focused attention from scholars or analysts. This book fills that void. Employing a case study approach, and believing that shadows from the past often portend the future, Manwaring begins with a careful consideration of the writings of V. I. Lenin. He then scrutinizes the Piqueteros in Argentina, gangs in Colombia, private armies in Mexico, Hugo Chavez’s use of popular militias in Venezuela, and the looming threat of Al Qaeda in Western Europe. As conventional warfare is increasingly eclipsed by these irregular and “uncomfortable” wars, Manwaring boldly diagnoses the problem and recommends solutions that policymakers should heed.