From an esteemed military historian, a particularly captivating and provocative exploration of why the United States has repeatedly failed in asymmetric wars and military campaigns from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Since the 1960s, the United States has engaged in four major wars and a series of complex and bloody asymmetric warfare campaigns. The majority of these have ended in failure or something close to it. Why have the U.S. been so ineffective, despite American armed forces being recognized worldwide as the best in the world?

Most research and analyses believe that the primary cause of our disappointing war record since Vietnam is the U.S. Army's excessively conventional approach to fierce conflicts, which favors kinetic operations, highly mobile precision fire, and sophisticated command and control systems. Here, James Warren argues that a far more impenetrable barrier to success has been the pervasive strategic inadequacy at the highest levels of decision-making, including the presidency, the National Security Council, and the foreign policy community in Washington.

The timeless approach of American presidential authorities to commit military forces to foreign countries, whose political and cultural aspects they did not fully understand, has repeatedly led to failure. Presidential administrations from both political parties have overestimated the ability of American forces to alter the social and political landscape of foreign nations, and have underestimated the capacity of insurgents and terrorists to develop effective strategies of prolonged warfare that, over time, undermine Washington’s will to continue the fight.

In the War on Terror, Warren contends that senior military officers have colluded in the expansion of bankrupt strategies, refusing to speak candidly about them to their political superiors. So have American citizens, who lost interest in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and declined to pressure their president and Congress to end two futile conflicts. Warren advocates for a less hubristic foreign policy and a broader conception of warfare as a political and military enterprise.

For readers of politics, strategy, and American history, as well as anyone interested in international relations and geopolitical strategy, this book offers unparalleled insights into America's past—and potentially future—military conflicts.

Pages: 336, Year of Publication: 0424, Dimensions: 15.2x15.2cm