When the U.S. military invaded Iraq, it lacked a common understanding of the problems inherent in counterinsurgency campaigns. It had neither studied them, nor developed doctrine and tactics to deal with them. It is fair to say that in 2003, most Army officers knew more about the U.S. Civil War than they did about counterinsurgency.
"The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual "was written to fill that void. The result of unprecedented collaboration among top U.S. military experts, scholars, and practitioners in the field, the manual espouses an approach to combat that emphasizes constant adaptation and learning, the importance of decentralized decision-making, the need to understand local politics and customs, and the key role of intelligence in winning the support of the population. The manual also emphasizes the paradoxical and often counterintuitive nature of counterinsurgency operations: sometimes the more you protect your forces, the less secure you are; sometimes the more force you use, the less effective it is; sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.
An new introduction by Sarah Sewall, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, places the manual in critical and historical perspective, explaining the significance and potential impact of this revolutionary challenge to conventional U.S. military doctrine.
An attempt by our military to redefine itself in the aftermath of 9/11 and the new world of international terrorism, "The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual "will play a vital role in American military campaigns for years to come.
The University of Chicago Press willdonate a portion of the proceeds from this book to the Fisher House Foundation, a private-public partnership that supports the families of America's injured servicemen. To learn more about the Fisher House Foundation, visit www.fisherhouse.org.

This book explores the causes, operations, endings, and justifications of war. In the process, it demolishes many currently fashionable illusions, such as that peace is always preferable to war, that wars occur because of accidents or misunderstandings, and that technology changes the nature of war. Abundant historical and contemporary examples show, the authors contend, that all wars are deliberate political choices, that military operations follow timeless principles, and that, as Aristotle taught, the natural aim of war is victory. This new edition of the book that Eugene Rostow called "a gem," Michael Howard called "shrewd and trenchant," and Library Journal called "persuasive" devotes substantial attention to the wars of the post-Cold War period, including "the war on terrorism."

Since World War II, civil wars have replaced interstate wars as the most frequent and deadly form of armed conflict globally. How do we account for when and where civil wars are likely to occur, when and how they are likely to end, and whether or not they will recur? In this timely book, leading scholars guide us through what the latest research tells us about the onset, duration, outcomes, and recurrence of civil wars, as well as the ongoing consequences of conflicts in war-torn countries such as Syria, Sudan, and Rwanda. In mapping out the current state of our knowledge about civil conflicts, the authors also identify what we do not know about civil wars. The book describes new directions in civil-war research, including transitional justice institutions in post-conflict environments, the "resource curse," the role of women, and the relationship between the environment and civil conflict. The authors also highlight new trends in civil-war data collection that have enabled scholars to examine the geographic and temporal patterns of armed conflict. This authoritative text offers both an accessible and current overview of current knowledge and an agenda for future research. With contributions by Halvard Buhaug, David E. Cunningham, Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Jacqueline H. R. DeMeritt, Karl DeRouen Jr., Paul F. Diehl, Andrew Enterline, Erika Forsberg, Scott Gates, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, Nils Petter Gleditsch, Caroline A. Hartzell, Cullen Hendrix, Jacob Kathman, Christopher Linebarger, T. David Mason, Erik Melander, Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Alyssa K. Prorok, Idean Salehyan, Lee J. M. Seymour, Megan Shannon, Benjamin Smith, David Sobek, Clayton L. Thyne, Henrik Urdal, Joseph K. Young

Turkish Intelligence and the Cold War examines the hitherto unexplored history of secret intelligence cooperation between three asymmetric partners - specifically the UK, US and Turkey - from the end of the Second World War until the Turkey's first military coup d'etat on 27 May 1960. The book shows that our understanding of the Cold War as a binary rivalry between the two blocs is too simple an approach and obscures important characteristics of intelligence cooperation among allies. Egemen Bezci shows that a pragmatic approach offers states new opportunities to protect national interests, by conducting ''intelligence diplomacy' to influence crucial areas such as nuclear weapons and to exploit cooperation in support of their own strategic imperatives. This study not only reveals previously-unexplored origins of secret intelligence cooperation between Turkey and West, but also contributes to wider academic debates on the nature of the Cold War by highlighting the potential agency of weaker states in the Western Alliance.

THE TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS FOR SUMMER AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 'AN IMPORTANT BOOK' Sir Richard Dearlove, Former Director of MI6 'The Freakonomics of modern warfare' Conn Iggulden Everything you think you know about war is wrong. The rules have changed, and we are dangerously unprepared. In Goliath, former paratrooper and Professor of Strategy Sean McFate teaches us the ten new rules of war for today. __________ War is timeless. Some things change - weapons, tactics, leadership - but our desire to go into battle does not. We are living in an age of conflict: global terrorism, Russia's resurgence and China's rise, international criminal empires, climate change and dwindling natural resources. But while the West has been playing the same old war games, the enemy has changed the rules. Sean McFate has been on the front lines of conflict. He has seen first-hand the horrors of battle, and as a strategist, he understands the complexity of the current military situation. In this new age of war: - Technology will not save us - Victory will belong to the cunning, not the strong - Plausible deniability is more potent than firepower - New types of world powers will rule Learn how to triumph in the coming age of conflict in ten new rules. Adapt and we can prevail. Fail, and size and strength won't protect us. This is The Art of War for the 21st century. __________ 'Some of what he says makes more sense than much of what comes out of the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'Thought-provoking' Johnathon Evans, Former Head of MI5 'Fascinating and disturbing' Economist

A social history of the ordinary British soldier during World War II "Reflects impressively wide reading, and commands respect for its shrewd judgments and lack of sentimentality."-Max Hastings, New York Review of Books "The stories of these brave but bewildered civilians in uniform are as illuminating as searchlights in a dark age of traumatic war."-Iain Finlayson, Times (London) More than three million men served in the British Army during the Second World War, the vast majority of them civilians who had never expected to become soldiers and had little idea what military life, with all its strange rituals, discomforts, and dangers, was going to be like. Alan Allport's rich and luminous social history examines the experience of the greatest and most terrible war in history from the perspective of these ordinary, extraordinary men, who were plucked from their peacetime families and workplaces and sent to fight for King and Country. Allport chronicles the huge diversity of their wartime trajectories, tracing how soldiers responded to and were shaped by their years with the British Army, and how that army, however reluctantly, had to accommodate itself to them. Touching on issues of class, sex, crime, trauma, and national identity, through a colorful multitude of fresh individual perspectives, the book provides an enlightening, deeply moving perspective on how a generation of very modern-minded young men responded to the challenges of a brutal and disorienting conflict.

Warfare is the most dangerous threat faced by modern humanity. It is also one of the key influences that has shaped the politics, economics, and society of the modern period. But what do we mean by modern war? What causes modern wars to begin? Why do people fight in them, why do they end, and what have they achieved? In this accessible and compelling Very Short Introduction, Richard English explores the assumptions we make about modern warfare and considers them against the backdrop of their historical reality. Drawing on the wide literature available, including direct accounts of the experience of war, English provides an authoritative account of modern war: its origins, evolution, dynamics, and current trends. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.

Civil-Military Relations in Southeast Asia reviews the historical origins, contemporary patterns, and emerging changes in civil-military relations in Southeast Asia from colonial times until today. It analyzes what types of military organizations emerged in the late colonial period and the impact of colonial legacies and the Japanese occupation in World War II on the formation of national armies and their role in processes of achieving independence. It analyzes the long term trajectories and recent changes of professional, revolutionary, praetorian and neo-patrimonial civil-military relations in the region. Finally, it analyzes military roles in state- and nation-building; political domination; revolutions and regime transitions; and military entrepreneurship.

Why do so many states adopt a position of non-recognition of gains from war?Despite being proven ineffective as a coercive tool or deterrent, the international community has actively withheld recognition in numerous instances of territorial conquest since the 1930s. Joseph O'Mahoney systematically analyses 21 case studies including the Manchurian Crisis, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and Russia's annexation of Crimea to explore why so many states have adopted a policy of non-recognition of the spoils of war. By drawing on historical sources including recently declassified archival documents, he evaluates states' decision-making. He develops a new theory for non-recognition as a symbolic sanction aimed at reproducing common knowledge of the rules of international behaviour.Key FeaturesChapter-length case studies of two major instances of non-recognition: the Japanese conquest of Manchuria and the establishment of Manchukuo in the 1930s, and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the subsequent declaration of the Turkish Republic of Northern CyprusIncludes discussion of cases including Russia's annexation of CrimeaCompares non-recognised cases with two cases where force was used but the results were recognised as legitimate: the Italian conquest of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935 and the Indian invasion of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971Challenges conventional IR theory that symbolic sanctions are either failed attempts at coercion or mere posturing for domestic audiencesElucidates a model of rule maintenance, combining rationalist and constructivist insights, which could be applied to other fields in international politics

What essential leadership lessons do we learn by distilling the actions and ideas of great military commanders such as George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Colin Powell? The Art of Command demonstrates that great leaders become great through a commitment not only to develop vital skills but also to surmount personal shortcomings. In the second edition of this classic resource, Harry S. Laver, Jeffrey J. Matthews, and the other contributing authors identify eleven core characteristics of highly effective leaders, such as integrity, determination, vision, and charisma, and eleven significant figures in American military history who embody those qualities. Featuring new chapters on transitional leadership, innovative leadership, and authentic leadership, this insightful book offers valuable perspectives on the art of military command in American history.

A new approach to ideas about war, from 'one of Britain's foremost military thinkers' (Observer) In 1912 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story about a war fought from underwater submersibles that included the sinking of passenger ships. It was dismissed by the British admirals of the day, not on the basis of technical feasibility, but because sinking civilian ships was not something that any civilised nation would do. The reality of war often contradicts expectations, less because of some fantastic technical or engineering dimension, but more because of some human, political, or moral threshold that we had never imagined would be crossed. As Lawrence Freedman shows, ideas about the causes of war and strategies for its conduct have rich and varied histories which shape predictions about the future. Freedman shows how looking at how the future of war was conceived about in the past (and why this was more often than not wrong) can put into perspective current thinking about future conflicts. The Future of War - which takes us from preparations for the world wars, through the nuclear age and the civil wars which became the focus for debate after the end of the Cold War, to present preoccupations with hybrid and cyber warfare - is filled with fascinating insights from one of the most brilliant military and strategic historians of his generation.

In today's information era, the use of specific words and language can serve as powerful tools that incite violence—or sanitize and conceal the ugliness of war. This book examines the complex, "twisted" language of conflict. Why is the term "collateral damage" used when military strikes kill civilians? What is a "catastrophic success"? What is the difference between a privileged and unprivileged enemy belligerent? How does deterrence differ from detente? What does "hybrid warfare" mean, and how is it different from "asymmetric warfare"? How is shell shock different from battle fatigue and PTSD? These are only a few of the questions that Talking Conflict: The Loaded Language of Genocide, Political Violence, Terrorism, and Warfare answers in its exploration of euphemisms, "warspeak," "doublespeak," and propagandistic terms. This handbook of alphabetically listed entries is prefaced by an introductory overview that provides background information about how language is used to obfuscate or minimize descriptions of armed conflict or genocide and presents examples of the major rhetorical devices used in this subject matter. The book focuses on the "loaded" language of conflict, with many of the entries demonstrating the function of given terms as euphemisms, propaganda, or circumlocutions. Each entry is accompanied by a list of cross references and "Further Reading" suggestions that point readers to pertinent sources for further research. This book is ideal for students—especially those studying political science, international relations, and genocide—as well as general readers.

Azar Gat sets out to resolve one of the age-old questions of human existence: why people fight and can they stop. Spanning warfare from prehistory to the 21st century, the book shows that, neither an irresistible drive nor a cultural invention, deadly violence and warfare have figured prominently in our behavioural toolkit since the dawn of our species. People have always alternated between cooperation, peaceful competition, and violence to attain evolution-shaped human desires. A marked shift in the balance between these options has occurred since the onset of the industrial age. Rather than modern war becoming more costly (it hasn't), it is peace that has become more rewarding. Scrutinizing existing theories concerning the decline of war - such as the 'democratic peace' and 'capitalist peace' - Gat shows that they in fact partake of a broader Modernization Peace that has been growing since 1815. By now, war has disappeared within the world's most developed areas. Finally, Gat explains why the Modernization Peace has been disrupted in the past, as during the two World Wars, and how challenges to it may still arise. They include claimants to alternative modernity - such as China and Russia - anti-modernists, and failed modernizers that may spawn terrorism, potentially unconventional. While the world has become more peaceful than ever before, there is still much to worry about in terms of security and no place for complacency.

This is the book on war that Napoleon never had the time or the will to complete. In exile on the island of Saint-Helena, the deposed Emperor of the French mused about a great treatise on the art of war, but in the end changed his mind and ordered the destruction of the materials he had collected for the volume. Thus was lost what would have been one of the most interesting and important books on the art of war ever written, by one of the most famous and successful military leaders of all time. In the two centuries since, several attempts have been made to gather together some of Napoleon's 'military maxims', with varying degrees of success. But not until now has there been a systematic attempt to put Napoleon's thinking on war and strategy into a single authoritative volume, reflecting both the full spectrum of his thinking on these matters as well as the almost unparalleled range of his military experience, from heavy cavalry charges in the plains of Russia or Saxony to counter-insurgency operations in Egypt or Spain. To gather the material for this book, military historian Bruno Colson spent years researching Napoleon's correspondence and other writings, including a painstaking examination of perhaps the single most interesting source for his thinking about war: the copy-book of General Bertrand, the Emperor's most trusted companion on Saint-Helena, in which he unearthed a Napoleonic definition of strategy which is published here for the first time. The huge amount of material brought together for this ground-breaking volume has been carefully organized to follow the framework of Carl von Clausewitz's classic On War, allowing a fascinating comparison between Napoleon's ideas and those of his great Prussian interpreter and adversary, and highlighting the intriguing similarities between these two founders of modern strategic thinking.

The Long Road analyses the ADF's 'train, advise, assist'missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea,Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, South Vietnam andUganda. With contributions from media commentatorsChris Masters and Ian McPhedran, politicians KevinAndrews and David Feeney, academics, aid workersand military personnel, The Long Road evaluates thesuccesses and failures of Australia's efforts to help itsneighbours and partners avoid armed conflict.