Overview

Offers essential perspectives on the Cold War and post-9/11 eras and explores the troubling implications of the American tendency to fight wars without end. “Featuring lucid and penetrating essays by a stellar roster of scholars, the volume provides deep insights into one of the grand puzzles of the age: why the U.S. has so often failed to exit wars on its terms.”— Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan: Taken together, these conflicts are the key to understanding more than a half century of American military history. In addition, they have shaped, in profound ways, the culture and politics of the United States—as well as the nations in which they have been fought. This volume brings together international experts on American history and foreign affairs to assess the cumulative impact of the United States’ often halting and conflicted attempts to end wars. From the introduction: The refusal to engage in historical thinking, that form of reflection deeply immersed in the US experience of war and intervention, means that this cultural amnesia is related to a strategic incoherence and, in these wars, the United States has failed in its strategic objectives because it did not define, precisely, what they were. If Vietnam was the tragedy, Iraq and Afghanistan were repeated failures. The objectives and the national interests were elusive beyond issues of credibility, identity, and revenge; the end point was undefined because it was not clear what the point was. What did the United States want from these wars? What did it want to leave behind?

Full Product Details

Author:   David Fitzgerald ,  David Ryan ,  John M. Thompson
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781789202250

ISBN 10:   1789202256
Pages:   286
Publication Date:   20 March 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction David Ryan and David Fitzgerald Part I: Vietnam Chapter 1. The Importance of Being Popular: Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Domestic Support for the Vietnam War Sarah Thelen Chapter 2. The Things They Carry: Vietnam and the Legacies of the American War Edwin A. Martini Chapter 3. His Epitaph Is Also Ours : Robert McNamara, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and the Vietnam War's Contested Usable Past David Kieran Chapter 4. After the Fall of Saigon: Strategic Implications of America's Involvement in Vietnam Robert K. Brigham Part II: Iraq and Afghanistan Chapter 5. The Ironies of Overwhelming Victory : Exits and the Dislocation of the Gulf War David Ryan Chapter 6. Failing to End: Obama and Iraq David Fitzgerald and David Ryan Chapter 7. A Responsible End to the Afghan War: The Politics and Pitfalls of Crafting Success Narratives Jeffrey H. Michaels Chapter 8. Flawed Afghanization: Underestimating and Misunderstanding the Taliban Antonio Giustozzi Part III: The Cultural and Strategic Costs of War in the Early Twenty-First Century Chapter 9. Changing the Subject: How the United States Responds to Strategic Failure Andrew J. Bacevich Chapter 10. How Wars Do Not End: The Challenges for Twenty-First Century US Foreign Policy and Intervention Scott Lucas Chapter 11. Coming Home: Soldier Homecomings and the All-Volunteer Force in American Society and Culture David Fitzgerald Chapter 12. How the United States Ends Wars Marilyn B. Young Index

Reviews

The accessible essays in this volume comprise a timely contribution to the current scholarship. The continued presence of the United States in Afghanistan makes it all the more salient. Sarah Kreps, Cornell University Not Even Past is that rare edited collection where each successive essay holds to the standard of the rest, bringing with it insights and delights in every chapter. This book provides a very important and historically informed perspective. Jeffrey A. Engel, Southern Methodist University

Author Information

David Fitzgerald is a Lecturer in the School of History, University College Cork, Ireland. His books include Learning to Forget: US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine from Vietnam to Iraq (Stanford, 2013) and Obama, US Foreign Policy and the Dilemmas of Intervention (with David Ryan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

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