Overview
Based on previously unavailable documents and interviews with more than one hundred key players, including General David Petraeus, The Insurgents unfolds against the backdrop of two wars waged against insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the main insurgency is the one led at home by a new generation of officers--including Petraeus, John Nagl, David Kilcullen, and H. R. McMaster--who were seized with an idea on how to fight these kinds of ""small wars"" and who adapted their enemies' techniques to overhaul their own army. Fred Kaplan explains where their idea came from and how the men and women who latched onto this idea created a community (some would refer to themselves as a ""cabal"") and maneuvered the idea through the highest echelons of power. This is a cautionary tale about how creative ideas can harden into dogma, how smart strategists--""the best and the brightest"" of today--can win bureaucratic battles but still lose the wars. The Insurgents made the U.S. military more adaptive to the conflicts of the post-Cold War era, but their self-confidence led us deeper into wars we shouldn't have fought and couldn't help but lose.
Full Product Details
Author: Fred Kaplan ,
Kevin Foley ,
Kevin Foley
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Imprint: Tantor Audio
Edition: Unabridged edition
ISBN: 9798200068654
Publication Date: 04 January 2013
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Audio
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
"A fascinating and powerful work by America's wisest national-security reporter about an epic battle. . . . If you love your country, if you care about its soldiers, if you wonder about the wisdom of their commanders, [listen to] this book now.-- ""Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes"""
A fascinating and powerful work by America's wisest national-security reporter about an epic battle. . . . If you love your country, if you care about its soldiers, if you wonder about the wisdom of their commanders, [listen to] this book now.-- ""Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes""
Author Information
Fred Kaplan writes the ""War Stories"" column in Slate and has also written many articles on politics and culture in for the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York magazine, the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and many other publications. A Pulitzer Prize winner and a former reporter for the Boston Globe, he is the author of 1959: The Year Everything Changed; Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power; and The Wizards of Armageddon. He graduated from Oberlin College and has a Ph.D. from M.I.T. Fred lives in Brooklyn with his wife. Kevin Foley has over thirty years' experience in radio and television broadcasting, commercial voice-overs, and audiobook narration. He has recorded over 150 audiobooks, including Storm Rising by Gary Naiman, 100 Ways to Bring Out Your Best by Roger Fritz, The Last Witness by Joel Goldman, and River Thunder by Gary McCarthy, for which he earned a Spur Award for Best Audiobook from the Western Writers of America. He has also won an Earphones Award from AudioFile magazine for his narration of Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky. Kevin Foley has over thirty years' experience in radio and television broadcasting, commercial voice-overs, and audiobook narration. He has recorded over 150 audiobooks, including Storm Rising by Gary Naiman, 100 Ways to Bring Out Your Best by Roger Fritz, The Last Witness by Joel Goldman, and River Thunder by Gary McCarthy, for which he earned a Spur Award for Best Audiobook from the Western Writers of America. He has also won an Earphones Award from AudioFile magazine for his narration of Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky.
