Outmaneuvered America's tragic encounter with warfare from Vietnam to Afghanistan

In his detailed assessment of the U.S. military's most high-profile failures in combat, Warren (God, War, and Providence, 2018) draws comparisons between the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, which conjures images of Afghan citizens running beside departing planes in futile hope of escaping Taliban rule, and a similar conciliatory withdrawal: the fall of Saigon in 1975, signaling the end of the Vietnam War. Both defeats diminished the reputation of the U.S. military in the eyes of allies and rivals. The U.S., Warren argues, had applied the bulk of its military might in Vietnam and Afghanistan as well as in Iraq but committed a similar mistake in each campaign: underestimating their opponents and attempting to fight a traditional war when engaged in irregular warfare. Presidents and generals fooled themselves into believing that firepower could triumph over human will. And while the disaster in Vietnam loomed large over U.S. foreign policy for decades, Warren illustrates that the same hubris resulted in the Afghanistan debacle. An admirable must read for military and foreign policy history buffs.

Revealing the naïveté and tragedy of American attempts at nation building. A searing indictment of overweening arrogance, strategic ineptitude, and criminally wishful thinking, Warren's latest book is a persuasive account, equal parts maddening and heartbreaking, of misguided actions across 60 years of U.S. administrations in the theater of irregular war, the repercussions of which will be felt for years to come. A historian and foreign policy analyst, Warren is a visiting scholar in American Studies at Brown University. From Vietnam to Afghanistan and beyond, he argues that Washington's foreign policy, intelligence, and military decision-makers have too often misunderstood the nature of the wars the nation was fighting, the cultures in which the conflicts were taking place, and the resolve of our adversaries. He also details how these leaders have dismissed far more astute voices within government and the military advising against precipitate action. In the process, Warren says, they have ignored the reality that irregular wars, as opposed to conventional warfare, are chiefly political struggles with a military component, not the reverse, and that poorly conceived involvement often serves to have the opposite effect intended, as in the deeply flawed crusade of the War on Terror. Warren is quick to note that his book is a history, not a battery of policy recommendations, and that the contents are largely a work of synthesis, drawing on the work of many scholars, historians, journalists, and military officers. But his contribution is considerable. A long-overdue call for American restraint and humility in international affairs. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.