Perspectives on the American Way of War The U.S. Experience in Irregular Conflict

Perspectives on the American Way of War examines salient cases of American experience in irregular warfare, focusing upon the post-World War II era.

This book asks why recent misfires have emerged in irregular warfare from an institutional, professional, and academic context which regularly produces evidence that there is in fact no lack of understanding of both irregular challenges and correct responses. Expert contributors explore the reasoning behind the inability to achieve victory, however defined, and argue that what security professionals have failed to fully recognize, even today, is that what is at issue is not warfare suffused with politics but rather the very opposite, politics suffused with warfare.

Perspectives on the American Way of War will be of great interest to scholars of war and conflict studies, strategic and military studies, insurgency and counterinsurgency, and terrorism and counterterrorism. The book was originally published as a special issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies.

Introduction: Perspectives on the American way of war: the U.S. experience in irregular conflict Thomas A. Marks and Kirklin J. Bateman 1. The Mexican War: frontier expansion and selective incursion Craig A. Deare 2. Birth of the Cold War: irregular warfare first blood in Greece Andrew Novo 3. Organizing for the ‘gray zone’ fight: early Cold War realities and the CIA’s Directorate of Operations David P. Oakley 4. Counterinsurgency in Vietnam – schizophrenia until too late Rufus Phillips 5. Turning gangsters into allies: the American way of war in Northern Afghanistan Matthew P. Dearing 6. Iraq, 2003–2011: succeeding to fail Jeanne Godfroy and Liam Collins 7. The American way of war in Africa: the case of Niger LTC Joseph Guido 8. Too little, too late: protecting American soft networks in COIN/CT Steve Miska and Samuel Romano 9. Systems failure: the US way of irregular warfare David H. Ucko

Thomas A. Marks is Distinguished Professor and MG Edward Lansdale Chair of Irregular Warfighting Strategy at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) of the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, DC. He assumed this position after 12 years as Chair of the War and Conflict Studies (WACS) Department at CISA.

Kirklin J. Bateman is Chair of the War and Conflict Studies (WACS) Department at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) of the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, DC. He assumed this position after previously serving as CISA Associate Dean of Curriculum Development.