Not Even Past : : How the United States Ends Wars / / ed. by David Fitzgerald, John M. Thompson, David Ryan.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2020
• MitwirkendeR: Bacevich, Andrew J.,; Brigham, Robert K.,; Fitzgerald, David,; Giustozzi, Antonio,; Kieran, David,; Lucas, Scott,; Martini, Edwin A.,; Michaels, Jeffrey H.,; Ryan, David,; Thelen, Sarah,; Young, Marilyn B.,
• HerausgeberIn: Fitzgerald, David,; Ryan, David,; Thompson, John M.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (286 p.)

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?

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I Vietnam -- Chapter 1 The Importance of Being Popular Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Domestic Support for the Vietnam War -- Chapter 2 The Things They Carry Vietnam and the Legacies of the American War -- Chapter 3 “His Epitaph Is Also Ours” Robert McNamara, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and the Vietnam War’s Contested Usable Past -- Chapter 4 After the Fall of Saigon Strategic Implications of America’s Involvement in Vietnam -- Part II Iraq and Afghanistan -- Chapter 5 The Ironies of Overwhelming “Victory” Exits and the Dislocation of the Gulf War -- Chapter 6 Failing to End Obama and Iraq -- Chapter 7 A “Responsible End” to the Afghan War: The Politics and Pitfalls of Crafting “Success” Narratives -- Chapter 8 Flawed Afghanization: Underestimating and Misunderstanding the Taliban -- 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 -- Chapter 10 How Wars Do Not End The Challenges for Twenty-First Century US Foreign Policy and Intervention -- Chapter 11 Coming Home Soldier Homecomings and the All-Volunteer Force in American Society and Culture -- Chapter 12 How the United States Ends Wars -- Index