The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were lost before they began, not on the battlefields, where the United States won every tactical engagement, but at the strategic level of war. In each case, the U.S. Government attempted to create…
The questions of how to empower the Iraqis most effectively and then progressively withdraw non-Iraqi forces from that country is one of the most important policy problems currently facing the United States. The authors seek to present the U.S. situation…
U.S. political and military difficulties in Iraq have prompted comparisons to the American war in Vietnam. The authors conclude that the military dimensions of the two conflicts bear little comparison. Among other things, the sheer scale of the Vietnam War…
Twenty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, the ghost of that war still haunts the corridors of the decision makers when it comes to making long-term commitments to situations that remotely resemble anything like our Indochina experience. That…
Three papers presented at the Patterson School-Strategic Studies Institute Symposium focused on civil-military relations at various levels. West Point professor Don M. Snider maintains that continued pressures on the armed forces—especially the Army—to put aside war-fighting missions in favor of…
Every April the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute hosts its Annual Strategy Conference. This year’s theme, “Strategy During the Lean Years: Learning from the Past and the Present,” brings together scholars, serving and retired military officers, and civilian defense…