The British Experience In Iraq, 2007: A Perspective On The Utility Of Force
The British Experience In Iraq, 2007: A Perspective On The Utility Of Force

Author: Colonel Ian N. A. Thomas

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13: 1782897801

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Recent years have seen the US, UK and other ISAF and Coalition nations enmeshed in protracted, complex and intense campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Resilient and highly adaptable opponents have operated asymmetrically, and amongst the people, to negate the technological superiority of the West; counterinsurgency (COIN) has been the norm. Progress made has been hard won, consuming considerable resources and testing national will. Despite the achievement of often rapid and spectacular tactical military successes, the desired political dividends have been slower to materialise and scarcely commensurate with the investment of national blood and treasure. This has led some to question the utility of military force and the mood in several Western capitals seems increasingly wary of further stabilisation campaigns abroad. This sense of caution is reinforced by the global economic downturn and its associated fiscal challenges, which have encouraged retrenchment in public spending, especially in defence budgets. It would seem timely, given this context, to reflect upon the utility of force. This monograph examines the purpose and dominant characteristics of military force and highlights the conditions that must obtain if military success is to be translated into political advantage in the contemporary operating environment. It uses recent British experience in Iraq to illustrate some of the challenges involved. It concludes that despite the complexity and frustrations of Iraq and Afghanistan, armed force retains utility in the contemporary operational environment, as long as certain conditions are met. These are that the missions allocated to the military are appropriate, recognising the limitations of force; are adequately resourced; are properly integrated with other instruments of national power; and are underwritten with the requisite political commitment to sustain them over time.

The Utility of Force
The Utility of Force

Author: Rupert Smith

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2007-01-16

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 0307267415

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From a highly decorated general, a brilliant new way of understanding war and its role in the twenty-first century. Drawing on his vast experience as a commander during the first Gulf War, and in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Northern Ireland, General Rupert Smith gives us a probing analysis of modern war. He demonstrates why today’s conflicts must be understood as intertwined political and military events, and makes clear why the current model of total war has failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other recent campaigns. Smith offers a compelling contemporary vision for how to secure our world and the consequences of ignoring the new, shifting face of war.

The Iraq Study Group Report
The Iraq Study Group Report

Author: Iraq Study Group (U.S.)

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2006-12-06

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13:

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Presents the findings of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which was formed in 2006 to examine the situation in Iraq and offer suggestions for the American military's future involvement in the region.

Why We Lost
Why We Lost

Author: Daniel P. Bolger

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 565

ISBN-13: 0544370481

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A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.

The U.S. Army in the Iraq War
The U.S. Army in the Iraq War

Author: Joel Rayburn

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 9781794435377

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The Iraq War has been the costliest U.S. conflict since the Vietnam War. To date, few official studies have been conducted to review what happened, why it happened, and what lessons should be drawn. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War is the Army's initial operational level analysis of this conflict, written in narrative format, with assessments and lessons embedded throughout the work. This study reviews the conflict from a Landpower perspective and includes the contributions of coalition allies, the U.S. Marine Corps, and special operations forces. Presented principally from the point of view of the commanders in Baghdad, the narrative examines the interaction of the operational and strategic levels, as well as the creation of theater level strategy and its implementation at the tactical level. Volume 1 begins in the truce tent at Safwan Airfield in southern Iraq at the end of Operation DESERT STORM and briefly examines actions by U.S. and Iraqi forces during the interwar years. The narrative continues by examining the road to war, the initially successful invasion, and the rise of Iraqi insurgent groups before exploring the country's slide toward civil war. This volume concludes with a review of the decision by the George W. Bush administration to "surge" additional forces to Iraq, placing the conduct of the "surge" and its aftermath in the second volume.

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons
Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons

Author: Dr. Jeffrey Record

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 105

ISBN-13: 1786252961

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Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.

The Use of Force in International Law
The Use of Force in International Law

Author: Tom Ruys

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 961

ISBN-13: 019878435X

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Since the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945, the use of cross-border force has been frequent. This volume invites a range of experts to examine over sixty conflicts, from military interventions to targeted killings and hostage rescue operations, and to ask how powerful precedent can be in determining hostile encounters in international law.

Public Opinion, Legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq
Public Opinion, Legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq

Author: James Strong

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-02-17

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 1315513994

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In the wake of the publication of the Chilcot report, this book reinterprets the relationship between British public opinion and the Blair government’s decision-making in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It highlights how the government won the parliamentary vote and got its war, but never won the argument that it was the right thing to do. Understanding how, why and with what consequences Britain wound up in this position means understanding better both this specific case and the wider issue of how democratic publics influence foreign policy processes. Taking an innovative constructivist approach to understanding how public actors potentially influence foreign policy, Strong frames the debate about Iraq as a contest over legitimacy among active public actors, breaking it down into four constituent elements covering the necessity, legality and morality of war, and the government’s authority. The book presents a detailed empirical account of the British public debate before the invasion of Iraq based on the rigorous interrogation of thousands of primary sources, employing both quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods to interpret the shape of debate between January 2002 and March 2003. Also contributing to the wider foreign policy analysis literature, the book investigates the domestic politics of foreign policy decision-making, and particularly the influence public opinion exerts; considers the domestic structural determinants of foreign policy decision-making; and studies the ethics of foreign policy decision-making, and the legitimate use of force. It will be of great use to students and scholars of foreign policy analysis, as well as those interested in legitimacy in international conflict, British foreign policy, the Iraq War and the role of public opinion in conflict situations.

Waging Gendered Wars
Waging Gendered Wars

Author: Dr Paige Whaley Eager

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2014-03-28

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1472406400

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Waging Gendered Wars examines, through the analytical lens of feminist international relations theory, how U.S. military women have impacted and been affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although women were barred from serving formally in ground combat positions within the U.S. armed forces during both wars, U.S. female soldiers are being killed in action. By examining how U.S. military women's agency as soldiers, veterans, and casualties of war affect the planning and execution of war, Whaley Eager assesses the ways in which the global world of international politics and warfare has become localized in the life and death narratives of female service personnel impacted by combat experience, homelessness, military sexual trauma, PTSD, and the deaths of fellow soldiers.