Trapped in the Big War Paradigm

Joseph N. Kiarie (MA International Studies-Security studies)[email protected]

1

THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES:

Trapped in the Big War Paradigm: The American Dilemma in

Iraq

19th March 2008


2

Introduction

The American conventional military superiority can only be

threatened at the extreme ends of a war spectrum; either on the

right end by a capable state possessing nuclear weapons, or, on the

extreme left by an insurgent using unconventional method to turn a

short sharp war into a lengthy and costly war of attrition. (Scales

2004) It is this left end of the spectrum that the insurgents in Iraq

chose to exploit; they chose to fight on their own terms and not the

U.S., operating within their own strategic culture and available

means. (Hoffman 2005)

The U.S., on the other hand, responded in the American way of

war; a military strategic culture that appears increasingly at odd

with the emerging strategic environment, a strategy that relays on

speed, manoeuvre, flexibility, and surprise to achieve an easy,

quick, clean victory with minimal casualties. Faced by such a

familiar yet daunting challenge, the Americans’ found themselves

increasingly on the counteroffensive and playing the “politically

impatient and tactically inflexible conventional enemy”. (Ivan

Arreguin-Toft 2005)

The essay argues that in their American way of war, the American

counterinsurgent forces aim is to destroy their opponent's military

capability to wage war. They argue that if they can destroy their


3

opponent means of waging the war, their opponents will to continue

fighting is irrelevant. On the other hand, the Iraqi insurgents are

striving to destroy the Americans will to sustain the fight, their aim

being to destroy the counterinsurgent political capability. They

argue that if the Americans will to continue fighting is destroyed

then their military capability is irrelevant.

The kind of war that emerged in Iraq after the fall of Saadam

Hussein is a war that the Americans had tried to avoid for years - a

counterinsurgent war. For the counterinsurgents it is a war they

cannot afford to lose, while to the insurgents they must not be

defeated or be seen to be defeated. As I argue, the insurgents are

not losing the war, but the counterinsurgents forces are not winning

it either. If Henry Kissinger maxim, “insurgents win a war when

they don’t loose while the counterinsurgents loose when they don’t

win” is indeed true, then another Vietnam or Somalia debacle for

the US forces in Iraq is in the making. In all its facets, as I

contend, the Iraq war bares the hall marks of a counterinsurgency

faddism which has been naively captivated by the cult of insurgents

and the aura of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

Irregularity in Irregular wars

Counterinsurgency wars, as most scholars have argued falls within

the small wars category. As Sullivan observes, small wars can also


4

be referred to as low-intensity conflict, guerrilla war, irregular war,

or savage wars of peace. He acknowledges that it is not the size or

intensity of the conflict that qualifies the term small wars, but their

asymmetrical nature and political objective. (Sullivan 2008) The

nature of actors; where a state is fighting against a non-state

contender and applying unorthodox means to fight also

characterizes small wars. According to Thomas Hammes, the Iraq

war can also be called a 4th Generation Warfare (4GW). 4GW are

wars where “insurgents use political, economic, social and military

means, to dissuade their opponents that their strategic goals are

either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit”.

(Hammes 2004, p 208)

However, Hoffman seems to disagree with these terminologies. To

him they are at best ambiguous and deceptive. Small wars, he

argues, are certainly not small in terms of scale, they can be as

protracted, destructive, savage and lethal as any big war can be,

and they are also wars where major powers are defeated. Referring

to these wars as irregular conflict is also inappropriate according to

Hoffman; he contends that these conflicts are certainly not irregular

in terms of frequency and that they are historically far more

common than state-on-state conventional wars. (Hoffman 2005,

p.916) Smith is also in agreement with Hoffman’s view; he asserts

that this kind of wars “constitutes the dominant pattern of warfare


5

over the past fifty years”. (Smith 2003, p.30) These wars, Hoffman

further argues, “represents the norm” and it “is unconventional

warfare that is the convention”. (Hoffman 2005, p.916) The U.S.

Department of Defense has indeed embraced this fact. It

acknowledges that, “Irregular warfare has emerged as the dominant

form of warfare confronting the United States.” (U.S. Department of

Defense 2006, p.36) Statistically, Brian Reid argues that, “since

1945, of all the conflicts in the world, only 12% can be classified as

high-intensity wars”. (Reid 1998, p.28)

Smith further argues that “terms like guerrilla warfare’ and ‘low

intensity war’ are fundamentally flawed as analytical abstractions”

and that the usage of such terms in strategic studies literature

“undermines the attempt to comprehend the complexity of warfare

as a whole.” He further argues that these wars fall within the

Clausewitzian paradigm and not beyond it as suggested by Honig.

(Smith 2003, p. 37; p. 19) According to Honig, low intensity wars

are “the product of primordial urges that are entirely resistant to

‘conventional’ forms of military coercion”, an assertion Smith not

only rejects but also regards as intellectually flawed. He argues that,

“by seeking to reconstitute this false category of war under different

headings such as ‘new war’, ‘ethnic war’, or ‘complex emergencies’,

writers merely reveal their own limited grasp of the history of

warfare”. (Smith 2003, p. 19) To Smith “War is war, regardless of


6

what tactics are used”. (Smith 2003, p. 37) For the sake of clarity,

and probably for lack of a better term of reference, the essay will

use interchangeably the terms counter/insurgent and small wars to

denote the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

A Great Power in Small Wars

In his analysis of the American defeat in the Vietnam War, Andrew

Krepinevich poses a critical question, one that I use to address the

American counterinsurgent war in Iraq; the fundamental question in

Iraq today as it was in Vietnam more than thirty years ago is,

“How could the army of the most powerful nation on Earth, materially supported on scale unprecedented in history, equipped with the most sophisticated technology in an age when technology ha[s] assumed the role of a god of war, fail to emerge victorious against a numerically inferior force of lightly armed irregulars”? (Krepinevich 1986, p.4)

The essay is an attempt to answer Krepinevich question with

regards to the American counterinsurgent war in Iraq. It seeks to

find out why the US military forces have increasingly found it

difficult to wage the counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq. Given the

overwhelming U.S. military capability, many people and indeed the

U.S. military and political elites expected a decisive and convincing

victory in Iraq. But this was never to be. The question that emerges

is not only why the insurgent forces are not losing the war, but also

why the counterinsurgent forces are not winning? Cassidy quips


7

that, “great powers do not win small wars because they are great

powers”. (Cassidy 2004, p. 41) The essay intends to shed some

light on Cassidy ironical but factual statement with a view of

understanding the difficulties facing the counterinsurgents in Iraq.

It is wealth, military technology and capability disparity between

developing and the developed nation-states that form the genesis of

insurgent wars. A superior military capability backed by a strong

economic position; exhibited by powerful nations makes it virtually

impossible to imagine a conventional war taking place. Instead, any

weaker nation-state will seek to avoid any form of direct

confrontation with a military powerful state like the U.S. Daniel

Marston rightly notes that, “developing world nation-states will not

have the wealth or capability to deal with the “first powers” on a

level playing field.” (Marston 2004) For situations that defy this

rule; where a less developed state fight a more developed state, the

war normally begins as an orthodox one, as was the case in Iraq,

but due to the apparent limitations of high-intensity conflict, the

latter result into low-intensity operations.

Scales, with regard to America vis-à-vis less developed states,

argues that those nations capable of practicing the western way of

war competently will not fight the U.S. but those inept in the

practice will. (Scales 2004) Due to the overwhelming conventional


8

military preeminence of the U.S. coupled by nuclear deterrence

between great powers, insurgency wars between the U.S. and less

militarily able states surges in strategic significance and threatens

to dominate U.S. future wars. It was only a matter of time before

what the Americans had thought would be a quick victory with

minimal casualties in Iraq turned into a tragic protracted war of

attrition. As the Americans sought the elusive military victory, the

insurgents aimed at the progressive attrition of their opponents'

political capability to wage war. The Americans basking in the warm

and well deserved glow of the Afghanistan victory in 2003 were not

ready to embrace the “real business of regulars, the stinking gray

shadow world of ‘savage wars of peace’ ” as Rudyard Kipling called

them. (Quoted in Bolger 1991, pp. 31-32)

The reason why the insurgent forces in Iraq are not losing the war

or simply why the counterinsurgent forces are not winning the war,

as the essay argues, is as a result of the American strategic military

culture or the American way of war. I argue that the

Counterinsurgent forces are waging a military war while the

insurgents are waging a political war. The insurgent forces are also

fighting for a strategic objective; independence and survival, while

their opponents are fighting for limited ends.


9

In trying to understand the American way of war, the essay looks at

previous counter/insurgent wars that the U.S. forces have

unsuccessfully fought. There appear to be a consistent pattern in

this mode of defeats. Despite the increasing numbers of

unconventional wars, the U.S. military forces appear trapped in the

big war paradigm; their fighting culture appears increasingly at odd

with the dominant emerging strategic environment. It is in the

shadows of American conduct of previous small wars that the essay

attempts to analyse the Iraq war.

A number of factors that explain ‘why U.S. military is finding it

difficult to counter the insurgency that developed in Iraq after the

toppling of Saddam Hussein’ are discussed. They include religion,

cultural understanding, technological diffusion, communications

technology and diffusion of actors. Above these underlying factors,

an overarching theme that seems to explain the overall

phenomenon emerges. This is the American over-reliance on the

military arm, and her single ‘lens’ that looks at all conflict from only

a military perspective. There is also a strong resistance of the

American defence establishment to the very notion of engaging in

such conflicts, and the unsuitability her military force in fighting

such wars. As part of their military culture, the American armed

forces have declined to take small wars seriously. The Iraq war, it

can be argued, underpins the limits of conventional military power


10

in unconventional settings, and not just for the Americans but also

for other conventional military powers.

The American Way of War

Scales assertion that the U.S. will continue to own the world seas

and skies (Scales 2004) is probably not an exaggeration, but what

is certain, especially after U.S. invasion of Iraq, is that the U.S. can

no longer claim superiority or dominance on foreign land. Indeed,

the type of war that the U.S. military found themselves in after the

fall of Saadam Hussein regime was a war that they had tried to

avoid for years—a counterinsurgency war.The unilateral decision to

wage war against Iraq in March 2003 was a grand but myopic

strategy; Krepinevich argues that the Americans did not seem to

have thought beyond the fall of Sadaam regime; the

counterinsurgent forces went to war with a grand but not

operational strategy. (Krepinevich 1986) The Americans apparently

forgot Sun Tzu’s cardinal principle of war, ‘Know the enemy and

know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril’. (Tzu

Sun quoted in (Griffith 1971, p.84)

According to Colin Gray there is a deep inconsistent between the

kinds of war the U.S. military force prepares to fight and the kinds

of war they actually fight. He argues that the “U.S. military force

posture appears increasingly at odds with the emerging strategic


11

environment”. (Gray 2005, pp.5-6) Frank Hoffman also argues that

the U.S. military force “relevance to the nature of today’s

geopolitical disorder is questionable”. (Hoffman 2005, p.922) So

what is the problem with the all powerful US military force

especially when it comes to waging small wars?

Francis Fukuyama believes that Americans entered the 21st century

believing the success of their technology enabled them to wage only

cheap and clean wars in the future, but the Iraq war shattered this

illusion. (Fukuyama 2006, p. 36) According to Hendrickson and

Tucker, the Americans were “obsessed with stupendous deeds of

fire and movement rather than the political function that war must

serve”, to bring peace. (Hendrickson and Tucker 2005, p. 27) The

consequence of this strategy was a rapid victory collapse of

Saadam’s regime and his forces but not its total destruction.

The American counterinsurgent problem in Iraq, according to Jeffrey

Records, “is deeply rooted in the American way of warfare”. Records

see this as a result of the “American political and military culture . . .

since the early 1940s”, (Record 2006, p.1) or what Cassidy refers to

as the American “strategic military culture”. (Cassidy 2000, p.41)

According to military historian David Lonsdale, the America’s

strategic culture stresses “technological fixes to strategic problems”

and “the increasing removal of humans from the sharp end of war”.


12

(Lonsdale 2004, p.9) For this reason, the U.S. forces dismal

performance in Iraq and other counterinsurgent wars should

probably not come as a surprise. To borrow Henry Kissinger words,

the Americans are fighting a military war while their opponents are

fighting a political one; the counterinsurgent forces seek physical

attrition while the insurgents aim for latter psychological exhaustion.

(Kissinger 1969, p. 214) The Americans claim to be fighting a

legitimate war in Iraq, but they are definitely fighting a wrong war.

The unsuccessful execution of the Iraq war by the

counterinsurgents can therefore be blamed on Americans “over-

reliance on the military arm, and a single ‘lens’ that looks at conflict

from only a military perspective”. As Hoffman contends such a

strategy “is not conducive to successful prosecution of Small Wars”.

(Hoffman 2005, p.918) It is this institutional culture of the US

military, which poses the most substantial constraint on America’s

ability to conduct small wars. It is biased towards its own autonomy,

its apolitical nature, and its tendency towards absolutism in the use

of force.

The Big-War Paradigm

As the insurgent forces wage a survival war, the counterinsurgents

appear deeply trapped in a big-war paradigm; a war only fit for a

major power fighting to protect her national and international


13

interest vis-à-vis other major powers. The U.S. forces inability to

fight the counterinsurgent war in Iraq, as a result of the inherent

design of its own strategic military culture, is one dominated by the

American victories in big wars. Such victories include victory over

the Germans and Japanese during World War II, the 1st Persian Gulf

War in Iraq and the quick and dramatic victory in Afghanistan in

2003. These victories are no doubt as a result of her superior

firepower, superior manpower, and superior technology. But it is

this very superiority that the Americans probably thought would

underpin a formula for victory in Iraq. This grand delusion as

Jenkins observes, made the Americans to wilfully “underestimate

their enemies and over-estimate their own battlefield prowess”.

Previous American victories in grand wars as he notes were “so

absolute, so brilliantly American, that the notion of losing a war was

unthinkable”. Like her previous experiences in Cuba (1961),

Vietnam (1975), Lebanon (1983) and Somalia (1993), the Iraq war

(2003) has been anything but brilliant but truly American.

Despite the Americans military superiority and her long experience

during the low-intensity conflict’ (LIC) in Central America, where her

forces spent the majority of the first half of the twentieth century

suppressing insurrections (in the Philippines, Cuba, Haiti, the

Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama and Colombia), the

American forces are showing none of this experience in Iraq, at the


14

same time certain shortcomings continue to appear with depressing

regularity. (Spiller 2005)

The Iraq counterinsurgent war, as has such previous wars,

underscores the “U.S. limited utility of its conventional military

superiority”. (Record 2006, p. 2) Having failed to learn the lesson

in Cuba, Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia, the U.S. Army continues

to prepare and even fight the wrong war in Iraq. According to

Hoffman, these repeated defeats are nothing new and are

“consistent with the institutional amnesia of the American military”

and political entity. (Hoffman 2005, p.922)

Counterinsurgency in Iraq

Contrary to the popular belief, the U.S. was not “confronted by new

and unfamiliar threats . . . that required adapting and learning of

new means” with the end of the cold war. (Cassidy 2000, p. 41)

Americans have fought not just big wars but also several small wars

in her history of warfare. Sarkesian refers to these latter wars as

“America’s forgotten wars, the United States’ own significant Small

Wars heritage”. He argues that this heritage is one that “began

before the American Revolution”, and one that marks “the first 150

years of U.S. foreign policy”. (Sarkesian 1984, p. 915) Reid is of the

same opinion and argues that guerrilla, or insurgent or low-intensity


15

war has been with the world and indeed the U.S. as long as

conventional or high-intensity warfare has existed. (Reid 1998,

p.28) But it is Metz and Millen argument that appears to best

capture its genesis; the duo argue that “insurgency has existed as

long as the powerful have frustrated the weak to the point of

violence”, and that it is “simply a strategy of desperation in which

those with no other options turn to”. (Metz and Millen 2004)

According to the author of The Sling and the Stone, Thomas

Hammes , the only kind of war America has lost is a small war

against an unconventional force.( Hammes 2004 ) The limitation to

America’s ability to wage successful small wars, as Eliot Cohen

observes, is traceable to a number of factors. Given the protracted

nature of the war, patience is a prerequisite, but as he notes

“patience is not a virtue of American national culture”. He also

blames public opinion in a democracy, a meddling Congress, and

the ever intrusive media. Though these factors explain why great

powers lose small wars, they do not adequately address the

counterinsurgent challenges in Iraq. Other factors exist that

particularly favor the insurgents’ measures while underscoring the

counterinsurgents strategic efforts in Iraq.


16

Contrary to the widely held notion, insurgencies in Iraq do have an

effective strategy. They strive to avoid a direct engagement, as

power balance is not in their favor, and aim to undermine their

adversary by weakening their counterinsurgencies measures while

strengthening their own. Other factors that continue to undermine

the counterinsurgent efforts of winning the Iraq peace, while

enhancing the insurgents’ efforts include diffusion of actors,

communications technology, technological diffusion, religion and

cultural understanding.

Diffusion of Actors

The number of actors involved in Iraq increases the complexity of

the war. They include the UN and myriad regional relief agencies,

coalition partners, private security forces or semi-military

organizations, a raft of commercial insurgents, the Iraq Insurgents,

the U.S. counterinsurgents, domestic population on each side, the

media and the international community. The success of any one

side relay heavily on all these several intricate factors. It is the side

that is able to not only balance these factors to their favor, but also

to command the greatest psychological initiative and project a

winning and strong image, that will determine the duration and the

final outcome of the war. Or simply put the side that will be able to

create and sustain the impression that no matter how long it takes


17

they will ultimately persevere, is the side that is more likely to win

the war. (Metz and Millen 2004)

The U.S. dilemma in Iraq is also compounded by the fact that the

coalition force is not fighting against one insurgency group, the

insurgency in Iraq is multidimensional. The coalition forces are up

against the Sunni, and also the Shiite forces. The complexity of the

war lies in the fact that the counterinsurgency has to contend with

two radically and different methods of operation that calls for

different responses.

Religion

There is no doubt that the Iraq war has some underlying religious

connotation. Apart from the Sunni-Shiite wrangles, there are deep

rooted anti-western feelings by the predominant Muslim population

in the country. The religious undertones are no doubt contributing

to the war, most suicide bombings underpins this notion. Religious-

based conflicts are among the most protracted wars, with any form

of political compromise or negotiations for a peaceful settlement

being hard if not always impossible to attain. This can probably be

explained by Hoffman assertion that “Religion lowers inhibitions and

reduces moral barriers to violence . . .” (Hoffman 2005, pp. 926-7)

Most of the suicide bombers and the fighting insurgents believe that

they are answering and serving a higher moral authority. To them,


18

fighting is a higher calling, warranting the greatest sacrifice and

sanctifying the violence.

Cultural Understanding

Culturally insensitive techniques on the part of American military

forces have provoked resentment and anger from most Iraqi

people. The consequence has been the alienation of the

counterinsurgent forces and the embracing of the insurgents’

nationalist doctrine. The nationalist angle provides a powerful

unifying and mobilizing momentum for the insurgent cause.

Nationalism as an ideology highlights the perceived difference

between the ‘invaders’ and the ‘liberators’. It is upon this ideological

platform that the Iraqi insurgencies are able to obtain their

resources such as manpower, funding, supplies, sanctuary and

intelligence. (Metz and Millen 2004) What Americans need is

cultural intelligence, for a ‘good strategy presumes good

anthropology and good sociology’ as suggested by Bernard Brodie.

(Brodie 1973, p.332)

Communications Technology

The unbridled universal growth in global communication technology

has radically changed the way non-state actors acquire and

disseminate strategic intelligence, how they recruit, and rehearse

and how they even fight. A local conflict, such as the Iraq war, soon


19

acquires a global dimension through the flow of information such as

the internet. Through this power of technology, the insurgents have

been able to extend their potential support, acquire financial,

material and personal support for their cause. (Weimann 2005)

Technological Diffusion

Technological diffusion has greatly facilitated the acquisition of

weapons of mass destruction to potential sub-state actors who

otherwise would not have them. The proliferation of such weapons

has transformed the Iraq war into a deadly and protracted conflict.

Intelligence and available Weaponry

The disbandment of the Iraqi military not only left hundreds of

thousands of well trained men with no means of support, ready for

recruitment by the insurgents, but also left a huge supply of arms

and ammunitions scattered about the country unguarded. Metz and

Millen suggests that this weaponry is probably enough to last for

several years. (Metz and Millen 2004) The insurgents also have a

better access to intelligence information about the coalition forces

tactical and operation efforts. With a ‘home advantage’ against the

coalition forces, the insurgents have a better network and probably

a higher number of informers and sources. The insurgents have also

managed to infiltrate the Iraqi security forces and other Iraqis

working for the Coalition.


20

Conclusion

The protracted counterinsurgents war in Iraq is showing no signs of

abating. If other such wars that have occurred in the past, or are

still occurring to date, are anything to go by, then the Iraq war is

far from over. Where stakes are high, as in Iraq, counter/insurgents

wars appears to have an endless lifespan of their own. Low-

Intensity conflicts have been going on for over 60 years in South

Asia and in the Middle East, leaving the participants apparently

dreadlock and more divided than ever before. India and Pakistan

struggle over border region of Kashmir is still ongoing, while the

second Intifada in Israel is anywhere but near a comprehensive

peace-deal. The longevity of these wars is as a result of the high

stakes in place, given the American strategic oil interest in Iraq, the

war in Iraq has probably just begun Iraq.

The counterinsurgent forces appear trapped in a direct strategy,

their main aim being, to destroy or capture the adversary’s physical

capacity to fight, and to render their will to fight irrelevant.

(Arreguı´n-Toft 2005, p. 34,) the insurgents, on the other hand are

using Indirect strategies to destroy their opponent’s will to continue

fighting, through unconventional means such as systematic

targeting of non-combatants, Kidnapping, suicide and car bombing

of military and civilian targets among other endless unorthodox


21

means. The insurgents have avoided a direct engagement with

counterinsurgent forces undermining the latter’s power advantage,

and ensuring the war drags on at their own pace.

The Insurgents are not losing the war but the Americans are

definitely not winning it either. The insurgents continue to

undermine the U.S. led efforts of rebuilding Iraq. They pose the

challenge to the occupiers by making the country ungovernable by

creating and fuelling chaos, conflict, and fear. They are also

provoking the U.S. into using excessive force aimed at alienating

the U.S. from the global and domestic support they have. The

insurgents are also increasing the number of the occupying force

casualties, eroding both the will of the forces to fight and that of

their population to support the war, fuelling more anger and

resentment towards the coalition. Though the insurgents’ main goal

- to outlast the Americans theoretically unlimited resources,

capabilities and the will to fight - appear farfetched, it is

nevertheless not an unimaginable reality. (Vlasak 2007)


22

Bibliography

Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., The Army and Vietnam, Baltimore, MD:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Andrew Mack, “Why Big Powers Lose Small Wars: the Politics of

Asymmetric Conflict. In Klaus Knorr, ed. Power, Strategy, and

Security: a World Politics Reader, Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1983.

Andrew Mack, Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of

Asymmetric Conflict, World Politics, Vol. 27, No. 2. January 1975,

pp. 175-200.

Available at: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043

8871%28197501%2927%3A2%3C175%3AWBNLSW%3E2.0.CO%3

B2-%2, accessed on 14 January 2008.

Andrew Sullivan, Contra Sullivan on the Surge: A Small Wars

Perspective. 2008. Available at:

http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/punditry/comments/contra_sulli

van_on_the_surge_a_small_wars_perspective, accessed on 15

January 2008.

Anthony H. Cordesman, Iraq and Asymmetric Warfare: The US vs.

FRL/Islamist Duel, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and

International Studies, December 6, 2003, pp. 8-11. Available at

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/Iraq_chronology.pdf,

accessed on 15 January 2008.

Bernard Brodie, War and Politics, New York: Macmillan, 1973.


23

Brian Holden Reid, Enduring Patterns in Modern Warfare, The

Nature of Future Conflict: Implications for Force Development,

Strategic & Combat Studies Institute, Camberley, UK, 1998.

Brian M. Jenkins, The Unchangeable War, RM-6278-ARPA, Santa

Monica, CA: RAND, 1970.

Colin S. Gray, ‘The American Way of War: Critique and

Implications,’ in Rethinking the Principles of War, ed. Anthony D.

McIvor, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005.

Colin Gray, Strategic Studies and Public Policy: The American

Experience Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1982.

Daniel Bolger, “The Ghosts of Omdurman,” Parameters, Volume 21

Number 3, Autumn 1991, pp.28-39.

Daniel Marston, Force Structure for High- and Low-Intensity

Warfare:The Anglo-American Experience and Lessons for the

Future, National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2015: A

Dialogue about the Future with Nongovernmental Experts,

Washington, DC: NIC 2000, Spring 2004.

Dan Murphy, ‘Iraq Awash in Military Weapons,’ Christian Science

Monitor, October 20, 2003.

David C, Hendrickson and Robert W. Tucker, Revisions in Need of

Revising What Went Wrong In The Iraq War, Survival, Volume 47,

Number.2, Summer 2005, pp.7-32.

David J. Lonsdale, The Nature of War in the Information Age, New

York: Frank Cass, 2004.


24

Eliot A. Cohen, ‘Constraints on America’s Conduct of Small Wars’,

International Security, Volume 9, Number 2, Fall 1984, pp.151–181.

Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power,

and the Neoconservative Legacy, New Haven, CT: Yale University

Press, 2006.

Frank G. Hoffman, Decisive Force: The New American Way of War,

Westport, CT: Praeger 1996.

Frank G Hoffman, 'Small Wars Revisited: The United States and

Non-traditional Wars', Journal of Strategic Studies, Volume 28,

Number 6, pp. 913 – 940, 2005. Available at

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390500441040 accessed on 15

January 2008.

Gabriel Weimann, ‘How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet’,

Journal of International Security Affairs, Volume XXI, Number 2,

Spring 2005, pp.91–105.

Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and

the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United

States in Vietnam, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Henry A. Kissinger, The Vietnam Negotiations, Foreign Affairs,

Volume XLVII, Number 2, January 1969, pp.211-234.

Ivan Arreguı´n-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of

Asymmetric Conflict Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Jeffrey Record, “External Assistance: Enabler of Insurgent Success,”

Parameters, Volume 36, Number 3, Autumn 2006, pp.36-49.


25

John Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam:

Learning to East Soup with a Knife, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.

Lowell Bergman and Eric Schmitt, ‘Vast, Unsecure Iraqi Arms

Depots Could Take Years to Dispose,’ New York Times, September

30, 2003, p. 1.

Marian E. Vlasak, the paradox of logistics in insurgency and

counterinsurgencies, Military Review, January-February 2007.

Available at:

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/JanFeb07/Vlasak.pdf

accessed on 15 January 2008.

Max Boot, The New American Way of War, Foreign Affairs, Volume

82, Number 4, July/August 2003, pp. 41-58.

Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of

American Power New York: Perseus Books 2002.

Robert M. Cassidy, Why great powers fight small wars badly,

Military Review, Volume 82, Number 5 September-October 2000,

pp.41-53.

Robert Scales, Fighting on the Edges: The Nature of War in 2020,

National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about

the Future with Nongovernmental Experts, Washington, DC: NIC

2000, Spring 2004.

Roger Spiller, ‘The Small Change of Soldiering and American Military

Experience’, Australian Army Journal Volume 2 Number 1, Spring

2005.


26

Sam C. Sarkesian, America’s Forgotten Wars: The

Counterrevolutionary Past and Lessons for the Future, Westport, CT:

Greenwood Press 1984.

Samuel R. Berger and Brent Scowcroft, “The Right Tools to Build

Nations,” Washington Post, July 27, 2005.

Samuel B. Griffith, (trans and intro) Sun Tzu: The Art of War,

Oxford: OUP, 1971.

Smith Guerrillas in the mist: reassessing strategy and low intensity

warfare, Review of International Studies, Volume. 29, pp. 19–37,

2003.

Steven Metz and Raymond Millen, Insurgency In Iraq And

Afghanistan: Change And Continuity, National Intelligence Council,

Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with

Nongovernmental Experts, Washington, DC: NIC 2000, Spring 2004.

Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone On War in the 21st

Century, Zenith Press, MN USA, 2004.

U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review,

Washington: U.S. Department of Defense, February 6, 2006.

Available at: www.defendamerica.mil/archive/2006-

02/20060203pm3.html accessed on 15 January 2008.

Trapped in the Big War Paradigm

Documents

Transcript of Trapped in the Big War Paradigm