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Outmaneuvered
America's Tragic Encounter with Warfare from Vietnam to Afghanistan
Table of Contents
About The Book
From a celebrated military historian, a highly engaging and thought-provoking exploration of why the United States has failed again and again in irregular wars and military campaigns from Vietnam to Afghanistan.
Since the early 1960s, the United States has fought in four major wars and a cluster of complicated and bloody irregular warfare campaigns. The majority have ended in failure, or something close to it. Why has the US been so ineffective, despite the American armed forces being universally recognized as the best in the world?
Most scholars and analysts believe that the primary cause of our abysmal war record since Vietnam has been the US military’s overwhelmingly conventional approach to conflict, which favors kinetic operations, highly mobile precision firepower, and sophisticated systems of command and control. Here, James Warren argues that a much more formidable obstacle to success has been pervasive strategic ineptitude at the highest levels of decision-making, including the presidency, the national security council, and the foreign policy community in DC.
Time and time again, American presidents have committed military forces to operations in foreign countries whose politics and cultures they did not fully understand. Presidents of both political parties, including Johnson, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Obama have overestimated the capacity of US forces to alter the social and political landscape of foreign nations, and underestimated the ability of insurgents and terrorists to develop effective protracted war strategies that, in time, sap Washington’s will to carry on the fight.
In the War on Terror, Warren asserts that senior military officers have been complicit in extending bankrupt strategies by refusing to speak truthfully about them to their civilian bosses. So have the American people, who lost interest in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and refused to press their president and congress to bring an end to two futile conflicts. Warren advocates for a less hubristic foreign policy and a broader conception of warfare as a political and military enterprise.
For readers of political, military, and US history—as well as anyone interested in international relations and geopolitical strategy—this book offers unparalleled insights into America’s prior—and potentially future—military conflicts.
Since the early 1960s, the United States has fought in four major wars and a cluster of complicated and bloody irregular warfare campaigns. The majority have ended in failure, or something close to it. Why has the US been so ineffective, despite the American armed forces being universally recognized as the best in the world?
Most scholars and analysts believe that the primary cause of our abysmal war record since Vietnam has been the US military’s overwhelmingly conventional approach to conflict, which favors kinetic operations, highly mobile precision firepower, and sophisticated systems of command and control. Here, James Warren argues that a much more formidable obstacle to success has been pervasive strategic ineptitude at the highest levels of decision-making, including the presidency, the national security council, and the foreign policy community in DC.
Time and time again, American presidents have committed military forces to operations in foreign countries whose politics and cultures they did not fully understand. Presidents of both political parties, including Johnson, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Obama have overestimated the capacity of US forces to alter the social and political landscape of foreign nations, and underestimated the ability of insurgents and terrorists to develop effective protracted war strategies that, in time, sap Washington’s will to carry on the fight.
In the War on Terror, Warren asserts that senior military officers have been complicit in extending bankrupt strategies by refusing to speak truthfully about them to their civilian bosses. So have the American people, who lost interest in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and refused to press their president and congress to bring an end to two futile conflicts. Warren advocates for a less hubristic foreign policy and a broader conception of warfare as a political and military enterprise.
For readers of political, military, and US history—as well as anyone interested in international relations and geopolitical strategy—this book offers unparalleled insights into America’s prior—and potentially future—military conflicts.
About The Author
Photograph by Molly Slater
James A. Warren is a historian and foreign policy analyst. A regular contributor to The Daily Beast, he is the author of God, War, and Providence: The Epic Struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians against the Puritans of New England; American Spartans: The US Marines: A Combat History from Iwo Jima to Iraq; and The Lions of Iwo Jima: The Story of Combat Team 28 and the Bloodiest Battle in Marine Corps History (with Major General Fred Haynes, USMC-RET), among other books. For many years, Warren was an acquisitions editor at Columbia University Press, and more recently a visiting scholar in American Studies at Brown University. He lives in Saunderstown, Rhode Island.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (March 4, 2025)
- Length: 336 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668004579
Raves and Reviews
"A searing indictment of overweening arrogance, strategic ineptitude, and criminally wishful thinking, Warren’s latest book is a persuasive account, equal parts maddening and heartbreaking, of misguided actions across 60 years of U.S. administrations in the theater of irregular war, the repercussions of which will be felt for years to come . . . A long-overdue call for American restraint and humility in international affairs." —Kirkus Reviews
"Based on outcomes, US military performance in recent decades has ranged from indifferent to poor, with the few successes partial and inconclusive. Why this has been the case is a matter that has received too little attention. In Outmaneuvered, James Warren takes on the question directly, offering answers that are both insightful and instructive." —Andrew Bacevich, author of America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History
"James Warren's Outmaneuvered is a plea begging the most powerful military the world has ever seen to finally understand why it keeps losing wars. Warren's answer is that America's military, and the civilians who direct it, do not understand that politics continues during wars and is integral to the outcome of war. Should be required reading for national leaders and at war colleges across this great land." —John Nagl, author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
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