Assessing War: The Challenge of Measuring Success and Failure,Leo J. Blanken

-About this book

Today’s protracted asymmetrical conflicts confuse efforts to measure progress, often inviting politics and wishful thinking to replace objective evaluation.
In Assessing War, military historians, social scientists, and military officers explore how observers have analyzed the trajectory of war in American conflicts from the Seven Years’ War through the war in Afghanistan. Drawing on decades of acquired expertise, the contributors examine wartime assessment in both theory and practice and, through alternative dimensions of assessment such as justice and proportionality, the war of ideas and economics. This group of distinguished authors grapples with both conventional and irregular wars and emerging aspects of conflict ― such as cyberwar and nation building ― that add to the complexities of the modern threat environment. The volume ends with recommendations for practitioners on best approaches while offering sobering conclusions about the challenges of assessing war without politicization or self-delusion.

-CONTENTS

Foreword by Gen. George W. Casey Jr. (USA, Ret.)

Introduction: The Challenge of Wartime Assessment,Leo J. Blanken and Jason J. Lepore

I-Theory

1 Principals, Agents, and Assessment,Leo J. Blanken and Jason J. Lepore

2 Civil-Military Relations and Assessments,Hy Rothstein

3 Wartime Strategic Assessment: Concepts and Challenges,Scott Sigmund Gartner

II -Historical Cases

4 Assessing Proxy Forces: A Case Study of the Early Years of the Seven Years’ War (1754–63) in North America,John Grenier

5 Assessing War: The Revolutionary War,Edward G. Lengel

6 Assessing Enemy Civilian Will: The United States Goes to War, 1861,Brooks D. Simpson

7 “Keep ’Em Moving”: The Role of Assessment in US Cavalry Operations against the Plains Indians,Michael Richardson

8 Assessing the Philippine War ,Brian McAllister Linn

9 Putting the Fuse to the Powder: Strategic Assessment in the First World War,Scott Stephenson

10 Assessment in World War II,Gerhard L. Weinberg

11 Measuring Gains on the Battlefield and at the Peace Table:Shifting Assessments during the Korean War,Conrad C. Crane

12 Choosing Progress: Evaluating the “Salesmanship” of the Vietnam War in 1967,Gregory A. Daddis

III. Current Cases

13 Assessing Counterinsurgency: The Iraq War, 2004–5,William C. Hix and Kalev I. Sepp

14 Circular Logic and Constant Progress: IW Assessments in Afghanistan,Alejandro S. Hernandez, Julian Ouellet,and Christopher J. Nannini

15 Monitoring from Afar: How Al-Qaeda Assesses Its Progress,Alternative Dimensions of Assessment,Mark Stout

16 Assessment, Proportionality, and Justice in War,Bradley J. Strawser and Russell Muirhead

17 Assessing Cyber War,Dorothy E. Denning

18 Assessing the War of Ideas during War,Robert Reilly

19 Assessing Economic Outcomes in Nation-building Operations,Aric P. Shafran

Conclusion: Can We Learn from the Assessment of War?Anthony H. Cordesman and Hy Rothstein

Contributors

-caractéristiques

Date de parution :15 décembre 2015

Éditeur : Georgetown University Press

Langue : Anglais

NB.de pages : 376 pages

ISBN-10 : 1626162468

ISBN-13 : 978-1626162464

Poids de l’article : 499 g

Dimensions : 15.24 x 2.13 x 22.86 cm