America's Dirty Wars

This book examines the long, complex experience of American involvement in irregular warfare. It begins with the American Revolution in 1776 and chronicles big and small irregular wars for the next two and a half centuries, ending with the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russell Crandall describes the various ways that American political and military leaders have conducted these often poorly understood, publicly neglected, or intensely controversial conflicts. Contrary to what is often assumed, Crandall argues that the United States tends to win its dirty wars, but that this at times comes at the expense of its moral self-image in these inherently murky conflicts. This exploration of America's dirty wars is interspersed with short intermezzi chapters that chronicle the experiences of the same time period of other global powers such as Great Britain and France--