War from the Ground Up

by Simpson, Emile

• ISBN13: 9780231704069
• ISBN10: 0231704062
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780199327881
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-10-31
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr
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Summary

Recent wars in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as other global conflicts, have shown that, between liberal powers and their armed forces, the line between military activities and political policy has completely broken down. While this overlap may be highly effective in operational terms (it leads to great results on the ground), it strategically erases the vital distinction between war and peace. This, Emile Simpson contends, is a fundamentally worrisome trend. Is it possible for public policy to control the armed forces when the armed forces are a direct extension of public policy? Simpson's inquiry centers on this dilemma. As the media and the internet increasingly politicize combat, the close ties between public policy and the military are becoming irreversible. Simpson concentrates less on whether the West should curb these developments and more on how to manage, gain advantage from, and mitigate the risks of modern warfare's evolution. While liberal powers must win their conflicts on the ground, they also have a critical obligation to preserve the distinctions between war and peace. Failure to do so could trap liberal powers in endless conflicts for which they are operationally ill-equipped, as evidenced by the twenty-first-century wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. War From The Ground Up therefore offers a unique encounter with the contemporary realities and ideas of war now taking shape across the globe.