Crossroads of Intervention: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Lessons from Central America

by Todd Greentree

Overview

In Crossroads of Intervention, Todd Greentree argues that there are many valuable lessons to be learned about the nature of irregular warfare from the experiences of the United States in Central America during the final decade of the Cold War. This first comprehensive Strategy and policy analysis of U.S. intervention in Central America examines the origins, dynamics, and termination of the Sandinista insurrection in Nicaragua, the Salvadoran government's decade-long Conuterinsurgency against the FMLN, and the Contra insurgency against the Sandinistas. Greentree establishes the historical, political, and conceptual relationship between U.S. involvement in the Central American, wars, the Vietnam War and the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, while laying the foundation for an expanded understanding of the fundamental and recurring nature of insurgency, and intervention. U.S. involvement in Central America during the 1280s clearly demonstrates the costs, risks, and limits of intervention and the use of force in internal conflicts. The consequences of such involvement, he warns, must not be forgotten.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313083839
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/30/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Todd Greentree was a Foreign Service officer in El Salvador, Angola, and other conflict countries and now serves as a brigade political adviser in Afghanistan. His home is in Santa Fe, NM.

Table of Contents

Foreword Robert W. Tucker ix

Preface xi

1 Introduction: The Strategy and Policy of Intervention in Central 1

2 What Was at Stake? 20

3 The Problem of Limits 33

4 The Fall of Somoza and the Triumph of the Sandinistas 43

5 Reform with Repression in El Salvador 73

6 The Contra War 109

7 Every War Must End 135

8 Aftermath and Epilogue 157

Notes 167

Selected Readings 183

Index 189

What People are Saying About This

Francis Fukuyama

"Between Vietnam and Iraq, the United States was involved in another set of now-forgotten conflicts in Central America during which it was forced, painfully, to re-learn the principles of insurgency counterinsurgency warfare. Crossroads of Intervention tells this tale in a gripping fashion, and demonstrates the essential continuity in the nature of these conflicts. It's only too bad that this book had not been available before the start of the Iraq War."

Andrew J. Bacevich

"Crossroads of Intervention is a superlative book, even-handed, succinct, and laced with shrewd judgments. Todd Greentree demolishes the cliches that both the left and the right have devised to describe American involvement in the wars that battered El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s. The result is a model of good scholarship, with considerable relevance to present-day U. S. foreign policy."

David Hendrickson

"Crossroads of Intervention is a superb examination of the Central American wars of the 1980s. Greentree brilliantly describes the mixed motives, unintended consequences, and moral dilemmas of these wars, and persuasively brings to light their status as a bridge between Vietnam and Iraq. Military strategists keen on learning more about irregular warfare will find rich rewards in this study. Greentree knows the region intimately and has a knack for asking-and answering persuasively-the larger questions. Briskly written and eminently readable, this work belongs on the bookshelf of all students of American foreign and military policy."

Editorial Reviews

In the author's view, U.S. involvement in Central America during the 1980s clearly demonstrated the limits of intervention and use of force in internal conflicts. He believes that much can be learned today from our experience in those cases because, while U.S. aims were achieved, the operations had no tangible impact on the greater purpose — the Cold War overall.” —Proceedings

“[An] excellent and very timely book… Greentree's book is an excellent place to start for those who would like to refresh their memories about this critical era in the history of irregular warfare.” —Survival

“American policymakers…like anyone else who wants to learn about those conflicts, would profit greatly from reading this…very useful study.” —The Historian

From the Publisher