The Art of Insurgency: American Military Policy and the Failure of Strategy in Southeast Asia

by Donald W. Hamilton

Overview

In his analysis of insurgency war, Donald Hamilton first attempts to provide insight into a strategic concept he believes is little understood today, and to explain its complicated relationship to American policy failures in Southeast Asia during the post-1945 era of containment. The study develops a working model of insurgency, explaining it as both a unique method and type of war-making. Significant findings include the inability of policymakers to perceive a potential insurgency in Vietnam as early as 1946, subsequent American involvement in not one, but three Asian insurgencies during the 1950s, and the ultimate failure of the U.S. military to meet the insurgency challenge in South Vietnam. This inability to eliminate the insurgency led not only to the complete breakdown of the South Vietnamese government, but was the primary reason why further U.S. military action after 1965 would prove ineffectual. This historical narrative also follows the involvement of several key players, including the personalities of Edward Lansdale, Sir Robert Thompson, Archimedes Patti, and Vo Nguyen Giap, who through their life experiences and writings, provide a keen profundity into why insurgencies occur, why they fail, and why they succeed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275957346
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/26/1998
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

DONALD W. HAMILTON is Professor of History at Mesa College and serves as a reserve officer in the U.S. military.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Illustrations
Maps
List of Abbreviations
Figures
Insurgency and American Military Doctrine: An Introduction
Explaining Insurgency
An Analysis of Two Postwar Asian Insurgencies
The First Vietnamese Insurgency, 1945-1954
Seeds of American Commitment
The Second Vietnamese Insurgency: Phase I
The Second Vietnamese Insurgency: Phase II
Secondary Insurgency and the American Reaction
Summary Notes on Lessons of a Failed Strategy
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Historian and former US military officer Hamilton argues that, though the political and social situation back in the US certainly had a large impact on the outcome of the Vietnam War, the fact remains that the military proved incapable of winning an insurgency war on the ground. He says that blaming outside factors has allowed the military to retain the same understanding of insurgency that was obviously flawed when the war began. He draws on such thinkers as Jomini, Clausewitz, Lidell Hart, and Sun Tzu to begin the neglected analysis. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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