26 July 2018

Coming in 2019: Blameless? The 1990s and the U.S. Army's Role in Creating the Forever-Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Pat Proctor's newest offering, Blameless? The 1990s and the U.S. Army's Role in Creating the Forever-Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is coming to bookshelves in early 2019.

Blameless? is based on exhaustive archival research and numerous interviews with former senior leaders of the Army, including two former Chiefs of Staff of the Army. The book examines the question of why--on the eve of the War on Terror--the Army ignored the lessons of its 1990s low-intensity conflict interventions--most notably in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo--and instead continued its transformation toward an ever greater capacity to fight high-intensity conflicts. But Blameless? also asks why the U.S. Army is making the same mistake again--ignoring the lessons of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as it returns to its "core competencies" of large scale combat operations.

Blameless? will be published by the University of Missouri Press.