The United States was throughout the history engaged in several conflicts which had a character of counterinsurgency. These are - among others- War in Vietnam and second War in Iraq. These two conflicts are examined in this diploma thesis. Author poses a question how did counterinsurgency tactics evolved in both conflicts. The second question is whether the United States implemented counterinsurgency experiences from Vietnam War in Iraq War and if so, how they were implemented. The United States developed several counterinsurgency programs and the most of them were successful - they prevented Vietcong from spreading its influence in South Vietnam. However these programs were often poorly financed, or they did not gain enough support from The US Army, because the Army prefered conventional approach in fighting against communists. The United States fought a conventional warfare in the first few years of Iraq War and it had not succeeded in garnering popularity among civilians. The change came with a new commander- general David Petraeus. Petraeus was inspired by the experiences from the Vietnam War (and other conflicts) and he concentrated his effort on providing safety to Iraqi population. This strategy paid off and the Army had much less losses during his command then during the pre - 2007 period....

The Horse Latitudes is a collection of stories that documents one infantry squad's time in Baghdad, Iraq. The missions are long stretches of boredom, broken up by flashes of violence. The single sniper shot fired. An IED loosely buried in the roadside, waiting. A schoolyard of kids throwing fist-sized rocks at gun-trucks. The enemy is vast and changing. The downtime is a combination of homesickness, RPGs, and mortar fire. These men suffer through the war, heat, and each other. These stories look into the fire-fights and their aftermath to get to soldiers' struggles within themselves: how to fight a faceless enemy, what it means to serve, how one soldiers, what makes a man, what makes a good man, what will it mean to die here, and what does it mean not to. This collection dismisses what we think we know about war -- violence, camaraderie, masculinity, enemy, victory -- in order to tell a harder, truer story.

This dissertation seeks to explain why states sometimes produce disintegrated wartime grand strategies; doing so is of both scholarly and policy importance because wartime grand strategy is a key component of military effectiveness, and therefore has a vital role to play in military victory or defeat. To do so, this dissertation explores the link between militarism, civil-military bargaining, and the formation of integrated—or disintegrated—grand strategy. I hypothesize that civilians and military leaders possess divergent preferences over the use of force that are exogenous to any one conflict, and represent enduring, rational preference divergences between civilian and military positions on the use of force. Under conditions of militarism, defined as high levels of societal admiration for the military, the civil-military bargaining space will be distorted in favor of military preferences, with the military having more power in the civil-military negotiating process due to its potentially outsized ability to shape public opinion compared to civilians. This will lead to the formation of disintegrated grand strategy—one which does not balance civilian and military preferences—which has been shown in the literature to be linked to reduced military effectiveness. I provide evidence for my hypotheses in the form of two case studies which are examined via process-tracing methodology—the United States performance in the 1991 Gulf War, and the United States performance in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I conclude that under conditions of militarism, states produce disintegrated wartime grand strategies.

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The purpose of this study was to determine how the tone and roles of women serving in the Iraq War were portrayed in newspaper articles. Issues of how women in the military were portrayed in terms of page and story prominence were also of importance. A content analysis was conducted in order to determine the tone, roles, story, and page placement of newspaper articles published in the United States and the United Kingdom over a 7-year time period. Newspaper articles related to the topic were retrieved from the LexisNexis database and analyzed. The results showed that mentions of military women during the Iraq War in United Kingdom newspapers were almost twice as negative as those in United States newspapers (28.4% vs. 15.5%). Story placement of women in the military was more prominent in United States newspapers than United Kingdom newspapers. Mentions of women in news articles were 14.8 percentage points more positive than those in editorials. The tone of women serving in the military during the Iraq War was most polarized at the beginning of the war and became increasingly neutral as the war progressed.

Since the start of the Iraq conflict, world-renowned security expert Paul Rogers has produced a series of monthly reports scrutinising developments in the occupation and the Iraqi response to it, drawing on the unique range of contacts and material available to the prestigious Oxford Research Group. They have become the standard source material for journalists, policymakers and campaigners writing about Iraq. Now, for the first time, Paul Rogers has brought these reports together to provide a detailed and authoritative analysis of the last year in Iraq. A disturbing picture emerges, in which coalition forces repeatedly misread the direction of the insurgency, in which radical groups gain strength through the ongoing (and underreported) loss of civilian lives at the hands of the occupying forces, and in which the US's determination to secure the Persian Gulf's oil and gas resources lock it further and further into a destructive, intractable, and ultimately counter-productive war in the Middle East. Concisely-written and highly accessible, "Iraq and the War on Terror" is an indispensable book for anyone interested the Middle East, US foreign policy and international security. Its conclusions about the extent of the damage caused by the war, and how long the occupation looks set to last, will send shockwaves through policymakers in the US and the UK alike.

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No description available.

Major changes have occurred within the Swedish War Materiel Industry over the past decade. Sweden has transformed from being a truly neutral country, with uniquely restrictive war materiel exportation laws and policies, into being one of the ten largest exporters of war materiel in the world. Most of the manufactured war materiel in Sweden is now used for export. An increasing trend of export has made the Swedish War Materiel Trade Industry flourish. On the front stage, towards the public, Sweden is upholding its image of being a neutral country. Its doctrine is the same as it has been since the beginning of the 1990s: that Sweden has restrictive arms trade politics. It is true that Sweden has strict laws and guidelines concerning war material trade; according to these, export of war materiel is not allowed to countries where extensive human rights violations occur. Neither is it allowed to countries in armed conflict, where there is a fear that an armed conflict will occur nor to a State with domestic armed disturbances/conflicts. Also, Swedish war materiel trade should never be in conflict with its foreign policy goals, which are enhancing Sweden’s contribution to freedom, security, democracy, prosperity, and sustainable development in the world. Despite this, Swedish war materiel export has now reached the highest amount in Swedish history. Backstage, the view of export has changed and an export-oriented custom has taken hold. In the 1990s, Swedish war materiel production increased with an average of 5.5 percent every year. But over the past 4 years, the trend has increased drastically, especially due to the Iraq War. Since it broke out, the total export of war materiel has almost doubled. In 2006 it exceeded ten billion SEK, which means that during the past ten years, the Swedish arms trade industry has more than tripled – from three billion SEK per year to over ten billion SEK. Not only has Sweden increased its export of war materiel to the USA - in times of war - but also to countries where extensive violations of human rights occurs, for example India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand and Bahrain. The front stage behaviour and the backstage action contradict each other. There is a difference in rhetoric and practice. It is a paradox to appear neutral front stage when exporting war materiel to ‘critical States’ backstage. Somehow Sweden has come to facilitate a climate that allows this to happen. / I takt med att Sveriges export av krigsmateriel blir allt mindre restriktiv blir den också mer exportorienterad. Sverige är idag en av världens tionde största vapenexportörer. Förra året exporterades krigsmateriel för över tio miljarder kronor. Det är den största summan i Sveriges historia. Sveriges största krigsmaterielimportör är USA. Sedan Irakkriget bröt ut i Mars 2003, har Sveriges export av krigsmateriel till USA ökat markant. Sverige exporterar idag också krigsmateriel till ett flertal länder där grava kränkningar av mänskliga rättigheter förekommer, trots dess väldigt restriktiva lagar och riktlinjer på detta område. Denna studie har avsikten att kasta ljus över Sveriges export av krigsmateriel; den belyser hur Sverige försöker upprätthålla sin fasad som ett neutralt land medan det bakom kulisserna paradoxalt nog exporteras mer och mer krigsmateriel till kritiska stater; helt i strid med dess lagar och riktlinjer. Genom att fokusera på händelseutvecklingen sedan Inspektionen för Strategiska Produkter bildades 1996 samt på vad denna nya myndighet har inneburit för Svensk Krigsmateriel Industri dras slutsatser om hur denna paradox kan fortlöpa. Detta är särskilt intressant eftersom Sverige idag står inför ett vägval då beslut kommer tas gällande nya riktlinjer för Sveriges vapenexport.

It is difficult to know exactly why leaders and their advisors make decisions. Despite this, scholars have long attempted to gain insight into this largely unintelligible process, especially when the decision is acknowledged by many to be a poor one. In 1972, Irving Janis published a book that intended to explain why groups of seemingly rational and intelligent men could make disastrous decisions, a theory he named groupthink. When groupthink was first introduced, the Vietnam War was provided as an example of the theory in action. Though at the time Vietnam seemed like a plausible case of groupthink, declassified documents now available tell a decidedly different story. It is now evident that Lyndon Johnson agonized over the decision to send combat troops to Vietnam and that he did in fact seek the advice of people with an array of opinions on the best course of action in Vietnam. The application of groupthink to Vietnam becomes even weaker when compared to the cogent role groupthink played in the Iraq War. The Iraq War not only displayed symptoms of groupthink at an executive level, but precipitated it down into the lowest levels of government and the American people. Consequently, the Iraq War has thus far manifested itself as the most potent case of groupthink documented in modern times. While many of the symptoms found in Vietnam could be construed as coincidental, much of the groupthink symptoms found in the case of Iraq appear to be the result of careful calculation by the Bush administration.