Military History for the Modern Strategist

In this timely book, military expert Michael O’Hanlon examines America’s major conflicts since the mid-1800s: the Civil War, the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. O’Hanlon looks for overarching trends and themes, along with the lessons for the military strategists and political leaders of today and tomorrow.

Michael O'Hanlon holds the Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at Brookings, where he also is director of research and director of the Talbott Center in the Foreign Policy program. He teaches at Columbia and Georgetown universities and elsewhere. Earlier in his career, O'Hanlon worked for the Congressional Budget Office, the Peace Corps, the "gravity group" at Princeton University, and dairy farms in upstate New York. He is the author of some 20 books, most recently The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint (Yale, 2021).

Contents Preface to the Updated Edition Preface and Acknowledgments 1 The American Civil War 2 World War I 3 World War II 4 Korea and Vietnam 5 America's Wars in the Middle East since 1990 6 Three Lessons Notes Index