America’s Dirty Wars: Irregular Warfare From 1776 to the War on Terror, by Crandall, Russell

Abstract

Russell Crandall’s book America’s Dirty Wars: Irregular Warfare From 1776 to the War on Terror is a valuable resource for unconventional warfare practitioners. Crandall is a professor of international politics and American foreign policy at Davidson College in North Carolina. He has served in various high-level policy jobs in the U.S. government and has published multiple books on Latin America. This most recent book covers a vast swath of history and focuses on irregular warfare. His first key argument is that although dirty wars are challenging to study, the United States will face this type of warfare in the future, and military personnel and government officials must understand it. The second is that although there are some similarities and consistencies among counterinsurgencies, each is unique and must be fought according to the situation in the particular country or region. He uses the comparison of General Petraeus’s success in Iraq and later challenges in Afghanistan to highlight this aspect. This review covers each of the four sections of the book individually.