America's Wars
Interventions, Regime Change, and Insurgencies after the Cold War

An overview of American military policy from the end of the Cold War to the present day.

Thomas H. Henriksen (Author)

9781009055086, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 January 2022

320 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.49 kg

'In this excellent, balanced, and well-informed survey of US military interventions over the past thirty years, Henriksen provides a sober reminder that salafi jihadist terrorists will not end their war against the United States simply because we declare those wars to be over.' Colin Dueck, author of Age of Iron: On Conservative Nationalism

The collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in American global hegemony in world affairs. In the post-Cold War period, both Democrat and Republican governments intervened, fought insurgencies, and changed regimes. In America's Wars, Thomas Henriksen explores how America tried to remake the world by militarily invading a host of nations beset with civil wars, ethnic cleansing, brutal dictators, and devastating humanitarian conditions. The immediate post-Cold War years saw the United States carrying out interventions in the name of Western-style democracy, humanitarianism, and liberal internationalism in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. Later, the 9/11 terrorist attacks led America into larger-scale military incursions to defend itself from further assaults by al Qaeda in Afghanistan and from perceived nuclear arms in Iraq, while fighting small-footprint conflicts in Africa, Asia, and Arabia. This era is coming to an end with the resurgence of great power rivalry and rising threats from China and Russia.

Introduction
1. An end and a beginning: From cold war to Panama invasion for regime change
2. The Persian Gulf war and its aftermath
3. Wars other than war, wars in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo
4. Afghanistan: Regime change and building society in the graveyard of empires
5. The Iraq war: Changing a regime, building democracy, and fighting an insurgency
6. America's small-footprint wars: Asia, Africa, & the Middle East
7. America's larger forever wars – Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq
8. A conclusion: The new era.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Military history [HBW], History of the Americas [HBJK]