Endless War - Hardcover

Peters, Ralph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811705501 ISBN 13: 9780811705509

Publisher: Stackpole Books, 2010

Synopsis

Endless War features controversial strategist Ralph Peters at his most provocative and popular, raising perceptive, often shocking questions others fear to ask. In a sweeping collection that ranges from Muslim military triumphs a thousand years ago through the turning of the tide between East and West to the brutal unconventional struggles of today and tomorrow, former Military Intelligence officer Peters extends his successful series of books on strategy and security affairs that have won him diehard fans for his insight, firsthand experience, and frankness.
Endless War engages the toughest security issues of our time, including:

Does our Afghan war make sense? Can we win? Do we even have a strategy?

Has flawed military planning left our troops as virtual hostages in combat zones?

Can Israel survive? What would an Iranian nuclear arsenal mean for the world?

Is Islam a "religion of peace," or has the war between Islam and Western civilization continued virtually without interruption for almost fourteen centuries?

Why doesn't the greatest superpower in history win more often? Are we our own worst enemies?

Have we lost our sense of warfare's reality? Why don't we fight to win?

Do terrorist prisoners really deserve better treatment than American citizens?

What's the true price of striking serious history courses from our schools?

Who does deeper damage to the United States, our violent enemies or an arrogant ruling elite?
In powerful prose combining clarity with passion, Ralph Peters continues to shape our country's military and strategic thought, while standing up for our troops and American values. No book on strategy or foreign affairs this year will be fiercer or more brutally honest. As ever more dark clouds gather over the world, this is a voice we need!

About this title

About the Author

Fox News Strategic Analyst Ralph Peters is the author of 27 books, including bestselling and prize-winning novels. He has experience in over 70 countries and, as a journalist, has covered multiple conflicts. His work has appeared in a wide range of publications and he serves on the advisory board of Armchair General magazine. He lives in Virginia.

Reviews

In his latest, author and columnist Peters (Fighting for the Future) puts the contemporary conflict between Islam and the West into the context of 14 centuries of warfare, making a clear and compelling case for rethinking the U.S. approach. When Muslim armies exploded out of Arabia in the 7th century, the armies of Dark Age Europe didn't know how to stop them. While the Muslims fought as a unified, cohesive army, the Europeans were loyal only to their feudal lords, fighting in small units, or simply man-to-man; fast-forward to the present of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S.-led coalition is the unified force, while Islamist fanatics work as disorganized bands, attacking each other as often as coalition targets. Contrary to what Western leaders may think, Peters insists, the war on terrorism is a war of religion-at least for militant Islamists. From this vantage, Peters takes Western leaders to task for a 60 year policy of rational negotiation; in Peters's thorough analysis, the War on Terror is an emotionally-driven endeavor, and an effective strategy for victory will only arise once political and military leaders recognize the motives, internal and historical, that drive our foes.
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This collection of essays, articles, and columns by a former military intelligence officer is subtitled Middle-Eastern Islam vs. Western Civilization because Peters believes present conflicts in the Middle East are but the latest battles in a 1,400-year-old war. The unifying theme of the pieces is that failure to understand that fact, historical illiteracy in American society at all levels, and insistence on dealing with Islamic and other non-Western cultures using Western values has led to a great waste of lives, time, and money for much of the past 60 years, in particular, the past 9. Peters supports the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, and these pieces were written to convince. They should not be dismissed as propaganda, for they offer insights into the Middle East mess that should be considered, from a writer who is an experienced hand with both fiction (e.g., The War after Armageddon, 2009) and nonfiction. --Frieda Murray

Edition details

• Publisher: Stackpole Books
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811705501
• ISBN 13: 9780811705509
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288