Cassandra in Oz

This book describes how a team of Soldiers, Marines, and civilian academics created Field Manual 3-24/ Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency. The manual's principles and paradoxes of counterinsurgency, focus on legitimacy, and concepts of operational campaign design have had immense influence on U.S. and NATO doctrine. Crane describes the hard work of Soldiers, Marines, and civilians to achieve peace in places such as Baghdad, Anbar Province, and the detention facilities at Bucca. The book examines what went wrong in Iraq, as peace unraveled with the American departure, and also how the new counterinsurgency doctrine was never properly applied in Afghanistan. The final chapter covers the lessons that should be gleaned from the past.