Withdrawing Under Fire: Lessons Learned from Islamist Insurgencies
"Planning creative and effective exit strategies for counterinsurgency campaigns may be even more important than initiating and carrying out these campaigns. If this is the only lesson that decision makers, experts, strategists, and students take from Dr. Joshua Gleis'sWithdrawing Under Fire, then the international counterinsurgency campaigns will become much more effective. A must-read." --Dr. Boaz Ganor, Director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Israel"Had Mikhail Gorbachev read Joshua Gleis'sWithdrawing Under Fire, there might still be a feared Red Army, if not a state more closely resembling the Soviet Union. Had Richard Nixon read this book, the term `Vietnam Syndrome' might not have been etched in our souls. Those in the administration of Barack Obama, if not the president himself, must read this book to avoid losing Afghanistan in a way that history will not judge kindly."  --Brig. Gen. Russell D. Howard, USA (Ret.), founder and former Director of the Combating Terrorism Center, United States Military Academy"This study breaks new ground for the professional literature on insurgency and counterinsurgency. Joshua Gleis is the first to examine these issues within the context of the literature on war termination. It is an important book for the academic security studies community. It is also a must-read for all those in the national security establishments of the democracies--military and civilian--that will have to deal with these nontraditional conflict challenges well into the foreseeable future." --Professor Richard Shultz Director of The International Security Studies program, The Fletcher School, Tufts University