America's Small Wars: Lessons for the Future

"Low-intensity conflict", or LIC is the kind of combat most defence and foreign policy experts believe Western forces will face in the near future, as US personnel did recently in Grenada and Panama. Needing to know more about LIC, the US Congress asked John M. Collins, the senior specialist in national defence at the Library of Congress, to compile this comprehensive report. Its purpose is to help Congress better understand past US LIC experience so it can better evaluate present and projected requirements. Containing 60 concise and informative summaries of LICs in which the US has been involved since 1899 and an annex outlining congressional actions during each conflict, this book is a guide to 20th-century "small wars" of the United Sates.