JFQ, 4th Qtr 07: The Phoenix Program and Contemporary Warfare
In the mid-1990s, the Phoenix program was considered an artifact of historical interest but with little relevance to the contemporary world. I therefore analyzed the program primarily from a historian’s perspective in the first edition of Phoenix and the Birds of Prey, making few references to the present or future. Readers interested in future applicability were left to draw their own conclusions from the history. A decade later, Iraq and Afghanistan have brought the study of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism back into fashion. For this reason, the new edition contains this additional chapter summarizing the principal lessons.....