Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965

One the best Theory development books I have.This book is most recommended for students of Qualitative Reseach methods, to learn how to develop a comparative case study method and of course - how to project from history to current events

Good condition.

great

This is a groundbreaking book in the debate over political decision-makers’ use of historical analogies. Khong’s thesis states that policymakers do not merely use convenient historical analogies to justify their actions but perform specific cognitive and information processing tasks using the most vivid analogies without even realizing it. The book’s focus is on the Johnson administration’s decision to intervene in Vietnam using analogies from Munich, Korea, and Dien Bien Phu as historical guides.Khong asserts that the decision to intervene in Vietnam was the inevitable outgrowth of the assumptions of the day: containment, the domino theory, etc., and therefor was not a hypocritical use of analogies to justify aggression. Policymakers, like all humans transform selected aspects of historical events into schema which influences all decisions. Because it is subconscious, historical events are seldom probed for accuracy. In my own research, I see analogies to Neville Chamberlain’s disastrous pact with Hitler in Munich, 1938 used to justify all kinds of actions.This work is very useful and should be thoroughly internalized by decision-makers and those who work for them. In its framework, it is more “explicitly psychological” than other similar works. I assess Khong’s work to be “analogous” (no pun intended) to the lessons of the Iraq War, fought years after this book’s publication. For now, at least, the result of the Iraq War, like Vietnam, is so bereft of consensus that no clear-cut analogies can be made.

Khong clearly and succinctly details the role of lessons from history, especially the 1930s, in the decision to escalate the war in Vietnam. His analysis is thorough, relying on archival research. In approach, it is similar to my Rolling the Iron Dice, which analyzes the use of historical analogies by British and American decision makers during four crises in the 1950s: Korea, Iran (1951-3), Suez and Lebanon-Jordan (1958). Both analyze the role of lessons from history, although my work also shows the types of leaders and situations, in which historical analogies are used. Rolling the Iron Dice: Historical Analogies and Decisions to Use Military Force in Regional Contingencies (Contributions in Military Studies)