Faith and Fear

Gregory A. Daddisis Professor of History and holds the Melbern G. Glasscock Endowed Chair in American History at Texas A&M University. A retired US Army colonel, he deployed to both Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. Daddis specializes in the history of the Vietnam Wars and the Cold War era and has authored five books, includingPulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men's Adventure MagazinesandWithdrawal: Reassessing America's Final Years in Vietnam. He also has published numerous journal articles and several op-ed pieces commenting on current military affairs, including writings inThe New York Times,The Washington Post, andThe National Interest. He is the recipient of the 2022-2023 Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award, Pembroke College, University of Oxford.

• Preface and AcknowledgementsIntroduction: War to Liberate the WorldPart I. War to Defeat EvilChapter 1 Freedom from Fear?Chapter 2 The Cold War ComesChapter 3 Militarizing the Cold WarChapter 4 The Cold War Comes HomePart II. War to Deter WarChapter 5 Winning Here or Losing EverywhereChapter 6 A Brave (and Frightful) New WorldChapter 7 Below the Nuclear ThresholdPart III. War to Build NationsChapter 8 Undertaking a Hemispheric CrusadeChapter 9 War (and Fear) along the New FrontierChapter 10 War as a Transformative PowerChapter 11 Faith and Fear on the Road to VietnamPart IV. War to Produce PeaceChapter 12 War and the

In this sweeping history of US war after World War II, Gregory Daddis traces the coupling of fears that global developments might undermine US security with American leaders' often misplaced faith in war as a tool to safeguard the nation. Americans retained confidence in the effectiveness of war in spite of the repeated failure of US counterinsurgency efforts and their deadly impact on foreign civilians. A sobering and accessible account of the logics driving forever war.