Superpowers Defeated: Vietnam and Afghanistan Compared

by Douglas A. Borer

Overview

During the Cold War, military conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan validated the importanct of war in global power dynamics. But military intervention proved not to be politically sustainable for the USA and the USSR. This study investigates the parallels and differences in the two conflicts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780714644097
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/29/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Military

"Expertly comparing the impact of military intervention on the domestic political legitimacy and international credibility of the superpowers, the author helps the reader to gain a better understanding of these wars as very similar but quite different events."



Millenium

"Borer provides a thoughtful and informative comparison, leading to a stronger understanding, of the Vietnam and Afghan Wars"



Indochina Chronology

"challenges the widely held notion that there is great parallelism between the two wars"



American Historical Review

"will command attention for both Cold War scholars and International Historians"



"the first comprehensive comparative study of the Vietnam and Afghan conflicts... it is a piece of scholarship that deserves to be read and debated widely"

- Journal of Cold War Studies

Editorial Reviews

Countering the conventional wisdom that regards the Vietnam and Afghan wars as analogous, Borer (political science, Virginia Polytechnic and State U.) emphasizes the differences over the similarities in what have been termed the American Afghanistan and the Soviet Vietnam. In his analysis of the concept of political legitimacy within each players' domestic politics, the author reminds readers that while Vietnam left the US battered the Soviet loss in the Afghan War was a significant factor in its dissolution. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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