"This book examines the long, complex experience of American involvement in irregular warfare. It begins with the American Revolution in 1776 and chronicles big and small irregular wars for the next two and a half centuries, ending with the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russell Crandall describes the various ways that American political and military leaders have conducted these often poorly understood, publicly neglected, or intensely controversial conflicts. Contrary to what is often assumed, Crandall argues that the United States tends to win its dirty wars, but that this at times comes at the expense of its moral self-image in these inherently murky conflicts. This exploration of America's dirty wars is interspersed with short intermezzi chapters that chronicle the experiences of the same time period of other global powers such as Great Britain and France"-- Provided by publisher.

1. Introduction -- 2. Irregular warfare 101 -- Part I. The American Revolution to Chasing Sandino, 1776-1930s: -- 3. The American Revolution -- 4. Confederates and Indians -- 5. Intermezzo: the Boer War -- 6. America, Aguinaldo, and the Philippines, 1898 -- 7. Chasing Villa, 1916 -- 8. A cold winter in Siberia -- 9. The Banana Wars, 1898-1930s -- 10. Intermezzo: T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, 1916-18 -- 11. Chasing Sandino, 1927-32 -- Part II. The Cold War, 1940s-1989 -- 12. Cold War counterinsurgencies -- 13. Intermezzo: Mao Zedong -- 14. Fighting communism in Greece -- 15. Intermezzo: France in Algeria, 1954-62 -- 16. Intermezzo: David Galula -- 17. Intermezzo: Malaya emergency, 1948-60 -- 18. Ramon Magsaysay and the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the Philippines, 1946-56 -- 19. Vietnam -- Part III. Latin America in the Cold War -- 20. From Guatemala, 1954, to Cuba and the Bay of Pigs, 1961 -- 21. Guatemala, post-1963 -- 22. Cuba, post-1963 -- 23. Intermezzo: Che Guevara and guerrilla warfare -- 24. Carter, Reagan, and the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, 1979-90 -- 25. El Salvador, 1979-92 -- Part IV. Post-Cold War -- 26. Dirty Wars after the Cold War -- 27. Colombia -- 28. Iraq -- 29. Intermezzo: the Counterinsurgency Field Manual and post-modern insurgencies -- 30. Post-9/11 COIN in the Philippines -- 31. Intermezzo: Afghanistan, graveyard of empires -- 32. The longest war: America in Afghanistan -- 33. The fall of Muammar Qaddafi -- 34. Intermezzo: JSOC raids and drone strikes -- 35. Conclusion.