A Great Place to Have a War

November 14, 2016
In this excellent historical analysis, Kurlantzick (State Capitalism), a Southeast Asia specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, relates how the U.S. got involved with Laos, seeing it as a vital piece in the strategy of containing communism in Southeast Asia. The ostensibly secret war the U.S. waged in Laos before and during the war in neighboring Vietnam was hardly a secret at the time. Kurlantzick focuses on the CIA’s Operation Momentum, which clandestinely supported ethnic Hmong fighters who were operating against the communist Pathet Lao. As his subtitle indicates, the CIA’s massive secret war was a “transformative experience,” changing the agency from a gatherer of intelligence into “a paramilitary organization whose primary purpose was killing and war fighting.” Using an effective combination of firsthand reporting and a thorough reading of the best primary and secondary sources, Kurlantzick tells the story primarily through four men: CIA operatives Bill Lair and the colorful Tony Poe, U.S. ambassador William H. Sullivan, and Hmong leader Vang Pao. It’s an instructive tale without a happy ending for any of the main players, and it continues to have relevance in the 21st century. Agent: Heather Schroder, Compass Talent.

October 1, 2016
A history of the CIAs involvement in the Laos war and the effect it had on the structure and evolution of the organization and its future role in foreign conflicts.The longest covert war in American history was fought in Laos, from roughly 1961 to 1975. While no American troops fought on the ground, the CIA led a massive anti-communist campaign against the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao, a pro-communist Laotian group. Kurlantzick (Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government, 2013, etc.), a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, describes the evolution of the CIAs entanglement in Laos. President Dwight Eisenhower, writes the author, viewed Laos as a nation where the United States could make a stand to prevent communism from spreading west out of China and North Vietnam into Thailand and India and beyond. By the end of the decade, it cost the U.S. upward of $500 million per year in 1970 dollars, and tens of thousands of lives were lostLao, Hmong, Vietnamese, and Thai among them. Since the U.S. government had little desire to send American troops to fight more foreign wars, the CIA took the reins, launching air strikes, managing battle strategy, and providing advisers to Vang Pao, the brutal Hmong leader whose forces were instrumental in fighting against the communists. According to Kurlantzick, the CIA was eager to expand its role, and the Laos war allowed it to become a paramilitary organization whose primary purpose was killing and war fighting. In his well-researched argument, the author relies on extensive materials prepared by other historians as well as first-person interviews with relevant characters (including Vang Pao) and recently declassified documents. The book is dense with information and might be difficult for lay readers unfamiliar with the Indochina wars, but its an important demonstration of the U.S.s ongoing, not-so-secret hand in world affairs. Kurlantzicks comprehensive account provides new insights into the CIAs objectives in the Laos war and the way that they were incorporated into its broader mission.

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September 1, 2016

Mobilizing ethnic Hmong in Laos to battle Communist forces, the little-known Operation Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation ever, lasting nearly two decades and killing a tenth of the country's population. From a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2016

The American belief in the domino theory drew attention to the landlocked nation of Laos and destroyed Laotian society with a war that was overshadowed by the tragedy happening in Vietnam. Kurlantzick (senior fellow, Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations; State Capitalism) sheds light on how the CIA developed a shadow war in the 1960s and why that war mushroomed into a calamity. The CIA allied itself with Laotian general Vang Pao and the Hmong people with flawed promises, which ultimately led to the destruction of their homelands and created a refugee crisis, resulting in a large U.S. Hmong population today. Kurlantzick uses the war in Laos as a warning that a militarized CIA operation can spin out of control without oversight. This riveting read belongs in the pantheon of works such as Jane Hamilton-Merritt's Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992 and William M. LeoGrande's Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992. VERDICT Highly recommended for those wanting insight into the Hmong people and Cold War thinking.--Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.