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Indian Wars Everywhere: Colonial Violence and the Shadow Doctrines of Empire (Volume 71)
References to the Indian Wars, those conflicts that accompanied US continental expansion, suffuse American military history. From Black Hawk helicopters to the exclamation “Geronimo” used by paratroopers jumping from airplanes, words and images referring to Indians have been indelibly linked with warfare. In Indian Wars Everywhere , Stefan Aune shows how these resonances signal a deeper history, one in which the Indian Wars function as a shadow doctrine that influences US military violence. The United States’ formative acts of colonial violence persist in the actions, imaginations, and stories that have facilitated the spread of American empire, from the “savage wars” of the nineteenth century to the counterinsurgencies of the Global War on Terror. Ranging across centuries and continents, Indian Wars Everywhere considers what it means for the conquest of Native peoples to be deemed a success that can be used as a blueprint for modern warfare.
350 pages, Paperback
Published September 19, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 19, 2025
A repetitive text conceptually, in demonstrating the continuities between continental expansion of the US and global imperialist turn through the military. But despite the well worn grooves of the argument the density of data and analysis is immensely helpful. The book looks at the transit of Indian Country, and the influence of Indian wars as a shadow doctrine for how the US conducts “irregular warfare”, in the Philippines, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. I will likely try to teach chapters from this in the future.
January 22, 2024
Aune, Stefan. Indian Wars Everywhere: Colonial Violence and the Shadow Doctrines of Empire (Oakland, California; University of California Press, 2023, pp. 350, ISBN 9780520395411)
Stefan Aune’s book is an important and critical work in the ongoing debate of America’s military and its counterinsurgencies, and highlights aspects of it previously underemphasized in the discourse. He does this by examining the doctrine and frameworks surrounding the American Indian Wars in mainly 19th century United States, and how it influenced the military doctrine throughout the centuries.
In seven chapters he manages to describe the emergence, usage, disappearance, and re-emergence of the ideas of Indian/fighting (a term used by the author, to “denote the competing discourses that have rendered US military violence as both “fighting against Indians” and “fighting like Indians.” (4)), while connecting this trend to the wars that these ideas influenced, namely the Philippines war, Vietnam war and the War on Terror.
Aune tries to “fill in the blanks where other scholars made assumptions about whether and how the Indian Wars continue to resonate into the present” (4). By going through all these wars and time periods he tries to encapsulate the idea that the Indian Wars seem to be “everywhere” from the frontier wars till the War on Terror.
To understand the omnipresence of the Indian Wars, Aune has divided the book into several segments. In Chapter 1 he lays the groundwork for the remainder of the book, examining frameworks through which colonial violence was understood in the States during the period of continental expansion. Chapter 2 and 3 analyze the effect of literature on the representation of the Indians. Chapter 4 delves into how early 20th-century tried to get rid of their imago and become a “proper civilized” army, and only commemorate the Indian wars as a victory of the past. Whereas in Chapter 5 & 6, Aune describes how the military in the second half of the century continually reminded themselves that this history serves them in their present. In chapter 7 he describes the effect of the US’s counterinsurgency response towards civilians and manages to connect all these threads with each other.
To begin, Aune really excelled in this work at captivating the user’s attention. By cleverly using literary devices, the book feels less like an academic paper and thus enters the public sphere. The quotes of the primary sources are all relevant to the story and context. On top of that, the chapters really build onto each other, and Aune manages to use the frameworks set up in chapter 1 to show the interconnectedness throughout the book.
He also shows the ability to refute counterarguments, and expand on them, like he did in chapter 7: Like most Army officers, Crook was not single-mindedly genocidal in his rhetoric, which was often enmeshed in the “state of quasi war” that defined frontier violence. But we should not exaggerate Crook’s cultural sensitivity.
However, some passages show a hint of his own agenda, which seems out of place in an academic text. For instance, in the conclusion, there is some usage of subjective words (“Pipeline insurgencies. It would be easy to dismiss TigerSwan’s rhetoric as alarmist hyperbole, but these are categorizations made by a company full of War on Terror veterans, soldiers serving the interests of both state and capital.” (213) (A similar relationship exists between the assertion that “Black Lives Matter,” and the response from police and politicians that “security and capital matter more” (to say nothing of the slogan “Blue Lives Matter”)) (215)
.
These types of expressions seem better suited to public discourse rather than academic discussions. This does raise a very interesting point however, since the published book is a slightly altered version of the author’s dissertation. One noticeable distinction is when Aune is talking about Pompeo’s speech in Cairo. “…but the true hypocrisy of Pompeo’s claim is located in Indian Country, an occupation that numbers in the hundreds of years.” (dissertation, 283) changed into ”Of course, the true hypocrisy of Pompeo’s claim resides in Indian country, an occupation that numbers in the hundreds of years.” (book, 218) While subtle at first, the usage of subjective words such as of course influence the perception of the reader’s purpose of the book.
While understandable that the author chose to edit the book to conform to his opinion more, he should consider the possibility of the academic sacrifices he has to make to make the book more accessible to the public.
Another change between the dissertation and the book is the usage of footnotes compared to the published book, which contains no footnotes. While the lack of notes does improve readability, it diminishes its academic value and should be taken into consideration: when publishing a book, how much of the academic value and content should be sacrificed in favor of making it more publicly accessible.
In addition, the end notes in the book are written down per chapter, and in every chapter the numerical order starts over. This might be confusing for people who want to check on sources and may be easily correctable by just having a continuous numerical order.
The notes themselves contain a masterful collection of military primary sources and secondary sources, that all fit perfectly. I couldn’t think of a better usage of sources.
On top of that, the rest of the translation from the thesis to the published book has been done wonderfully. The reordering of the chapter lists of contents and renaming of the paper have all positively added to the total product.
There is also a bright side to the accessibility of the book and diminished academic style. Aune manages to captivate the public audience by making references to current events, and manages to sneak in certain pop culture references “Red Dead Redemption (3), Call of Duty (105)”
In conclusion, Aune highlights the shadow doctrine that emerged out of the experiences from the US in fighting the Indians in the Indian wars, and how this doctrine (un)officially influenced military tactics, frameworks, and doctrines and how these ideas drenched to the public spheres. Aune successfully showed that these ideas are often contradictory (The Indians are strong, so be like them; However, they are also bad since they are savages), and are a key feature of America’s irregular warfare from the last two century: By calling the insurgents savages, no rules of war are at play and noncombatant casualties will fall. Stefan Aune managed to highlight this shadow doctrine baked into the foundations of American society.
Du Nguyen
Stefan Aune’s book is an important and critical work in the ongoing debate of America’s military and its counterinsurgencies, and highlights aspects of it previously underemphasized in the discourse. He does this by examining the doctrine and frameworks surrounding the American Indian Wars in mainly 19th century United States, and how it influenced the military doctrine throughout the centuries.
In seven chapters he manages to describe the emergence, usage, disappearance, and re-emergence of the ideas of Indian/fighting (a term used by the author, to “denote the competing discourses that have rendered US military violence as both “fighting against Indians” and “fighting like Indians.” (4)), while connecting this trend to the wars that these ideas influenced, namely the Philippines war, Vietnam war and the War on Terror.
Aune tries to “fill in the blanks where other scholars made assumptions about whether and how the Indian Wars continue to resonate into the present” (4). By going through all these wars and time periods he tries to encapsulate the idea that the Indian Wars seem to be “everywhere” from the frontier wars till the War on Terror.
To understand the omnipresence of the Indian Wars, Aune has divided the book into several segments. In Chapter 1 he lays the groundwork for the remainder of the book, examining frameworks through which colonial violence was understood in the States during the period of continental expansion. Chapter 2 and 3 analyze the effect of literature on the representation of the Indians. Chapter 4 delves into how early 20th-century tried to get rid of their imago and become a “proper civilized” army, and only commemorate the Indian wars as a victory of the past. Whereas in Chapter 5 & 6, Aune describes how the military in the second half of the century continually reminded themselves that this history serves them in their present. In chapter 7 he describes the effect of the US’s counterinsurgency response towards civilians and manages to connect all these threads with each other.
To begin, Aune really excelled in this work at captivating the user’s attention. By cleverly using literary devices, the book feels less like an academic paper and thus enters the public sphere. The quotes of the primary sources are all relevant to the story and context. On top of that, the chapters really build onto each other, and Aune manages to use the frameworks set up in chapter 1 to show the interconnectedness throughout the book.
He also shows the ability to refute counterarguments, and expand on them, like he did in chapter 7: Like most Army officers, Crook was not single-mindedly genocidal in his rhetoric, which was often enmeshed in the “state of quasi war” that defined frontier violence. But we should not exaggerate Crook’s cultural sensitivity.
However, some passages show a hint of his own agenda, which seems out of place in an academic text. For instance, in the conclusion, there is some usage of subjective words (“Pipeline insurgencies. It would be easy to dismiss TigerSwan’s rhetoric as alarmist hyperbole, but these are categorizations made by a company full of War on Terror veterans, soldiers serving the interests of both state and capital.” (213) (A similar relationship exists between the assertion that “Black Lives Matter,” and the response from police and politicians that “security and capital matter more” (to say nothing of the slogan “Blue Lives Matter”)) (215)
.
These types of expressions seem better suited to public discourse rather than academic discussions. This does raise a very interesting point however, since the published book is a slightly altered version of the author’s dissertation. One noticeable distinction is when Aune is talking about Pompeo’s speech in Cairo. “…but the true hypocrisy of Pompeo’s claim is located in Indian Country, an occupation that numbers in the hundreds of years.” (dissertation, 283) changed into ”Of course, the true hypocrisy of Pompeo’s claim resides in Indian country, an occupation that numbers in the hundreds of years.” (book, 218) While subtle at first, the usage of subjective words such as of course influence the perception of the reader’s purpose of the book.
While understandable that the author chose to edit the book to conform to his opinion more, he should consider the possibility of the academic sacrifices he has to make to make the book more accessible to the public.
Another change between the dissertation and the book is the usage of footnotes compared to the published book, which contains no footnotes. While the lack of notes does improve readability, it diminishes its academic value and should be taken into consideration: when publishing a book, how much of the academic value and content should be sacrificed in favor of making it more publicly accessible.
In addition, the end notes in the book are written down per chapter, and in every chapter the numerical order starts over. This might be confusing for people who want to check on sources and may be easily correctable by just having a continuous numerical order.
The notes themselves contain a masterful collection of military primary sources and secondary sources, that all fit perfectly. I couldn’t think of a better usage of sources.
On top of that, the rest of the translation from the thesis to the published book has been done wonderfully. The reordering of the chapter lists of contents and renaming of the paper have all positively added to the total product.
There is also a bright side to the accessibility of the book and diminished academic style. Aune manages to captivate the public audience by making references to current events, and manages to sneak in certain pop culture references “Red Dead Redemption (3), Call of Duty (105)”
In conclusion, Aune highlights the shadow doctrine that emerged out of the experiences from the US in fighting the Indians in the Indian wars, and how this doctrine (un)officially influenced military tactics, frameworks, and doctrines and how these ideas drenched to the public spheres. Aune successfully showed that these ideas are often contradictory (The Indians are strong, so be like them; However, they are also bad since they are savages), and are a key feature of America’s irregular warfare from the last two century: By calling the insurgents savages, no rules of war are at play and noncombatant casualties will fall. Stefan Aune managed to highlight this shadow doctrine baked into the foundations of American society.
Du Nguyen
April 12, 2024
well worth your time
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews