Ex-Bush aide writes about early American wars

BY CHRIS CAROLA

ALBANY -- After two years advising the George W. Bush administration on Iraq, Afghanistan and the high-tech warfare in both countries, Eliot Cohen researched his next book by immersing himself in the low-tech era of muskets and tomahawks.

He revisited sites in upstate New York, such as Fort Ticonderoga, he went to on family vacations as a Boston boy interested in America's Colonial history.

"That period was always my first love," said Cohen, 56, an author and political scientist who heads Johns Hopkins University's strategic studies program.

Cohen is launching his latest book, "Conquered Into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles Along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War." Published in November by Free Press, it details how 125 years of conflict along the "warpath" -- the 200-mile region between Albany and Montreal -- influenced how America fights its wars.

"The American way of war has always had a very unique mixture of elements that are highly European, very structured and formal. Others reflect pragmatism and the ruthlessness of the frontier," he said. -- AP