Up through World War II America had gained decisive
victories in almost all its wars. Since World War II America has essentially failed
to win all but one of the wars it
entered (the first Gulf War is the exception).
This is in part because these were all different kinds of wars from the
traditional big army meets big army wars at which the American military excels –
these are guerrilla wars or insurrections, far from home. And we haven’t
learned yet how to extricate ourselves from these when we unwisely get
ourselves trapped in them.
Tierney., who
also wrote the excellent book How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the
American Way of War (2010), proposes a
rational way to approach the problem of disengagement from a war we have no
realistic chance of winning (or at least are not willing to commit the lives,
time and money needed to win), summarized by “Surge, talk and leave”. This is a book I wish our political leaders
would “read, learn and inwardly digest”, and soon, before they waste more lives in a fruitless effort!
Posts
