The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts

According to Tierney (How We Fight), Swarthmore College professor and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, underlying America’s inability to fight modern wars is a quintessentially American hubris that does not accept failure as an option, refusing to either plan for or study it. “Military fiascos don’t repeat themselves, but they do rhyme,” he writes, and American planners must learn from the past and realize that today’s wars will not be decisively won. Over the past 50 years, he explains, the “golden age” of interstate wars has passed and the world has entered an age of civil and guerilla warfare to which America has been slow to adapt. As a result, the U.S. has become embroiled in unwinnable wars—such as those in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—that cost unnecessary lives and money. In order to avoid a quagmire, exits from these conflicts must be planned much as a chess master plans an endgame. Tierney proposes a strategy centered on the tactic of “surge, talk, and leave,” which requires a seismic shift in understanding the metrics of waging war. Though Tierney’s sensible and clearsighted recommendations come from careful study, American military intractability and the dominance of the military-industrial complex may make his idealic notions difficult to implement. [em](June) [/em]