Overview
IN 1991 THE UNITED STATES trounced the Iraqi army in battle only to stumble blindly into postwar turmoil. Then in 2003 the United States did it again. How could this happen? How could the strongest power in modern history fight two wars against the same opponent in just over a decade, win lightning victories both times, and yet still be woefully unprepared for the aftermath?
Because Americans always forget the political aspects of war. Time and again, argues Gideon Rose in this penetrating look at American wars over the last century, our leaders have focused more on beating up the enemy than on creating a stable postwar environment. What happened in Iraq was only the most prominent example of this phenomenon, not an exception to the rule.
Woodrow Wilson fought a war to make the world safe for democracy but never asked himself what democracy actually meant and then dithered as Germany slipped into chaos. Franklin Roosevelt resolved not to repeat Wilson’s mistakes but never considered what would happen to his own elaborate postwar arrangements should America’s wartime marriage of convenience with Stalin break up after the shooting stopped. The Truman administration casually established voluntary prisoner repatriation as a key American war aim in Korea without exploring whether it would block an armistice—which it did for almost a year and a half. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations dug themselves deeper and deeper into Vietnam without any plans for how to get out, making it impossible for Nixon and Ford to escape unscathed. And the list goes on.
Drawing on vast research, including extensive interviews with participants in recent wars, Rose re-creates the choices that presidents and their advisers have confronted during the final stages of each major conflict from World War I through Iraq. He puts readers in the room with U.S. officials as they make decisions that affect millions of lives and shape the modern world—seeing what they saw, hearing what they heard, feeling what they felt.
American leaders, Rose argues, have repeatedly ignored the need for careful postwar planning. But they can and must do a better job next time around—making the creation of a stable and sustainable local political outcome the goal of all wartime plans, rather than an afterthought to be dealt with once the "real" military work is over.
Synopsis
IN 1991 THE UNITED STATES trounced the Iraqi army in battle only to stumble blindly into postwar turmoil. Then in 2003 the United States did it again. How could this happen? ...
The New York Times - David E. Sanger
…wonderfully delineated…If there is a common theme running through Rose's chilling yet fascinating account of what can go wrong in the Situation Room, it is this: As the juices begin to flow, the military and civilian leadership always makes winning a military victory Job 1…Eventually, as Rose notes, most presidents find that they have "stumbled across the finish line without a clear sense of what would come next or how to advance American interests amid all the chaos." And they all wind up asking a version of Gen. David H. Petraeus's famous question about Iraq…"Tell me how this ends."
Editorials
Library Journal
Figuring out how to end a war, and gaining the victors' rewards, is often harder than actually prosecuting the war. Rose (managing editor, Foreign Affairs) shows that American leaders have historically had difficulty imagining the end state and following through. Fearful of repeating past errors, they sometimes miscalculate and prolong the conflict or produce unexpected outcomes, as Rose explains by studying American approaches from World War I through Afghanistan. This review of 20th-century war planning will be an important addition to most military collections.Kirkus Reviews
Foreign Affairseditor Rose (co-editor: Understanding the War on Terror, 2005, etc.) finds that American military conflicts of the past century have often ended badly.
In this sharp overview of the late stages of modern wars, the author calmly examines the options facing American leaders and concludes that they "rarely if ever closed out military conflicts smoothly and effectively." Focused on defeating the enemy, writes Rose, leaders often find it difficult to switch gears and construct a stable political settlement. Looking at the endgames of six conflicts, the author observes that the United States was generally unprepared to end the war: In World War I, President Wilson failed to understand how difficult it would be to achieve his ambitious goals. In World War II, America lacked backup planning for the breakup of the Allied alliance, which led to world instability rather than harmony. In the Vietnam War, Nixon was unable to extricate the country from a mess created by his predecessors. In each instance, Rose details the key machinations of belligerents late in the war and shows how, through combinations of factors, U.S. leaders failed to achieve their political goals. He blames much of this failure on the "flawed" clear-division-of-labor approach to war, in which civilians deal with political matters and military leaders with military matters. National policy must inform all aspects of war, he writes. As for the Iraq War, the United States stumbled into postwar turmoil "woefully unprepared for the aftermath." In all these conflicts, U.S. leaders failed to think through clearly in advance what the war was supposed to achieve. They simply did not plan ahead. Nor did they consider the advice of Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military theorist who addressed such matters at length. Without careful planning and precisely defined goals, writes Rose, military leaders find themselves at the mercy of events, often playing it by ear.
Essential reading for national policymakers.
David E. Sanger
…wonderfully delineated…If there is a common theme running through Rose's chilling yet fascinating account of what can go wrong in the Situation Room, it is this: As the juices begin to flow, the military and civilian leadership always makes winning a military victory Job 1…Eventually, as Rose notes, most presidents find that they have "stumbled across the finish line without a clear sense of what would come next or how to advance American interests amid all the chaos." And they all wind up asking a version of Gen. David H. Petraeus's famous question about Iraq…"Tell me how this ends."—The New York Times
From the Publisher
"A chilling yet fascinating account of what can go wrong in the Situation Room.” —The New York Times Book Review“A smart new book.” —Fareed Zakaria, The Washington Post
“A subtle and elegant book.” —Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
“Thought-provoking. . . . An excellent volume to begin the process of postwar planning and to consider how to use history as a model to address the complex issues involved in ending a war.” —U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings
"How Wars End is of tremendous value to soldiers and policymakers.... Buy it, read it and think about it." —Army Magazine