Summary: Slowly America begins to come to grips with its defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, as experts provide simple easy explanations. Here we look at the 3rd such major article, a demonstration that the main lesson of our defeats is that we refuse to learn from them. Eyes tightly closed we stumble onto a rough road to the future. {2nd of 2 wars.}
“Why Has America Stopped Winning Wars?“
by Dominic Tierney
(Assoc Prof of political science, Swarthmore)
Excerpt from his new book
“Since 1945, the United States has experienced little except military stalemate and loss — precisely because it’s a superpower in a more peaceful world.”
Prof Tierney vividly demonstrates one reason America keeps losing: our US-centric view of the world. It’s all about us. As with health care and other public policy issues, we have little interest in the experience of other nations — and so draw stunningly bad conclusions on our little history.
Why does the United States struggle in war? How can it resolve a failing conflict? Can America return to victory? Today, these are critical questions because we live in an age of unwinnable conflicts, where decisive triumph has proved to be a pipe dream.
We can’t win, so obviously nobody can win. This displays an amazing blindness to history. The post-WWII era of anti-colonial wars ended in 1992 (i.e., Afghanistan vs. the USSR) with a series of decisive wins by local peoples over foreign armies. It’s been an age of victory parades, not unwinnable conflicts.
And then, all of a sudden, the United States stopped winning major wars. The golden age faded into the past, and a new dark age of U.S. warfare emerged. Since 1945, Americans have experienced little except military frustration, stalemate, and loss.
This drastically misunderstands the situation, but illustrates the US-centric world view which so hobbles US foreign policy. We are not in a dark age of “US warfare”. Armies of developed nations and armies of emerging nations have all ventured to foreign lands to crush insurgencies — and most suffered defeat. This “dark age” began when Mao brought 4th generation warfare (4GW) to maturity after WWII. Since then the odds have shifted towards the insurgents.
Local governments still usually defeat insurgents, but local insurgents usually win once foreign armies take a leading role. They have the fighting with the home court advantage (e.g., knowledge of the local language and culture; Tierney mentions this). See the For More Information section for studies about this record.
“Since 1945, the United States has experienced little except military stalemate and loss — precisely because it’s a superpower in a more peaceful world.”
No, that’s not why we lose. It’s the fourth generation of modern warfare, with its own characteristics. We will continue to lose until we think more seriously about how to wage it. That means studying the history of all post-WWII conflicts. We must learn how to pick the conflicts worth our involvement (high stakes, with acceptable odds of victory), and learn what tools (e.g., aid, training, combat forces) work best in various kinds of conflicts. I see little evidence we have begun this process.
Other posts in this series: why does America keep losing?
These matters are more extensively discussed in the previous posts in this series.
- Are we chickenhawks and so bear the responsibility for our lost wars since 9/11?
- Does America have the best military in the world?
- Is victory impossible in modern wars? Or just not possible for us?
- Why we lose so many wars, and how we can win — a summary at Martin van Creveld’s website.
- A powerful new article shows why we lose so many wars: FAILure to learn.
For More Information
Pat Lang (Colonel, Special Forces, retired) writes a powerful description of the US Army’s diminished interest in the kind of local knowledge that winning these wars requires.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about military theory, especially these about the history of foreign armies fighting insurgencies since WWII …
- Max Boot: history suggests we will win in Afghanistan, with better than 50-50 odds. Here’s the real story.
- A major discovery! It could change the course of US geopolitical strategy, if we’d only see it. — Andrew Exum (aka Abu Muqawama) points us to the doctoral dissertation of Erin Marie Simpson in Political Science from Harvard about the history of counter-insurgency.
- A look at the history of victories over insurgents. — A study by RAND.
- COINistas point to Kenya as a COIN success. In fact it was an expensive bloody failure.
- A lesson about counterinsurgency that could change America’s future. — The 2 kinds of insurgencies.
