The Right Way to Lose a War

April 13, 2015
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.

April 15, 2015
A manifesto that offers alternative stratagems to waging war in a changing geopolitical landscape. Maybe the supercomputer in the 1983 film War Games got it right about war: "The only winning move is not to play." But simply choosing not to fight isn't enough in an age when America is already embroiled in two traditional conflicts, the blood bath of Syria, a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and the undying war on terror. In this natural follow-up to his previous book, How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War (2010), Tierney (Political Science/Swarthmore Coll.) doesn't just analyze, although there are plenty of examples drawn from ancient and modern history. Instead, he offers a cogent argument and concrete strategies for minimizing loss of life by assessing the risk-benefit ratio of a given conflict. "First of all," he writes, "we must realize that the outcome of war is not a binary like victory or defeat-where only victory is tolerable....Achieving a draw rather than a catastrophic loss may be a profile in courage that saves thousands of American and allied lives." His strategy rests on three central tenets: a "Surge" to undermine counterinsurgency and lessen the risk of a fiasco; "Talk," which uses diplomacy and negotiation to effect an honorable exit; and "Leave," exiting the conflict zone with a clear plan for political succession and healing of veterans. Hawks may view Tierney's platform as defeatist. However, when he uses historical facts to illustrate the costs of what he calls "The Dark Age"-in which America has suffered embarrassing defeats and inexcusable human losses in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere-it's hard not to think that there must be a better way, win or lose. Tierney is clearly not optimistic about real change in the near future, but his useful book's coda offers some interesting long-term strategies to avoid endless war in the future.

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May 15, 2015

Despite the persistence of the ideal of American exceptionalism, the United States has found itself in a stalemate or worse in four of the five armed conflicts since the end of World War II. With this in mind, Tierney (political science, Swarthmore Coll.; How We Fight) seeks to lay out a blueprint on strategies for America to disengage from these foreign policy fiascoes while not abandoning its values, interests, and responsibilities. The focus here is what the author calls "surge, talk, and leave" and presents a variety of outcomes that can be pursued based on what the goals and reality of a mission may be. The results-oriented perspective is a refreshing take on wars, focusing on the practical endgame rather than the often emotional arguments about the genesis of these conflicts. This is a well-reasoned, highly accessible, and potentially provocative work; while readers may detect a center-left bias from the author, he uses both history and political science to help make his case. VERDICT By keeping foreign policy jargon to a minimum, Tierney's eminently readable work will surely find great interest from readers of popular military history and strategy and from academic readers with an interest in foreign policy. [See Prepub Alert, 8/11/14.]--Ben Neal, Richland Lib., Columbia, SC

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