The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons

Following an introductory chapter on the limits of analysis, The Iraq War devotes about 40 pages to the forces involved on both sides, nearly 100 to the course of the war, about 370 to "lessons" of various kinds, and about 50 to "the civilian aspects of nation building and the challen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Air & space power journal 2005, Vol.19 (2), p.107
Main Author: Hughes, Daniel J
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Armed forces
Failure
Iraq War-2003
Military strategy
Nation building
Nonfiction
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Summary:Following an introductory chapter on the limits of analysis, The Iraq War devotes about 40 pages to the forces involved on both sides, nearly 100 to the course of the war, about 370 to "lessons" of various kinds, and about 50 to "the civilian aspects of nation building and the challenge of winning the peace." Among the dozens of mistakes that contributed to or even caused these problems, a few seem particularly noteworthy: failure of the National security Council to perform its mission; failure of the Department of Defense (and others) to create a working interagency approach to planning and executing peacemaking; reliance on civilian officials more expert in ideology than in policy; placement of coalition headquarters in the middle of Baghdad; failure of military leaders to prepare plans for combat termination; failure of the US military culture to look beyond war fighting despite numerous warnings; and so forth.
ISSN:1555-385X
1554-2505