How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle
Surveying the settlements of America’s wars since WWI, Rose analyzes reasons for the manner and substance of their conclusions. The way a war ended, he holds, can be tied to the quality of pre-armistice or -surrender planning for the postwar situation, a problem to which he applies concepts in international relations (realism, bureaucratic politics, domestic politics). Those terms don’t portend a wonk’s book, however. Rose, the editor of Foreign Affairs, writes with clarity for general readers puzzled by mistakes national-security experts seem to make over and over again. According to Rose, American generals, diplomats, and presidents, obsessed with the military endgame, often don’t clarify their political intentions until the shooting stops. Varied in its effects, such neglect ranges from surmountable, as in the aftermath to WWII, to intractable, such as in Vietnam or Iraq. Rose also identifies another factor complicating the termination of war: cherry-picking lessons from a previous war that have dubious applicability to the present one. Public spirited and accessible, Rose’s presentation should impress anyone hoping for better management of war and peace by Washington. --Gilbert Taylor