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A review by nerdofdoom
On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace by Donald Kagan
1.0
Kagan is trying to justify Bush era preemptive strike policy and aggressive foreign wars by using and comparing historical examples of failed peaces. This would more accurately say "...and the preservation of the status-quo", because the authors idea of "peace" is first strike wars against those who threaten it.
The one thing that really bothers me the most is that the examples he uses (the Punic wars, WW1, WW2)are all certainly illustrative of the consequences of leaving a tenacious enemy half defeated, but have little bearing on what it means to become involved in warfare in this modern age. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq to see that it is not a matter of crushing an enemy completely to secure victory, this simply can not be done in a insurgent style war. Anyone who reads the U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field manual, or reads any of the modern theorists on insurgent warfare (which is really all that is happening anymore) can see for themselves that destruction of the enemy by force is an unrealistic approach to this kind of warfare and that military success will never look the same again as it did even sixty years ago. It's not enough to completely destroy the enemy and remove his ability to make war because the enemy is not an army, and he makes war in the shadows with nothing but scraps.
Kagan and his children are notorious insiders. His son Frederick Kagan is credited with conceiving of the famous "surge" in Iraq, his son Robert Kagan is a notorious neo-conservative who was directly involved in the bush era insanity (see his books). The U.S. went into Iraq with a "let's just smash 'em up and go home" attitude, and IT DIDN'T WORK. How soon after Bush declared victory did it become clear that there was no victory to be had then, or ever? immediately. these guys want nothing more than a conventional war like their fathers had, with the pitched field battles like their fathers fought, but they can not have them. We will all pay the price for this desire of these few militant men in high places who want so badly the glory of days long past.
The one thing that really bothers me the most is that the examples he uses (the Punic wars, WW1, WW2)are all certainly illustrative of the consequences of leaving a tenacious enemy half defeated, but have little bearing on what it means to become involved in warfare in this modern age. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq to see that it is not a matter of crushing an enemy completely to secure victory, this simply can not be done in a insurgent style war. Anyone who reads the U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field manual, or reads any of the modern theorists on insurgent warfare (which is really all that is happening anymore) can see for themselves that destruction of the enemy by force is an unrealistic approach to this kind of warfare and that military success will never look the same again as it did even sixty years ago. It's not enough to completely destroy the enemy and remove his ability to make war because the enemy is not an army, and he makes war in the shadows with nothing but scraps.
Kagan and his children are notorious insiders. His son Frederick Kagan is credited with conceiving of the famous "surge" in Iraq, his son Robert Kagan is a notorious neo-conservative who was directly involved in the bush era insanity (see his books). The U.S. went into Iraq with a "let's just smash 'em up and go home" attitude, and IT DIDN'T WORK. How soon after Bush declared victory did it become clear that there was no victory to be had then, or ever? immediately. these guys want nothing more than a conventional war like their fathers had, with the pitched field battles like their fathers fought, but they can not have them. We will all pay the price for this desire of these few militant men in high places who want so badly the glory of days long past.