Zero-Sum Victory: What We're Getting Wrong About War

About this book

2021 Foreword INDIES Gold Winner for War & History Why have the major post-9/11 US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances in the United States favor significant capacity-building efforts and repeated tactical victories by what many observers call the worlds best military the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned intractable. The US governments fixation on zero-sum decisive victory in these conflicts is a key reason why military operations to overthrow two developing-world regimes failed to successfully achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In Zero-Sum Victory retired US Army colonel Christopher D. Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the governments insistence on zero-sum victory. First the US government has no organized way to measure successful outcomes other than a decisive military victory and thus selects strategies that overestimate the possibility of such an outcome. Second the United States is slow to recognize and modify or abandon losing strategies; in both cases US officials believe their strategies are working even as the situation deteriorates. Third once the United States decides to withdraw bargaining asymmetries and disconnects in strategy undermine the prospects for a successful transition or negotiated outcome. Relying on historic examples and personal experience Kolenda draws thought-provoking and actionable conclusions about the utility of American military power in the contemporary worldinsights that serve as a starting point for future scholarship as well as for important national security reforms.