Why America Loses Wars
Limited War and US Strategy from the Korean War to the Present

This provocative challenge to US politics and strategy maintains that America endures endless wars because its leaders no longer know how to think about war.

Donald Stoker (Author)

9781009220866, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 May 2022

340 pages
22.8 x 15 x 2.1 cm, 0.53 kg

'The book was very enjoyable and thoughtful. I would highly recommend it to anyone who works in or has interest in national security, modern military history, and military strategy.' Col. Robert Sherrill, Military Review

How can you achieve victory in war if you don't have a clear idea of your political aims and a vision of what victory means? In this provocative challenge to US political aims and strategy, Donald Stoker argues that America endures endless wars because its leaders no longer know how to think about war, particularly wars fought for limited aims, taking the nation to war without understanding what they want or valuing victory and thus the ending of the war. He reveals how flawed ideas on so-called 'limited war' and war in general evolved against the backdrop of American conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These ideas, he shows, undermined America's ability to understand, wage, and win its wars, and to secure peace. Now fully updated to incorporate the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Why America Loses Wars dismantles seventy years of misguided thinking and lays the foundations for a new approach to the wars of tomorrow.

1. Are We at war? What Do We want? And Do We Want to Win?
2. The Way We Think about War (Particularly So-Called Limited War) Is Broken: Here Is How We Fix It
3. The Political Aim: Why Nations Fight (Limited) Wars
4. Constraints: Or Why Wars for Limited Political Aims Are So Difficult
5. Strategy: How to Think about Fighting for a Limited Political Aim
6. And You Thought the War Was Hard: Ending the War and Securing the Peace
Conclusion: Is History Rhyming?

Subject Areas: Warfare & defence [JW], International relations [JPS], Military history [HBW], History of the Americas [HBJK]