Fighting the last war lays out the contours of a theoretical framework that explains U.S. presidential decisions to cut losses or double down on major post‐Vietnam military conflicts. The archival sources and principal interviews give readers an insider's look into presidents' conflict decision making. The article explains how the Vietnam War catastrophe shaped Presidents Reagan and Clinton's attempts to avoid a similar quagmire in Lebanon in 1983–1984 and Somalia in 1993, respectively. It then shows how new lessons from 9/11 and beyond shaped Presidents Bush and Obama's decisions to surge troops and employ counterinsurgency strategies in Iraq (2007) and Afghanistan (2009). While Vietnam‐era lessons remained important to all these presidents, pre‐9/11 they believed entrapment risks from incremental escalation were worse than de‐escalation risks. After 9/11, the logic flipped.
Effective national leaders throughout history have deliberately developed grand strategies and successfully implemented them to attain their political goals, while also integrating and accomplishing economic, social, defense, and sometimes religious objectives. Not all leaders have been successful, however, as this process is immensely complex and can be adversely affected by the actions of other leaders around their region and the world. It bears examination, then, to determine what factors contribute to successful grand strategies and why many leaders fail to reach their stated ends. This article utilizes a historic case study approach and explores three key areas of grand strategy: universal principles, Clausewitzian approaches, and indirect approaches. I handle each separately and in distinct fashion, though some connective tissue does interlace across sections. Additionally, the unifying argument is that thoughtful, rational leaders, who weigh the costs and benefits associated with each course of action available to them, still must heed the truths embedded in these three sections to attain their objectives. Not doing so often leads to failure, unrealized goals, and a nation gone awry.
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