Q&A With Gideon Rose on How Wars End

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In Gideon Rose's new book, How Wars End, he argues that American leaders have repeatedly ignored the need for careful postwar planning. But they can and must do a better job -- making the creation of a stable and sustainable local political outcome the goal of all wartime plans, rather than an afterthought to be dealt with once the "real" military work is over.

Drawing on vast research, including extensive interviews with participants in recent wars, Rose re-creates the choices that presidents and their advisers have confronted during the final stages of each major conflict from World War I through Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tom Kneeland: Isn't it true that most wars actually end when both sides get sick and tired of the killings?

A: Yes and no. Wars involve the use of force to achieve political goals, and they end when the belligerents stop using force. But that can happen in several ways. Sometimes one side simply loses the ability to continue, because it has been completely defeated (Nazi Germany in World War II). Sometimes one side can choose to walk away from the fight and does so, giving up whatever was at stake (the United States in Vietnam, considering 1973-75 as a single case). And sometimes the key belligerents on both sides agree to stop and call it a draw (essentially what happened in Korea in 1953). At some point, every war, with the general outcome starting to become clear, enters what might be called its endgame, which is best thought of as a discussion over what the details of the final settlement will be and what will happen after the shooting stops. In my book, How Wars End, I tell the stories of the endgames of American wars over the last century.

Michael Muhammad (via Facebook): Does the rest of the world view America as an empire?

A: That is a very interesting question, because it depends in part on what one means by "empire." Everybody knows that the United States has vastly greater power than other countries and regularly uses that power to pursue its interests. But a lot of times those U.S. interests are widely shared or viewed as reasonably benign. So other countries have been far more accepting of American power than one might expect. In terms of standard international relations theory, there should have been a lot more "balancing" against the United States over the last several decades than has actually occurred. This suggests that the United States is seen as supplying some valuable public goods (peace, prosperity, and so on) for the international system at large, not simply acting like a grasping bully. I discuss these sorts of things in the conclusion of How Wars End, where I make a deliberately provocative argument about what I call America's "grand strategy of progressive global pacification" and why it has generally been good for both the United States and the world at large.

Jose Baba: You write that American leaders have repeatedly ignored the need for careful postwar planning. With all their advisers, military experts, and think tanks, how can they still have planned so poorly and caused thousands of American deaths? When do you think they might stop ignoring good planning?

A: Everyone knows how to lose weight -- eat reasonable amounts of healthy food and get some exercise -- yet Americans still buy millions of crazy diet books every year, chasing some sort of magic bullet to get thin quickly and easily. I think national leaders often do something similar when it comes to the tough questions about war -- they avoid the real choices life throws up, because all the options are at least somewhat unpleasant, and they chase mirages that hold the hope of cheap, easy success. The domestic political system contributes to the problem by making leaders pay a huge price for accepting any outcome less than perfection -- which is, unsurprisingly, hard to achieve. If our leaders were to think clearly about the tough trade-offs involved in war and foreign policy in general; if they were to explain those trade-offs to the public honestly, along with their reasons for favoring one option over another; and if we the people were mature enough to give them credit for such behavior rather than blaming the messenger, things would improve. Is that likely? No. So the best we can realistically hope for is simply that leaders make fewer major unforced errors next time around.

Bhandhasith Charoenpanichpun (via Facebook): What is the interest of United States in Afghanistan?

A: I think the most important U.S. interest in Afghanistan lies in ensuring it does not become, once again, a haven for radical Islamist terrorism. I think the second most important U.S. interest there relates to Pakistan -- trying to make sure that the trouble in Afghanistan does not bleed across the border, contributing to the further destabilization and radicalization of a nuclear-armed state already in critical condition. And I think the third most important interest lies in trying to help Afghanistan and its people escape from the traps of war, tyranny, and poverty -- both because doing so would live up to American ideals and because failing to do so would be a blow to our reputation and credibility. The problem, of course, is that we do not really know how to achieve any of these goals, let alone all of them. So we are stuck muddling through there year after year, largely because we do not want to admit failure.

Abdul Rauf (via Facebook): Can the Afghan war end if the U.S. Army leaves Afghanistan?