War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory

340 Pages·2017·3.88 MB·English

by  Nadia Schadlow

War and the Art of Governance
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WAR

AND THE
ART

OF
GOVERNANCE
Consolidating Combat Success
into Political Victory
NADIA SCHADLOW
Georgetown University Press | Washington, DC
© 2017 Nadia Schadlow. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Schadlow, Nadia, author.
Title: War and the art of governance : consolidating combat success into
political victory / Nadia Schadlow.
Description: Washington, DC : Georgetown University Press, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2016024175 (print) | LCCN 2016040666 (ebook) | ISBN
9781626164109 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781626164093 (hc : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781626164116 (eb)
Subjects: LCSH: United States. Army—Stability operations. | United States.
Army—Operations other than war. | Postwar reconstruction. | Peace- building.
Classifi cation: LCC U167.5.S68 S33 2017 (print) | LCC U167.5.S68 (ebook) |
DDC 355.02/80973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024175
∞ This book is printed on acid- free paper meeting the requirements of the American
National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
18 17 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First printing
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Jen Huppert.
To Philip, Madeline, George, and Bridget—
who waited a long time
to see proof of something on the shelf
This page intentionally left blank
contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv

Introduction 1
1
American Denial Syndrome: Failing to Learn from the Past 14
2
The Early Years: Improvisation 27
The Mexican- American War 34
The Civil War and Reconstruction 42
The Spanish- American War 53
World War I 65
3
World War II: Building an Organization 93
Civil- Military Tensions 99
Italy 103
Germany 111
Japan 123
Korea 133
4
The Cold War: Illusive Lessons 173
The Korean War 177
The Dominican Republic 188
Panama 194
vii
viii Contents
5
Afghanistan and Iraq: Lessons Ignored 220
Afghanistan 221
Iraq 238

Conclusions 272
Selected Bibliography 285
Index 309
About the Author 321
preface
REMINISCING about his experiences during World War II, Gen. Douglas
MacArthur observed, “Power is one thing; the problem of how to administer
it is another.” His insight remains true today. Over a decade of war in Iraq and
Afghanistan revealed, starkly, that the problem of how to consolidate combat
gains into desired political outcomes has cost America lives and, arguably,
victory in war.
Eight years into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense
Leon Panetta admitted that there did not appear to be a sustained vision of
how to address the political problems of reconstruction. Tellingly, he still saw
the problem as essentially distinct from war proper: “The U.S. military was in
Iraq to fi ght a war. They were not USAID. That’s not their role.” And several
years later, recounting his experiences about the US intervention in Libya,
President Barack Obama regretfully spoke of the “lesson I had to learn that
still has ramifi cations to this day.” While he affi rmed that the intervention
was “the right thing to do,” he acknowledged that he had “underestimated the
need to come in full force” and that there had to be a “much more aggressive
effort to rebuild societies that didn’t have any civic traditions.” He explained
that that was “a lesson that I now apply every time I ask the question, ‘Should
we intervene, militarily?’ Do we have an answer [for] the day after?”
These examples indicate the diffi culty US leaders have had in learning
even from the most recent experiences. Despite substantial work on topics
such as stability operations and postwar reconstruction and important analy-
ses by the Offi ce of the Special Inspector General for Iraq and Afghanistan,
no assessment makes the argument that reconstruction is a central part of
ix