While the Long War continues to march, four new books have presented challenging and sometimes contradictory conclusions about the war and its lessons for the future. This review essay looks at: the memoir of a Secretary of Defense, a recent RAND study, the cri de coeur of a retired general, and the memoir of a combat veteran and leading coindinista. What follows is not just a review essay, but also an exploration of lessons encountered, but not yet learned. It would be nice to see more work like this fine, short article from the Small Wars Journal. This is really no different from the analytic approach exemplified by Allison and Zelikow in their seminal work on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Essence of Decision. None of the models they use to examine the crisis is without flaw, and yet they all illuminate. Each of the works cited here is itself another model or lens through which we can see the so-called Long War (or at least the past several years of it). In the end, no one lens will reveal Truth, but between them we may find truth enough.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:06:45 +0000
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