The Illusion of Victory The True Costs of Modern War

War is a necessary evil - something we endure when we are under threat or when our cause is just. And under these circumstances, we see humanity at its bravest and most noble. Wrong. THE ILLUSION OF VICTORY analyses two centuries of warfare involving Western nations - from Waterloo to current conflicts in Afghanistan, Gaza and Iraq - and systematically demolishes every argument that is put forward to justify going to war. By looking at the victors and the vanquished at the end of a major war and then a generation later, Ian Bickerton finds that the rewards of victory in war never last long... He finds that, objectively, it is impossible to tell who was the winner and who was the loser a mere twenty-five years after a war has ended. From Napoleon to Hitler, from the Crimea to the Western Front and the Pacific Theatre, leaders have always convinced their nations that fighting a war is the right thing to do. But, as the proportion and number of civilian casualties have mounted dramatically to the point where they now form a staggering 90 per cent of all war deaths, such arguments ring ever more hollow. Bickerton boldly confronts the question that most are too afraid to even think: if we cannot tell who won a war, is it ever worth fighting at all?

Ian Bickerton (Author) : Ian J. Bickerton is Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the School of History and Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He is internationally known for his writings on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and he recently co-authored Unintended Consequences: The United States at War.