Thinking beyond War Civil-Military Relations and Why America Fails to Win the Peace

Why was there a deliberate plan to fight the war in Iraq but none to win the peace? This question, which has caused such confusion and consternation among the American public and been the subject of much political wrangling over the past two years, is the focus of Lt. Col. Isaiah Wilson's investigation. Director of the American politics, policy, and strategy program at West Point, Wilson points to a flaw in the government's definition of when, how, and for what reasons the United States intervenes abroad. It is a paradox in the American way of peace and war, he explains, that harkens back to America's war loss in Vietnam. The dilemma we face today in Iraq, the author says, is the result of a flaw in how we have viewed the war from its inception, and Wilson reminds us that Iraq is just the latest, albeit the most poignant and tragic, case in point. His exploration of this paradox calls for new organizational and operational approaches to America's intervention policy. In challenging current western societal military lexicon and doctrine, Wilson offers new hope and practical solutions to overcome the paradox once and for all.

Lt. Col. Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III, USA, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he directs the American Politics, Policy, and Strategy program in the Department of Social Sciences. He is a former Army aviator and military strategist with peace enforcement and combat experiences in the Balkans in the 1990s and later in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, where he served initially as a researcher and military historian on former Chief of Staff of the Army, General Eric Shinseki’s Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group (OIFSG) and later as chief of plans for the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) under the command of General Dave Petraeus during that unit’s 2003-04 tour of duty in Northern Iraq.