WASHINGTON’S WAR

The former commander of United Nations forces in Bosnia examines two wars more than 200 years apart to demonstrate how a small group of determined insurgents can defeat a superpower.

Recently, political commentators have likened the Iraq War to America’s previous misadventure in Vietnam or even to the ancient Athenian campaign in Sicily. Rose (Fighting for Peace: Bosnia, 1994, 1998), however, says that it’s more akin to Great Britain’s misbegotten attempt to forcibly quash the rebellion of her 13 North American colonies in 1776. His admittedly imperfect analogy—he concedes that “enlightened political views” distinguished the American rebels from the extremists of today—yields a number of striking similarities, especially when the author focuses on military tactics and strategy. Rose explains how George Washington, confronting the 18th century’s most powerful army, learned never to fight on too many fronts simultaneously, to send ill-equipped troops against superior forces or to accept a set-piece battle. Today’s Iraqi insurgents, he argues, have learned these lessons well, as each day’s headlines about suicide bombers or improvised explosive devices demonstrate. Rose further explains how Britain, from the outset failing to understand the nature of its enemy, never deployed sufficient troops to subdue the vast American continent. Moreover, a succession of generals (Howe, Burgoyne, Clinton, Cornwallis) failed to efficiently employ the troops available. Unable to provide the security necessary to pacify the populace, the British army found itself isolated from the people, cut off from crucial intelligence and vulnerable to the guerrilla tactics of the patriots. Though Rose admits that events may overtake his analysis—the word “surge” doesn’t appear till the book’s three-quarter mark, and the name “Petraeus” only once—he predicts that America will be forced to withdraw from Iraq as Britain did from America, recognizing that its objectives can no longer be achieved and that the war’s ghastly cost threatens its global power position.

A sharp, efficient discussion likely to interest military historians as well as general readers.