WAR AND POWER

Disturbing insights on how wars are won.

O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and author of The Strategists (2024), points out that months before Russia invaded Ukraine, American military leaders and political advisors agreed that Russia would quickly crush its neighbor, so any military aid to Ukraine would be wasted. They had been expressing this view for years. These experts were “parroting…the great power paradigm that has been in wide-scale operation since the nineteenth century.” O’Brien emphasizes that that paradigm was always wrong, but it remains a universal belief that great nations defeat small nations and that wars are won by great armies that win battles. Over a century of Britain’s hegemony, it was defeated by the American colonies, failed to conquer tiny Ireland, and almost lost to a collection of Boer farmers. After the U.S. became the world’s superpower, it failed to win wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. O’Brien argues that decisions of national leaders, not geopolitical issues, cause wars that are won by resources and persistence, not battlefield victories. Germany invaded Poland in 1939 because Hitler ordered it. Lincoln knew that Union defeats were not decisive. Finally, major wars are generally won by coalitions of allies willing to fight. The world wars are examples. Germany’s allies (Austria-Hungary and then Italy) were a positive burden. O’Brien adds that President Trump regularly denigrates our allies. That national leaders behave irrationally and that wars rarely turn out as planned are not news, but the author argues that avoiding war is preferable to winning because even glorious victories regularly turn to ashes.

Astute revisionist geopolitics—if not more cheerful than the conventional version.