Because War is a Failure

The overarching message is that war is caused by a failure of political systems and the inability of all countries to maintain strong demonstrable deterrence.

The conflicts in the Middle East have unfolded similarly to the war in Vietnam. Review of the conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan reveals that they all evolved via insurgencies and stabilization operations into stalemates or withdrawal. Lack of a clear strategy, including both goals and objectives, resulted in protracted asymmetrical warfare, loss and injury to civilians and military personnel, and wasting shocking amounts of equipment and money. The author concludes that the conflicts have not ended unfavorably because of lack of will, poor military leadership, or lack of resources. The most common cause for reaching stalemate was failure to produce the political results that the world's leaders wanted. A second cause was external forces taking over the responsibility for security from the sovereign nations in conflict. A third cause was ignoring differences in culture. Those were just the tip of the iceberg. The overarching message is that war is caused by a failure of political systems and the inability of all countries to maintain strong demonstrable deterrence.

COL (Ret.) Walter L. Steve Mayew served in the United States Marine Corps and the United States Army for more than thirty-three years. His service included tours in two of the Army's Special Forces Groups and assignments from Battery to Division Artillery, which provided experience in insurgencies and conventional operations. He also served in the paper trenches of the Pentagon in a number of assignments before his retirement to Niceville, Florida. COL Mayew also wrote Dealing with the Decades, an operator's manual for people from birth to their nineties. The book considered human needs and those predictable events, emphasizing the importance of knowing what to expect in each decade.