Winning Modern Wars

In Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire, General Wesley Clark expounds on the pressing security issues that the nation is facing and the major events of the last couple of years.

The best part of the book is Clark’s description of the US-led military operation that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime. I hadn’t read about those battles since they took place, and it’s difficult to comprehend the big picture from daily news reports. Clark elaborates on the challenges the armed forces faced, the military plans, and how those plans evolved in response to unexpected developments. He takes great pride in what the US military accomplished and in the caliber of the soldiers, their technology, and their organization.

The one troublesome aspect of Clark’s account was his indifference about Iraqi casualties, as when he states,

3rd Infantry Division reported killing some 2,000 Iraqi soldiers in the drive across the Euphrates and up to the outskirts of Baghdad.

That one maneuver killed almost as many people as died in the WTC, and Clark casually mentions it in his only reference to Iraqi war dead. Those war dead are a greater concern to me than the glory of the US troops, which Clark emphasizes.

Half of the book covers topics like terrorism, Afghanistan, the lead-up to the Iraqi war, and post-war planning. Though I agreed with most of Clark’s points, those topics are very familiar from other books and articles that I’ve read. Since the book was completed in August of 2003, it doesn’t provide much insight into the current chaos in Iraq.

In the final chapter, entitled Beyond Empire: A New America, Clark presents a broad picture of how he envisions America’s role in the world. It’s largely an attempt to position himself for his subsequent Presidential campaign, and he comes across as a capable potential commander-in-chief. My main quibble is that, despite the chapter's title, he denies the imperial side of US economic and foreign policy.

I had mixed opinions about Winning Modern Wars, since only a third of it, dealing with the military developments in Iraq, contained new information for a current events junkie like me.