With the current U.S. support for Ukraine in the war against Russia and Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago, experts are revisiting the strategic lessons of U.S. military interventions worldwide. Washington’s frequent failure to set clear strategic objectives for engaging in certain wars often leads to security vacuums, political crises, and a lack of lasting peace in the countries that experience U.S. military involvement.
This underscores the importance of a study by Anthony Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), published in June 2023, titled “Key Lessons from Recent American Wars: Failure or Loss in Grand Strategic Terms.” Cordesman highlights the challenges facing U.S. foreign military interventions, particularly in terms of planning, building state institutions in the countries where interventions occur, addressing deep divisions within their societies, and reconstructing or establishing effective military forces in the host nation. He concludes that Washington often focuses on defeating the enemy militarily without considering the post-war phase.
Faulty Strategic Assessments:
The United States has not always been a losing actor in its foreign military interventions. It has achieved significant strategic successes in forming external alliances in Europe, Asia, and with developing nations, as well as playing key roles in bolstering internal security in those countries in the face of external challenges by enhancing their military and security capabilities. Cordesman views the recent Russian-Ukrainian conflict as one of the most prominent American strategic military successes, where the U.S. acted as a strategic partner in countering Russian threats to the West. However, he also presents examples of American mistakes in certain military interventions:
1) China and the Military Engagement Equation: The U.S. military role in China became prominent during World War II. Initially, the U.S. intervened politically to prevent and then mitigate Japanese invasion during the 1920s and 1930s. This eventually evolved into a military presence, supporting Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang party in their fight against communist control. Despite the U.S. backing Chiang, the intervention did not achieve its strategic goals due to a lack of clear objectives and Chiang’s failure to implement necessary military reforms during the global war. After the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War in 1946, the U.S. continued to support and arm Chiang’s forces, although his influence had significantly diminished.
Despite a shift in U.S. policy towards China following President Nixon’s historic visit in 1972 and the subsequent opening of relations, this engagement allowed China’s economy and military to grow in ways that helped Beijing emerge as a global superpower. As a result, China’s civil and military power expanded to the point where the U.S. now sees China as its greatest global challenge, both militarily and politically.
2) The Korean War and Strategic Misjudgment: The Korean War was the first major U.S. military engagement after World War II, but it was also one of its strategic failures. The division of Korea by the U.S. and the Soviet Union into two regions led to heightened tensions. Soviet coordination with the communist North and U.S. coordination with the South set the stage for the Korean conflict, which erupted on June 25, 1950. The U.S. failed to properly assess the growing North Korean military threat and the South’s weak military capabilities, leading to chaotic military efforts at the start of the war.
The U.S. initially struggled due to poor planning and a disorganized response, exemplified by the deployment of underprepared units like Task Force Smith. However, with increased military involvement and international support, particularly from the United Nations, the U.S. established a significant presence in Korea, culminating in a decisive landing at Inchon in September 1950. But this success was overshadowed by a strategic blunder when advancing U.S. forces neared the Chinese border, prompting China to intervene with 70,000 troops. The U.S. was forced into negotiations and an eventual armistice in 1953, leaving Korea divided near the 38th parallel. Despite continued support for South Korea, the U.S. failed to build a representative government or a strong military for the South.
3) Vietnam War and Confronting Communism: The Vietnam War posed major strategic challenges for the U.S., which intervened to contain communism by supporting South Vietnam after France withdrew in 1954. The U.S. became the primary foreign power involved from November 1, 1955, until the war’s end on April 30, 1975. Despite a massive buildup of U.S. forces, which reached 184,000 soldiers by 1964, the conflict culminated in the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973 and a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces within 60 days. This withdrawal marked a strategic failure, as North Vietnam overran the South in 1975.
The Vietnam War demonstrated that effective state-building and the creation of capable military forces in the host nation are critical to long-term success. The U.S. failed to establish a self-sustaining South Vietnamese military, and its lack of realism in building a stable state revealed a deeper strategic failure. Furthermore, Washington’s inability to reassess its strategic priorities once fully engaged in the conflict, combined with its reliance on the “domino theory” (which suggested that a communist victory in Vietnam would trigger a wider spread of communism in Asia), contributed to its defeat.
In summary, U.S. military interventions often succeeded in achieving immediate military objectives, but failed in creating lasting stability or addressing the broader political, social, and strategic challenges required for long-term peace.
Middle East Conflicts:
The United States has played military roles in the Middle East, most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan. These roles can be detailed as follows:
1) Iraq: The United States played a political and diplomatic role during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) without being involved in the fighting or helping build Iraqi forces. Washington’s goal was to ensure that neither side won. This goal was achieved when both parties agreed to a ceasefire following the UN Security Council Resolution 598 in July 1988.
The U.S. position evolved during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, as Baghdad sought to annex Kuwait and its oil wealth, which threatened U.S. interests. In response, Washington formed a broad U.S.-Arab coalition that launched an air and ground assault on Iraqi forces in Kuwait. Despite this strategic success, the U.S. failed to create a stable Iraqi state after the war, as evidenced by its policy of establishing a no-fly zone over northern Iraq starting in April 1991. This led to the emergence of Kurdistan and increased Iraqi military activity, both internally to combat the threat of Kurdish secession and in efforts to launch a counter-attack on Kuwait. However, U.S. deterrence policies and contingency planning significantly limited Iraq’s military expansion.
U.S. strategic military involvement in Iraq became even more pronounced with the invasion on March 20, 2003, aimed at disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. However, it turned out to be a strategic mistake, driven by flawed U.S. intelligence justifying the invasion. The intervention lacked a credible plan for establishing a stable peace. Washington’s assumptions that a peaceful political settlement could be easily implemented, with the distribution of Iraq’s oil wealth and the establishment of an effective democracy, failed to consider the deep divisions between Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs, and Kurds. This led to increased attacks on U.S. forces and the rise of extremist groups like ISIS in Iraq and Syria, while Iran strengthened its ties with Shiite factions in Iraq. The result reflects the strategic military failure of the U.S. in Iraq, as the country remains divided and unstable.
2) Afghanistan: The war in Afghanistan (2001-2021) exemplifies the U.S.’s loss in one of its largest wars without achieving any strategic gains. The war was a reaction to the September 11, 2001, attacks, with little strategic thought about the decision to declare war on the Taliban. After intervening, the U.S. implemented a UN Security Council decision to play a central role in establishing a transitional authority and peacekeeping forces.
The U.S. faced challenges, particularly in creating an Afghan army, air force, and security forces to defend the country. Although Washington launched a civil-military plan to arrange the Afghan scene, these efforts were mostly superficial. They only set broad goals and failed to achieve close coordination between military and civilian efforts. As the war’s cost escalated, the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan without establishing lasting peace or a strong institutional state.
Key Lessons:
Cordesman, in his evaluation of U.S. military interventions since the end of World War II, highlighted two strategic lessons:
1) Lack of a plan to address challenges within host nations: In most cases involving extensive U.S. military presence, Washington failed to address the risks that arose while attempting to support the host governments. It also neglected to deal with the host country’s deep ethnic, tribal, and religious divisions. Washington treated the lack of effective civil economic development, state corruption, and authoritarian governance as secondary issues rather than primary challenges to success. Moreover, it failed to build effective military forces for the host nation.
2) Unclear post-war vision: One of the U.S.’s strategic failures has been the absence of a clear vision for the post-war phase, whether in terms of building state institutions or developing strategies to support military and civil aid for the host nation. This failure is linked to the inability to create realistic assessments of costs and risks. U.S. administrations focused on defeating the enemy militarily without setting clear goals for ending the fighting and creating a stable and beneficial outcome after the war. This issue requires strategic focus on assessing the potential and evolving difficulties of ending the conflict, with the civil aspect of nation-building given the same strategic importance as military combat.
Source: Anthony H. Cordesman, The Key Lessons of America’s Recent Wars: Failing or Losing in Grand Strategic Terms, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), June 2023.
