Contents

List of Illustrations

Glossary of Key Actors

The Past as Prologue: The Vietnam War

Part I. Toward a War Termination Framework

1. Further Defining War Termination

2. The Decisive Victory Paradigm Undermines Strategy for Irregular War

Part II. The Pursuit of Decisive Victory in Afghanistan

3. Light Footprints to a Long War

4. Plans Hit Reality: A Recent History of Bad Neighbors and Worse Governance

5. The Fall of the Taliban and the Bonn Conference

6. America’s Bureaucratic Way of War

Conclusion to Part II

Part III. Persisting in a Failing Approach

7. Accelerating Success, 2003–2007

8. Failing to Keep Pace with the Insurgency, 2007–2009

9. The Good War Going Badly

10. Surging into the Good War

11. More Shovels in the Quicksand

12. Misapplying the Iraq Formula

13. Assessments and Risks

Conclusion to Part III

Part IV. Ending the War in Afghanistan

14. Reconciliation versus Transition

15. Reconciling Reconciliation

16. Competing Visions: Karzai, Taliban, and Pakistan

17. Exploratory Talks: Building and Damaging Confidence

18. Coming Off the Rails

19. Fallout: BSA, Bergdahl, and the 2014 Elections

Conclusion to Part IV

Part V. Pursuit of Decisive Victory in Iraq

20. Operation Iraqi Freedom: Plans without a Strategy

21. A Complicated Approach to a Complex Situation

22. From Decisive Victory to Transition

Conclusion to Part V

Part VI. Staying the Course in Iraq

23. Achieving Milestones While Losing the War

24. Trapped by Partners in a Losing Strategy

25. Mirror Imaging Civil-Military Relations

26. To Surge or Not to Surge: A Possible Win Beats a Certain Loss

27. A New Plan on Shaky Foundations

Conclusion to Part VI

Part VII. Ending the War in Iraq

28. The Surge Misunderstood

29. The Absence of a Political Strategy Erodes US Leverage

30. New Administration, Similar Challenges

Conclusion to Part VII

Part VIII. Implications

31. Iraq and Afghanistan Compared

32. Implications for US Foreign Policy

33. Implications for Scholarship

Key Events in the Afghanistan Conflict

Key Events in the Iraq Conflict

Acknowledgments