Skip to content

Was Iraq the “Best-Run War”?

Foreign Policy runs a piece suggesting that Iraq was “America’s best-run war,” but adding “that doesn’t make it a model.”

The piece runs through an “analysis of the U.S. military’s role in three wars of the past decade — Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya… Category by category, on a notional, worst-to-best 1-10 rating scale (intended not as holy writ, but to spark discourse), a review of six of the nine principles” that strategist Harry Summers used to analyze Vietnam.

“The principles are, in the order he used them: the objective, the offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise, and simplicity.” (free registration required)

Recent Stories

As MAGA base grows anxious, Trump warns Iran’s supreme leader is ‘easy target’

Former Sen. Bob Menendez starts prison term in corruption case

Iowa Democrat launches third challenge to vulnerable GOP Rep. Miller-Meeks

Trump departs G7 summit early after warning Tehran should be evacuated

Security concerns shake Congress in the wake of Minnesota slayings

Senate’s spectrum proposal raises aviation safety question