GoKawiilWhy is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?
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The U.S. has been at war for more than 20 of the past 25 years in three major conflicts all in the same region. First, Afghanistan, then Iraq, now Iran.
U.S. presidents said overwhelming American miliary firepower would decide all these wars swiftly. Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. military needed just weeks to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and President Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003. Under President Trump, the U.S. bombing campaign, assisted by Israel, killed many of Iran's leaders on the first day of the war and hammered the country at will.
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Yet time and again, raw military might has not translated into clear political success and the kind of fundamental change the U.S. has sought. Today, the Taliban are running Afghanistan. Iraq has achieved a measure of stability, but still struggles on many fronts after a long, brutal war. Iran's theocratic regime remains in place, the war still unresolved.
Why is the U.S. finding it so hard to win wars?
"We generally do a pretty good job of the breaking things and killing people at the inception of the wars," said Peter Bergen. He's the author of a new book, All The Presidents' Wars, which looks at U.S. conflicts over the past quarter-century. Bergen, a national security analyst at CNN, said the U.S. keeps falling short when it comes to ending wars.
"We, the United States, tend to not plan for the day after — the peace that follows the war," said Bergen.
A reliance on military power over diplomacy
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