Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 138

WHY WE LOST: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Daniel P. Bolger, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, New York, 2014, 544 pages F rom the moment the first promotional advertisements appeared, much was expected of Why We Lost, retired Lt. Gen. Dan Bolger’s reflections on the last 14 years of war. Some hoped that it would be a comprehensive account of operational and strategic decision making that would illuminate the many missteps made over the course of many years. Others hoped fervently it would be an homage to the Army that, like the closing scene of every episode of Scooby Doo, would blame faulty execution of perfect plans squarely on “meddling” politicians. A few expected a detailed analytical study of the many successes and failures experienced by the Army in two protracted wars of attrition. Finally, there are certainly those who hoped that, based on the provocative title, a senior member of a very limited elite would finally cry mea culpa for promoting war as an instrument of national policy in the first place. Sadly, none of the above expectations are realized in Bolger’s book. Why We Lost is a tremendous disappointment, one that fails to measure up to the level of Bolger’s previous works. The book opens hopefully enough, with a rueful recollection of how political correctness forced the Joint Staff to repackage Operation Infinite Justice as Op