Basil H. Liddell Hart: His Applicability to Modern War
By Colonel (Retd) Phillip Meilinger USAF
This article was first published in Air Power Review Volume 20 Number 3, 2017.
Biography: Phillip Meilinger is a retired USAF Colonel; he has served as a command pilot, staff officer and educator. He was a staff officer in the Pentagon during the First Gulf War, taught at the Naval War College and was dean of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies. He holds a PhD from the University of Michigan and has published extensively on air power and military theory, doctrine and operations.
Introduction
‘There are two thousand years of experience to tell us that the only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old idea out.’[1]
Basil H. Liddell Hart was born in Paris to English parents. He was educated at Cambridge, and when war broke out in 1914 he joined the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry Regiment. As a lieutenant he was wounded at Ypres, the Somme, and was gassed at Mametz. In 1924 he was invalided out of the Service in the rank of captain due to his combat injuries. The war experience mentally and intellectually scarred him for life.[2]
After leaving the Army, Liddell Hart began to write — he needed an income to support his family. At first he focused on tactics and wrote doctrine manuals for the British Army, but he then expanded his horizons and became a historian and military editor for Encyclopaedia Britannica, the London Daily Telegraph and finally The Times. His output was prodigious: he published scores of books and articles. He was also a close advisor to Britain’s War Department during the 1930s.
Liddell Hart is perhaps best known for his articulation of a theory of war that he referred to as the ‘Indirect Approach’ — in essence, the opening of a second front or a strategic flanking movement against a powerful enemy. His emphasis on these types of manoeuvres was deliberately attuned to his desire to limit the risk of British casualties in war. Liddell Hart had been appalled and repulsed by the ‘mausoleums of mud’ that he had witnessed in the Great War.[3] To his mind, this type of bloody, attritional warfare was the result of a Clausewitzian mind-set gone terribly wrong. The Prussian theorist had declared that war was slaughter, and the generals of the Great War took him at his word. Clausewitz had believed that one should always strike the enemy where he was strongest and that ‘blood is the price of victory’. [4] Liddell Hart referred to Clausewitz as ‘the Mahdi of mass and mutual massacre’ and instead turned his intellect and his pen to the effort of finding an alternative. [5]
Initially, he considered air power — in particular strategic bombing — as a possible solution to stalemate and the bloody frontal assaults that had characterized the late war. As early as 1923 he was arguing that the next war would be dominated by aircraft and armoured forces working together. [6] In 1925 he wrote an interesting book entitled Paris, Or the Future of War. Paris did not refer to the capital of France, but rather the Trojan prince in the Iliad who had slain the mighty Achilles by shooting him with an arrow. In other words, rather than take on the world’s greatest warrior in hand-to-hand combat, Paris chose to limit his risk in an indirect and long-range approach to attack his opponent. Liddell Hart believed that although Clausewitz had written of three general objects in war — military power, the country itself, and the will of the populace, leaders and forces — he criticized the Prussian for placing ‘will’ last in his triumvirate rather than first. The listing of military forces as the primary objective in war was to him a massive error. [7] The result of this mistake was what Liddell Hart referred to as ‘mechanical butchery’. [8] He blamed the generals, on both sides, for being ‘obsessed’ with the Prussian theorist. To the infantryman who had survived the carnage of the Somme, this was insanity: ‘The strongest will is of little use if it is inside a dead body.’ [9]
In Paris, Liddell Hart saw strategic bombing as an alternative to a ground battle bloodbath and endless attrition. He had witnessed how relatively few German Zeppelin and bomber attacks had caused panic in some of Britain’s major cities, and he imagined such bombing raids as becoming commonplace in any future war:
Imagine for a moment that, of two centralized industrial nations at war, one possesses a superior air force, the other a superior army. Provided that the blow be sufficiently swift and powerful, there is no reason why within a few hours, or at most days from the commencement of hostilities, the nerve system of the country inferior in air power should not be paralyzed.[10]
Air power would avoid the bloody trench stalemate of the Great War; it would be a vertical envelopment and second front against an enemy, and it would dramatically lower the cost of war as well as its attendant risk. In a wise but desolate observation, Liddell Hart plaintively asked: ‘Of what use is decisive victory if we bleed to death as a result of it?’[11]
Over the next two decades, Liddell Hart would move away from the strategic air power model, but would still expound the virtues of an indirect approach to limit risk, both tactically and strategically.[12] Tactically, he became a proponent of mechanized warfare — one of his most noted works was a history of the Royal Tank Corps — combined with tactical air operations. In addition, his belief in air power’s ability to maintain control of the sky remained strong: ‘if it [air power] were driven out of the sky our defence structure would crumble quicker than from any other cause.’[13]
Liddell Hart then searched throughout history for examples where campaigns and battles succeeded or failed depending on whether a direct or indirect approach had been used. In 1929 he wrote The Decisive Wars of History where he first laid out this thesis. He continued to refine and update this work (The British Way in Warfare, 1933), and the culmination of this effort appeared in 1954 in his book, Strategy in which he stated: ‘throughout the ages, effective results in war have rarely been attained unless the approach has had such indirectness as to ensure the opponent’s unreadiness to meet it. The indirectness has usually been physical, and always psychological.’[14] He reviewed 280 campaigns throughout history and determined that only six times was success achieved as a result of ‘a direct strategic approach to the main army of the enemy.’[15] Unfortunately, in his survey of these campaigns he often blurred the distinction between the different levels of war, sometimes hailing an indirect approach as a result of a grand strategic manoeuvre — Wellington in the Peninsula, Gallipoli in 1915; other times it was at the operational level — Thomas Jackson in the Shenandoah Campaign of 1862 and William Sherman’s march to the sea in 1865; and still others at the tactical level — Frederick the Great at Leuthen in 1757, James Wolfe at Quebec in 1759, and Napoleon at Austerlitz, 1805. This willingness to move up and down the ladder of war at will rendered his analysis suspect. Unquestionably, Liddell Hart was disingenuously selective in the campaigns and battles that he surveyed — highlighting some and ignoring others to suit his pre-established thesis.
Yet, the strategy of indirect approach articulated by Liddell Hart held the kernel of very important ideas. For any nation loath to incur heavy casualties or debilitating costs, his indirect approach made sense. To his mind, this was the wise strategy that had been followed by Britain for centuries: ‘we endeavoured to limit our military effort to a minimum. By this grand strategy we conserved our strength, while applying what was used where the enemy was weakest.’[16] Elsewhere he wrote: ‘It is the function of grand strategy to discover and exploit the Achilles’ heel of the enemy nation; to strike not against its strongest bulwark but against its most vulnerable spot.’[17] It was also interesting that he began Strategy with a series of quotes from Sun Tzu and others that foreshadowed his own views. The importance of the unexpected in war — at any level — was well known through the centuries. Surprise, however attained, was considered a basic principle of generalship. Liddell Hart simply tried to codify that principle, quantify it, and highlight its importance in modern war; especially he wished to catch the attention of civilian and military leaders in Britain.
Liddell Hart was sickened by the carnage of the Great War, and especially Britain’s role in it. In his view, ‘limited liability’ meant that his country should fight its wars relying heavily on sea power; significant land forces were contemplated only if Continental allies were willing to bear the greatest burden of battle.[18] British history had proven to him the wisdom of this limited liability strategy and indirect approach. He argued that ‘The aim of a nation in war is to subdue the enemy’s will to resist, with the least possible human and economic loss to itself.’[19] Sending massive armies to the Continent was seldom a good idea.[20]
To Liddell Hart, the British strategy of 1914 jettisoned this wise traditional policy and contradicted three centuries of history — a history marked by great successes over powerful enemies. He blamed this disastrous shift on Field Marshal Henry Wilson, who before the war had become enamoured with the thoughts of the French soldier (later Marshal), Ferdinand Foch. Wilson tied himself — and more importantly, the British Army — to a major confrontation with Germany on the Continent: ‘shallow thought [was] deformed by slavish imitation of Continental fashions.’[21]
Nonetheless, despite this misguided decision, Liddell Hart maintained that Britain was justified in sending an army to France in 1914 due to alliance solidarity. But those forces should have been withdrawn in 1915 and used elsewhere in the traditional British fashion when it became clear the Western Front had stagnated. The horrible British offensives at the Somme and Passchendaele were to him nearly criminal in their stupidity: ‘It was heroic, but was it necessary? It was magnificent, but was it war? A supplementary yet separate question is whether it even benefitted our allies in the long run. Did we, more pertinently, sacrifice our security, our mortgage on the future, for a gesture?’[22] Liddell Hart believed that operations in Gallipoli and Salonika — if they had been given more support in London — would have provided far more positive results than four years of trench carnage.[23]
Significantly, Liddell Hart’s contemporary and military historian in the first half of the twentieth century was of the same mind. John Frederick Charles Fuller was a career officer in the British army, seeing extensive action in the Great War. He was an early proponent of the tank, and speculated that if the war had continued into 1919 this new mechanical weapon would have had a decisive influence. Following the war, he rose to the rank of major general while continuing to be one of the foremost advocates of mechanized/tank warfare. At the same time, like Liddell Hart, he became a prodigious writer, churning out dozens of books and articles of outstanding quality.[24] In one of these books, a collection of essays titled Watchwords, he expounded on ideas that sounded much like those of Liddell Hart.
Fuller noted the unique ability of Britain, because it had command of the seas for the previous two centuries, to possess the initiative. Writing during World War II, Fuller argued that Adolf Hitler ‘failed to appreciate the inner meaning of sea power,’ which meant that ‘an island power, so long as it commands the seas, in spite of the number of land battles it may lose, can never fully be deprived of the initiative.’ In strategic terms, this granted an enormous advantage because even though sea superiority may be dormant part of the time, ‘all that is required to awaken it is the establishment of a bridgehead within striking distance of the enemy.’[25] He continued on regarding the virtues of sea supremacy, noting that ‘a continental power cannot completely wrest the initiative from an island power except by successful invasion.’[26] But of course, British sea control would make an enemy invasion virtually impossible. The ‘Strategy of the Second Front’ as Fuller viewed it, was not a new issue in British history because it had been followed so often in the past. Its purpose was clear: ‘our object was not to engage in the main campaign, but instead to divert and to distract by means of a secondary operation, the aim of which was to compel the enemy to look in two directions and divide his forces.’[27] More to the point, such a strategy would limit the risk and expense of the country employing it. Clearly Fuller also believed an ‘indirect approach’ was synonymous with ‘limited liability’. Of great importance, Fuller then noted that control of the air above the seas was becoming essential. Air power’s unique abilities and characteristics meant that it, like sea power before it, would grant the initiative to its user during war.
Liddell Hart and Fuller were not the first to advocate this type of warfare. Around 400 BC a Chinese military writer who has come down to us by the name of Sun Tzu wrote on the theory of war. Sun Tzu’s major argument was that successful generals strove to avoid attacking an enemy head on. Rather, a sense of moderation was necessary; generals should seek to wear out their enemy before attacking, and, indeed, if the enemy could be defeated without battle that was even better. He wrote: ‘All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are near. Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder and strike him…. where he is strong, avoid him.’[28] More emphatically, he also wrote: ‘To capture an enemy’s army is better than to destroy it … To subdue an enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.’[29] This notion — that battle was sometimes unnecessary — was scoffed at by Clausewitz who later wrote: ‘Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst.’[30] To Clausewitz, unbridled violence was essential in war.
To Sun Tzu, on the other hand, deception and surprise were the keys to success; attacking a strong enemy behind fortifications was almost never a good option. Instead of hitting the enemy’s strength — his fielded army — Sun Tzu advocated that one should hit his weaknesses: ‘The enemy must not know where I intend to give battle. For if he does not know where I intend to give battle he must prepare in a great many places. And when he prepares in a great many places, those I have to fight in any one place will be few.’[31] In this sense, Sun Tzu is often termed the anti-Clausewitz.[32] It should never be the strategy of a general to expend lives or treasure. Liddell Hart and Fuller were certainly aware of Sun Tzu — his first translation into English occurred in 1910 — but the Chinese strategist did not become widely known in the West until after World War II. At that point, the revolutionary theories of Mao Zedong, who claimed to be a student of Sun Tzu, caused a re-examination of the ancient text. One author, in a method similar to that of Liddell Hart, examined a number of historical campaigns, concluding that those who followed Sun Tzu’s dictums regarding the desirability of striking an enemy unexpectedly and indirectly were generally successful, while those who followed a Clausewitzian model of hitting an enemy’s strength head-on usually suffered defeat — and did so at great cost.[33]
Now the US, UK and other nations have been engaged for fifteen years in debilitating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The strategy employed to defeat Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Iraqi forces and now ISIS has consisted largely of a direct approach — tens of thousands of conventional ground troops that occupied territory and sought to engage the enemy in a climactic and bloody battle. That strategy has not worked very well. It’s time to reconsider the ideas of Liddell Hart.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the US responded quickly and forcefully by attacking Afghanistan where al Qaeda was being sheltered. Initially, strikes were led by land and sea-based air power while conventional ground forces slowly deployed over the ocean. The combination of air power, often directed by special operations forces (SOF), along with intelligence assets and indigenous ground forces, threw back the Taliban and al Qaeda. On 9 November 2001, the Northern Alliance captured the stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif, and three days later the capital of Kabul. Twelve days after the fall of Kabul, the first US conventional ground forces arrived in Afghanistan.
The situation in Iraq had been largely stable since Saddam Hussein’s surrender in 1991. The decade-long air blockade was successful in keeping him in his cage. Despite nearly 200,000 combat sorties flown, not one aircraft was downed. CENTCOM commander General Anthony Zinni lauded this achievement: ‘Containment worked. Look at Saddam — what did he have? He didn’t threaten anyone in the region. He was contained. He had a deteriorated military. He wasn’t a threat to the region. . . We contained day-to-day, with fewer troops [airmen] than go to work every day at the Pentagon.’[34] Zinni was one of the few senior officers to counsel against the invasion.
The attack into Iraq in 2003 was intended to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction, as well as to remove any al Qaeda soldiers found in Iraq. In addition, the George W. Bush administration hoped that with the removal of Hussein, Iraq could be transformed into a democracy. Although a worthy goal, it would prove difficult to accomplish.[35]
Over the next few years, things began to unravel in Afghanistan and Iraq. Political decisions were made to disband the Iraqi army and police forces, and all Baath Party members were banned from holding public office. When rioting and looting broke out, US troops were ordered to stand aside. Tens of thousands of ground troops attempted to occupy and pacify Iraq, but only served to roil the populace. The humiliating scandal of Abu Gharib struck a heavy blow to US credibility.[36] In Afghanistan, President Obama dispatched 34,000 combat troops to the country, but the situation there, as in Iraq, deteriorated.
By mid-2006 it was clear that Iraq was in chaos and American strategy was failing.[37] A new plan was needed to put the situation back on track. General David H. Petraeus was tapped to put things right. Petraeus had just published a new doctrine manual on counterinsurgency that was hailed as an intelligent explanation of why insurgencies began and were sustained, and, more importantly, how to defeat them.
Some extra troops were sent to Iraq, but more important than numbers were strategic and tactical moves: more Iraqi police were added, and warlords were paid off in what became known as ‘cash for cooperation.’[38] US troops moved out of their bases to mingle more in the villages. Things improved. Fewer Americans died and there were fewer attacks on Iraqi citizens. Even so, one general on the ground later commented that the new doctrine of counterinsurgency resulted in ‘not a win, but no longer a descent into chaos. . . . The hope for victory was long gone. Salvage became the order of the day.’[39] ‘Vietnamization’ occurred — the war was increasingly turned over to the Iraqis as Americans withdrew.
Things were little better in Afghanistan where tens of thousands of occupation troops stirred resentment. In 2009 Petraeus moved to Afghanistan to replicate his ‘success’ in Iraq. Yet, tribal identities and conflicts are even worse in Afghanistan.[40] Moreover, Washington and CENTCOM seemed not to understand the strong link between al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Pakistani intelligence bureaucracy. Attempting to close-off the border (a key goal to isolate the rebels) was futile given the stance of the Pakistani government.[41]
Thousands of American and allied troops have died along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians. Trillions of dollars have been spent, and the situation continues to deteriorate. Democracy in both countries seems unreachable, and chronic warfare between various factions continues unabated. New ideas are needed.
The emergence of air-delivered precision weapons allows a discrete application of force. Military operations now plan to minimize casualties and collateral damage to civilians. Avoiding risk to our forces is also a factor in the increasing use of unmanned air vehicles. We cannot afford to allow our aircrew members to be captured, tortured and murdered by ISIS.
Besides precision weapons, networked operations and near-instantaneous global communications and intelligence have revolutionized how the US and its allies fight. Planners must focus on strategies that maximize the chances of achieving political success at the least cost in blood and treasure. Commanders must seek forces, strategies, tactics and weapons that will gain advantages at the least risk and cost. An indirect approach in order to limit liability seems to offer a path: the ideas of Basil Liddell Hart are once again of importance.
For example, in Afghanistan SOF troops teamed with the Northern Alliance (backed by ubiquitous ISR assets and Coalition air power) resulted in a rapid and stunning victory. Moreover, the Northern Alliance was always outnumbered by the Taliban — at Mazar-e-Sharif, for example, 5,000 Taliban in defensive positions confronted 2,000 Northern Alliance troops.[42] But the Northern Alliance had air power behind them, with targets called-in and directed by SOF.
Consider also the opening stages of the Iraq war in 2003. There were thirteen Iraqi divisions positioned in the north to defend against an invasion from Turkey — which never occurred due to Turkish objections. Instead, the Kurds, along with 600 SOF, plus the 173rd Airborne Brigade that was air-dropped into Bashur — without its heavy equipment that had been left in Turkey — took the offensive. On 30 March 2003 the Iraqi 4th Division was destroyed, followed by the 21st Division; the 81st and 38th Divisions fell on 2 April. The entire northern front collapsed on 10 April with the 5th Iraqi Corps surrendering, and Kirkuk fell to Coalition troops. In the words of one observer:
In short, against all pre-war expectations, SOF operations in northern Iraq were fantastically successful. Despite numerous logistical and political obstacles, a small SOF group working with unskilled indigenous allies and highly constrained airpower defeated a significant portion of Iraq’s army. Moreover, it did so without suffering a single American death.[43]
Without suffering a single American death. Indigenous troops were essential for these operations — as they had been in the Balkans when Kosovars benefited from NATO air power. Of importance, these indigenous forces were not considered of high quality prior to hostilities. The Kosovars and the Northern Alliance, for example, were deficient in quantity, quality, training and weapons — they had proven largely unsuccessful in fighting the Serbs or the Taliban previously. Yet, when stiffened with SOF and air power and guided by ubiquitous intelligence assets, they were successful. In Libya, air power teamed with indigenous opposition forces to bring down the long-standing regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 — with zero casualties to NATO forces.[44]
The vital interests of the US and UK are seldom at stake; instead, they intervene to punish aggressors or topple particularly inhumane dictators in an attempt to bring peace to troubled regions. In order to achieve success, public support must be maintained, but one of the surest ways to lose this support is to suffer high casualties or, worse, inflict them on the societies we are attempting to help. The goal of limiting cost and casualties is hindered by the introduction of large numbers of conventional ground troops.
As Liddell Hart had suggested, political results can be achieved by the use of an indirect approach that not only can be successful, but also limits cost — it grants a limited liability. Religious, cultural and ethnic differences so endemic in the Middle East can perhaps be bridged by the correct use of military force. In one of his typically astute observations, Liddell Hart wrote: ‘To strike by fire alone at the great number of points in the shortest time over the widest area and without ever making contact in the present tactical sense.’[45] This is the essence of his theories.
But discovering the correct balance and formula for achieving such results requires a very delicate and deft strategy. The combination of air power, SOF, indigenous forces and ISR seems to be a winner.
Notes
1. Basil H. Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War (London: Faber & Faber, 1944), 115.
2. The events of his life are recounted in Basil H. Liddell Hart, The Liddell Hart Memoirs, 2 vols. (NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965).
3. Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War, 189.
4. Basil H. Liddell Hart, The British Way in Warfare (NY: Macmillan, 1933), 100.
5. Regrettably, the sanguinary theories of Clausewitz re. the necessary bloodiness of war are still with us. Victor Davis Hanson argues in Carnage and Culture (NY: Doubleday, 2001) that the Western Way of War has always been one of slaughter: attritional and bloody slugfests that are waged due to Western notions of personal honour. For the quote and Liddell Hart’s views on what he saw as the insanity of Clausewitz, see his The Ghost of Napoleon (London: Faber & Faber, 1933), 120.
6. Liddell Hart, Memoirs, I, 138.
7. Basil H. Liddell Hart, Paris, or the Future of War (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Tubner, 1925), 11.
8. Liddell Hart, Memoirs, I, 140.
9. Basil H. Liddell Hart, The Way to Win Wars (London: Faber & Faber, 1942), 14.
10. Liddell Hart, Paris, 40–41.
11. Ibid, 20.
12. Liddell Hart objected to the imprecision of strategic bombing that offended his sensibilities — he seemed to have no such qualms regarding the indiscriminate nature of artillery barrages, sieges or blockades.
13. Basil H. Liddell Hart, Dynamic Defence (London: Faber & Faber, 1940), 45. This was written shortly before the Battle of Britain that proved the statement’s accuracy.
14. Basil H. Liddell Hart, Strategy (NY: Praeger, 1954), 25.
15. Ibid, 161.
16. Liddell Hart, Dynamic Defence, 44.
17. Liddell Hart Thoughts on War, 152.
18. Basil H. Liddell Hart, The Defence of Britain (London: Faber & Faber, 1939), 44–50.
19. Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War, 42.
20. Liddell Hart appreciated the brilliance of Marlborough and Wellington, but thought such genius was rare.
21. Liddell Hart, Memoirs, I, 282–83; Basil H. Liddell Hart, The British Way in Warfare (NY: Macmillan, 1933), 7.
22. Liddell Hart, British Way in Warfare, 15.
23. Basil H. Liddell Hart, A History of the World War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1935), 183.
24. For excellent biographies of Fuller and his influence on military thought, see Brian Holden Reid, J.F.C. Fuller: Military Thinker (NY: St. Martin’s, 1967); and Anthony John Trythall, “Boney” Fuller: Soldier, Strategist, and Writer, 1878–1966 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1977).
25. Maj Gen J.F.C. Fuller, Watchwords (London: Skeffington & Son, 1944), 84–85.
26. Ibid, 119.
27. Ibid, 121.
28. Sun Tzu, The Art of War (trans. and ed. by Samuel B. Griffith) (NY: Oxford University Press, 1963), 66–67. Significantly, the Foreword to this edition was written by Liddell Hart.
29. Ibid, 77.
30. Clausewitz, On War, 75.
31. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 98.
32. Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought (London: Frank Cass, 2nd ed., 1996), passim. For the best treatment putting Sun Tzu in an overall Chinese context, see William H. Mott IV and Jae Chang Kim, The Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture: Shih vs. Li (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
33. Bevin Alexander, Sun Tzu at Gettysburg (NY: Norton, 2011).
34. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (NY: Penguin, 2006), 22.
35. It was not a foolish notion: after the fall of the Soviet Union several of the former provinces became independent and formed democratic governments. In addition of course, Japan became a stalwart democracy after WWII despite no democratic tradition in its long history.
36. Ricks, Fiasco, 150–67, 197–200.
37. Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008 (NY: Penguin, 2009), 36.
38. Ricks, Gamble, 202–09. As can be imagined, this was a highly controversial programme that was seen by some as rewarding insurgents who had killed American troops.
39. Lt Gen Daniel P. Bolger, Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2014), 255, 257.
40. Ibid, Chapter 13.
41. Carlotta Gall, The Wrong Enemy: American in Afghanistan, 2001–2014 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2014). Recall that Osama bin Laden resided comfortably in Pakistan for years, obviously with the government’s full knowledge.
42. Richard B. Andres, Craig Wills and Thomas E. Griffith, Jr., “Winning with Allies: The Strategic Value of the Afghan Model,” International Security, 30 (Winter 2005/06), 139.
43. Richard Andres, “The Afghan Model in Northern Iraq,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 29 (June 2006), 412.
44. Karl Mueller argues this view strongly in Chapter 13 of his important study: Karl P. Mueller (ed.) Precision and Purpose: Airpower in the Libyan Civil War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2015).
45. Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War, 277.
