How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle

In this piercing and critical text, Rose scrutinises the past century of US military history to argue that despite the ability to dominate the battlefield, the USA has repeatedly demonstrated a failure to create a stable post-war environment. While Iraq and Afghanistan offer potent 21st Century examples, How Wars End convincingly argues that rather than exceptions to the rule, these wars provide further examples of a trend that began with Woodrow Wilson in World War I through to the four US Presidents caught up in Vietnam. How Wars End asserts that creation of a stable political outcome should be the goal of all wartime plans; certainly, the shifting and uncertain contemporary political environment only reinforces the relevance of this text now and into the future.