Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-scsgl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-07T01:49:07.159Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - Why Did We Lose?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  aN Invalid Date NaN

Paul D. Miller
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Get access

Summary

Some common themes emerge from these lessons about strategy and bureaucracy. The statesman and strategist also need wisdom to take the long view, prudence to discern what is practical, persistence and fortitude in implementation, courage to overcome groupthink and pride and bureaucratic resistance, temperance and humility to toil in unglamorous details. Above all the strategist must have a passion to pursue justice and peace. Statesmen and stateswomen need wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. If that is true, such timeless principles do not apply only to the individual policymaker. They apply to the nation we serve. American foreign policy should be characterized by wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice; our role in the world should serve those principles. Our grand strategy should take the long view, be practical and aware of our limits yet also courageous and visionary, fearless and uncompromising in the face of obstacles. Above all it must aim at justice – which means it must serve American interests, but it must do so with an awareness of how our interests are entwined with others.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Choosing Defeat
The Twenty-Year Saga of How America Lost Afghanistan
, pp. 467 - 495
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Why Did We Lose?
  • Paul D. Miller, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Choosing Defeat
  • Online publication: 07 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009614382.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Why Did We Lose?
  • Paul D. Miller, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Choosing Defeat
  • Online publication: 07 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009614382.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Why Did We Lose?
  • Paul D. Miller, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Choosing Defeat
  • Online publication: 07 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009614382.016
Available formats
×