Monday, November 03, 2008

Pg. 99: Christopher Fettweis' "Losing Hurts Twice as Bad"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Losing Hurts Twice as Bad: The Four Stages to Moving Beyond Iraq by Christopher J. Fettweis.

About the book, from the publisher:
Amid all the gloom surrounding the debacle in Iraq, finally here is a highly instructive four-stage plan that will help us move forward.

Now longer than the Civil War, America's conflict in Iraq seems to have no end in sight. A malaise, perhaps greater than that engendered by Vietnam, threatens to undo our national moorings. Christopher J. Fettweis, a military strategy expert, burst onto the national scene with an editorial and NPR interviews that provided an illuminating historical perspective on the ramifications of any great power's defeat. Fettweis contends that Iraq has thrown America into an unprecedented downward spiral, yet he provides a context for America's loss that few political pundits have recognized. With abundant historical comparisons drawn from the American Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, among others, Fettweis charts a natural course of defeat (denial, shock, anger, depression, and acceptance). He offers a prescriptive "grand strategy" that will help us forge a new approach to American foreign policy. This is a book no lover of history can ignore, for there may be a silver lining few have yet realized.
Read more about Losing Hurts Twice as Bad at the publisher's website.

Christopher J. Fettweis is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Tulane University. For the last three years, he taught strategy at the US Naval War College in Newport, RI.

The Page 99 Test: Losing Hurts Twice as Bad.

--Marshal Zeringue