Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan

摘要

Frank Ledwidge's Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan sets out to indict the British military for failure in Afghanistan and Iraq and for a self-deluding belief in its counterinsurgency mastery that caused the failure. In his deployment to Iraq as a reserve intelligence officer and to Afghanistan as a civilian justice advisor on a Provincial Reconstruction Team, Ledwidge saw the British army prove that it could fail as quickly as the US in fighting an insurgency despite its record of success in small wars. His unrelenting indictment of the British performance captures the big picture of failure, but loses some credibility due to these unrelenting attacks. He misses the chance to develop a nuanced analysis based on his experiences, relying instead on broad, widely discussed explanations of the failure, with personal observations thrown in that all support the indictment. From his book, we know this was a disaster, but miss a deeper understanding of why and how this turned into one.