The United States Has No War Strategy — War Is Boring

The United States Has No War Strategy

A multi-trillion-dollar bridge to nowhere in the Greater Middle East

by ANDREW BACEVICH

We have it on highest authority — the recent killing of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan marks “an important milestone.”

So the president of the United States has declared, with that claim duly echoed and implicitly endorsed by media commentary — The New York Timesreporting, for example, that Mansour’s death leaves the Taliban leadership “shocked” and “shaken.”

But a question remains — a milestone toward what, exactly?

Toward victory? Peace? Reconciliation? At the very least, toward the prospect of the violence abating? Merely posing the question is to imply that U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Islamic world serve some larger purpose.

Cont.....