Choosing Defeat

Reviews / Votes

'This is a remarkable and important book - erudite and detailed, yet pithy and provocative. As a soldier, intelligence analyst, policymaker, professor, and scholar, Paul D. Miller has certainly earned his right to write this book and offer his take on the history of America's Afghanistan experience. More, he has helped us understand what went so badly wrong there, even though Americans like him who served can take some solace that the war helped prevent another 9/11 despite its ultimate failure to achieve larger objectives.' Michael O'Hanlon, Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy, the Brookings Institution, and author of To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution 'Paul D. Miller's detailed accounting of how the US lost the war in Afghanistan is an important, sobering analysis that every new policymaker should read.' Kori Schake, Director for Foreign and Defense Policy, American Enterprise Institute 'Paul D. Miller argues that the problem in Afghanistan was not too much reliance on counterinsurgency and nation-building, but too little - and flawed, inconsistent, rushed implementation where they were undertaken at all. His perceptive, penetrating analysis is essential reading for anyone interested not just in Afghanistan but in civil warfare and stabilization generally.' Stephen Biddle, Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University 'It is rare to find this level of honest critique of events in which one participated, and we should be grateful for Miller's fortitude in confronting these truths. ... As the War in Afghanistan is dissected by historians, Miller's book will be recognized as an essential part of the understanding of the conflict and a roadmap of errors to avoid in future wars.' Mike Nelson, Providence