1st Edition
Military Strategy as Public Discourse America's war in Afghanistan
Preface 1. Introduction: Military Strategy as Public Discourse 2. Prolonged Indecision, Not Victory: Fundamentals of Strategic Discourse 3. Boxed In: Policy Discussions of US Strategy in Afghanistan, 2009 4. Counterinsurgency Redux: Doctrine as Public Discourse 5. Victims and Villains: Conflicting Identities in Afghanistan’s War Stories 6. Tell Me How This Ends: Achieving Public Discourse on Military Strategy 7. Conclusion: Authority Without Compulsion
Biography
Tadd Sholtis is a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force and has a PhD in Military Strategy from the Air University.
"Tadd Sholtis has written a compelling book that challenges foreign policymakers to take a new approach to military strategy. Sholtis makes the provocative argument that in a globalized media age, where controlling the message environment is difficult to nearly impossible, the strategic process needs to be more public from its earliest stages and throughout a military engagement. Using the U.S. war in Afghanistan as an often depressing but illuminating example, Sholtis shows how traditional models of developing military strategy shrouded in secrecy and engaged in by small circles of policymakers encouraged groupthink, limited the range of options considered, and ultimately made the strategic decisions not only less accountable but less effective. This is an important book for those who study and engage in foreign policymaking."--Sean Aday, George Washington University, USA.
