An opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal.
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Honor Veterans by Having the Will to Win a War
If civilian leaders send troops into battle without a commitment to victory, who will sign up to serve?

By H.R. McMaster

On Veterans Day, it’s hard to look away from the catastrophe in Afghanistan. The consequences of a war lost through incompetence, delusion and self-defeat will reverberate beyond South Asia. In America, the lack of commitment to win in war, apparent in a humiliating surrender to the Taliban and an ignominious retreat from Kabul, risks eroding trust between servicemen and -women and their civilian and military leaders. If leaders send men and women into battle without dedicating themselves to achieving a worthy outcome, who will step forward to volunteer for military service? Who will offer to endure hardship, take risk and make sacrifices? Winning in Afghanistan meant ensuring that Afghanistan never again became a haven for jihadist terrorists. America and its coalition partners had the means to do so with a low, sustained level of support for Afghans who were bearing the brunt of the fight on a modern-day frontier between barbarism and civilization.

But three presidents in a row told the American people that the war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth continued sacrifice. It became typical for citizens to profess support for the troops but not the war. That sentiment was preferable to the derision directed at veterans who fought under difficult conditions in Vietnam. But American warriors won’t long trust a society that doesn’t believe in what the nation is fighting for—as they kill others and risk their own lives.

Winning in war also means convincing the enemy that he is defeated. America’s quick-fix approach to Afghanistan, with persistent promises of imminent withdrawal, made the war longer and more expensive than it needed to be. It weakened Afghan allies; it strengthened the Taliban, their terrorist allies and their Pakistani sponsors.

Winning in war also requires consolidating military gains to achieve an enduring political outcome. In Afghanistan this meant an Afghan government hostile to jihadist terrorists, with security forces capable of withstanding the regenerative capacity of the Taliban. But the Obama and Trump administrations stopped actively targeting the Taliban, gave the enemy a timeline for U.S. withdrawal, and then pursued a negotiated settlement. To rationalize their ambivalence about the outcome of the war, civilian leaders and even some generals used terms like “responsible end” as a substitute for victory. Many leaders simply didn’t show the same determination to win as the warriors they sent into combat.

The long war against jihadist terrorist organizations isn’t over; it is entering a new, more dangerous phase. America’s rivals—including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran—are emboldened. They are watching a Defense Department that seems to focus more on climate change than being prepared to fight, one that promotes postmodernist theories that undermine the warrior ethos and valorize victimhood. Our leaders have an obligation to protect the warrior ethos and build America’s military capabilities, rather than promote destructive philosophies and attempt to solve problems better handled by other departments.

On Veterans Day, we should thank the men and women who served in Afghanistan and the families who gave their last full measure of devotion. We should assure them that America’s war in Afghanistan was a just response to the most devastating terrorist attack in history.

As President George W. Bush observed on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, “You have shielded your fellow citizens from danger. You have defended the beliefs of your country and advanced the rights of the downtrodden. You have been the face of hope and mercy in dark places. You have been a force for good in the world. Nothing that has followed— nothing—can tarnish your honor or diminish your accomplishments. To you and the honored dead, our country is forever grateful.” But we might also ask American veterans to serve again on the day designated to honor them. Veterans are best equipped to explain to those on active duty that they are part of a living historical community that is proud of them for volunteering to serve at a critical time. Veterans might tell young warriors that we need them to remain ready to fight because wars don’t end when one party disengages. And we might ask veterans to explain to those considering military service the intangible rewards, especially being part of an endeavor larger than themselves and working on a team that takes on the qualities of a family. America needs our best young men and women to volunteer to serve in the armed forces—even more after our withdrawal from one theater in a war that continues.

Mr. McMaster, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, served as White House national security adviser, 2017-18. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of “Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.”

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigfreund,

We haven't truly won a war ( in the sense of consolidating military gains to achieve an enduring political outcome, as the author puts it) since the War Department was changed to the Defense Department after World War II. Korea left a lot of unresolved issues that still plague us today. Vietnam, loss. The Gulf War, we achieved a limited set of objectives, so could be called a tactical victory, but again, left unresolved issues. Iraq, tactical victory but strategic blunder. And now Afghanistan. The Taliban might have taken over eventually, but they didn't need it handed to them on a silver platter.

What does it mean to “win” a war?

If it requires something like what the Allies accomplished against Germany and Japan in World War II, we have won one war: that one (and as I explain below, only because of how we’ve defined the word).

Nothing like the nominal WWII victory was accomplished against the British during the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, the Korean War, or any other, from long to short. The closest we came to a WWII type victory since the War Between the States was probably the Second Persian Gulf War.

If, however, we define “win” as achieving all the goals of the conflict, then we didn’t win WWII either. The USSR failed to honor the promises it made and the world ended up with a situation not too much different—and far more dangerous—than in Korea. So if we didn’t “win” in Korea, how can we say we won the Second World War? Yes, the bad WWII situation was due to one of the (ultimate) Allies, but the US and UK didn’t continue the conflict against that new enemy to make things right. (And I agree that something like that would have been politically and militarily impossible, but just because an action is unavoidable doesn’t make it any less of a defeat.)

We should also not forget that the “unconditional surrender” demands were far from universally accepted as sound policy on the Allies’ side during the war. Some would argue that because Japan’s surrender was subject to implied conditions (retention of the Emperor) and the failure to hold all German and Japanese criminals accountable for their horrific war crimes made their surrenders far from unconditional in fact.

As for Korea, one of my high school teachers objected to something I said about the conflict with, “They fought us to a standstill.” Well no, we fought them to a standstill if we look at each side’s goals. The North Koreans were the initial aggressors and then the Chinese took over. At no time were the US/UN forces the aggressors in any rational sense than the Soviets were aggressors against Germany because they fought back and moved west or the US was an aggressor in the war because we invaded Italy or Okinawa. But more to the point, how could we have possibly defeated China (and probably the USSR) in the Korean War in the same way Germany and Japan were defeated? That beggars belief and fortunately the military and political leaders recognized and accepted the fact at the time.

What’s obviously different about WWII, Korea, and a number of smaller conflicts than Vietnam and now Afghanistan is that despite being points ahead, we simply got tired, picked up our balls, and went home. If we can debate whether other conflicts have been defeats for the US, there is no question that those two were. And it wasn’t only the Left that demanded those defeats, especially the most recent.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigfreund,