THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

The fact that America wins wars and loses the peace is supposed to be great mystery.

This is WhitakerOnline, and what we do here is explain the obvious. We kill mysteries.

For instance respectable conservatives say that leftism is brilliant and idealistic but flawed. They say the failures of liberalism and socialism and Communism are mysterious and complex.

Meanwhile, back here in the real world WhitakerOnline lives in, leftism is just plain silly.

By the same token there is nothing complicated about why we win wars and lose in the post-War period.

You are watching America win a war and lose a peace right now. Once again, everybody will say that there is something terribly complicated about what is wrong with our post-war strategy.

Again, the real problem is not complicated. When we talk about the war we have clear goals and are practical. The instant we start talking about post-war policy we get silly.

We win wars because our planning for war makes sense. We lose the post-War because our planning for the post-War period is always ridiculous.