Melanie, Chris, and guest host Claude Berube discuss the promise and pitfalls of exit strategies. When policymakers plan to embark on foreign wars, should they also prepare a plan for extricating the nation from these wars when they are completed? Is an exit strategy a vital component of strategy? Or do exit strategies create unreasonable expectations of easy victory? Can an exit strategy focus attention on a desired end state, and prevent mission creep? Or are prudent adjustments only possible when policymakers are not shackled to pre-war objectives? Chris congratulates New England Patriots’ coach Bill Bellichick on victory number 300, Melanie blasts Sean Duffy for questioning a decorated U.S. Army officer’s patriotism, and Claude delivers a Net Assessment first -- a heartfelt attadog for his beloved four-legged companion, Reagan.

 

Links

• David Kampf, "When Are Exit Strategies Viable?" War on the Rocks, October 14, 2019
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• Richard Fontaine, “The Nonintervention Delusion: What War Is Good For,” Foreign Affairs, November-December 2019
• Spencer Ackerman, “Baghdadi Is Dead. The War on Terror Will Create Another,” Daily Beast, October 28, 2019
• Doug Bandow and Christopher Preble, “Lost in the Furor Over Syria: Alliances Are a Means, Not an End,” War on the Rocks, October 23, 2019
• Ashley Feinberg, "This Sure Looks Like Mitt Romney's Secret Twitter Account," Slate, October 20, 2019
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• "The Weinberger Doctrine," Washington Post, November 30, 1984
• Jason Whiteley, "No Exit, No Problem," Small Wars Journal, April 21, 2011
• James Nolt, "Exit Strategy," World Policy," World Policy, February 23, 2017