{"title":"The Surge Misunderstood","authors":"Christopher D. Kolenda","doi":"10.5810/kentucky/9780813152769.003.0035","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Why was the U.S. unsuccessful in turning successes achieved during the surge into a durable political outcome? This chapter offers three related arguments: the desire to withdraw reduced U.S. bargaining leverage; the reduction in violence led U.S. officials to overestimate Maliki’s inclusiveness; and U.S. leverage was further dissipated by civil-military tensions and strategic incoherence in theater. The surge had not been designed to alleviate either of those aspects.","PeriodicalId":235305,"journal":{"name":"Zero-Sum Victory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Zero-Sum Victory","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813152769.003.0035","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Why was the U.S. unsuccessful in turning successes achieved during the surge into a durable political outcome? This chapter offers three related arguments: the desire to withdraw reduced U.S. bargaining leverage; the reduction in violence led U.S. officials to overestimate Maliki’s inclusiveness; and U.S. leverage was further dissipated by civil-military tensions and strategic incoherence in theater. The surge had not been designed to alleviate either of those aspects.