Unwinnable Wars: Afghanistan and the Future of American Armed Statebuilding by Adam Wunische. Polity Press, 2024, 224 pp.
Unwinnable Wars captures the United States’ exasperation with its two-decades-long struggle at armed statebuilding in Afghanistan. Author Adam Wunische, an instructor at George Washington University’s Elliott School, served in Army Intelligence and as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Wunische’s thoughtful critique forces the reader to question the wisdom of reconstructing the Afghan state through military intervention, or what the US military terms “stability operations” (16). Yet Wunische seeks to understand not just “what went wrong in Afghanistan” but also why such operations “never go right” (ix). His central argument is that as the United States decides to engage in such efforts, overwhelming “uncontrollable forces and preexisting conditions” determine the outcome. That is, as armed state-building could not be won in Afghanistan, every other failed attempt at such operations has occurred because the same preexisting structural factors create “overdetermined,” inescapable conditions (8).
US operations in Afghanistan from 2001 to the end—when twenty years of blood and treasure were erased in nine shattering days—provide the overarching backdrop for a sociological and structural review of these preexisting factors. While some are ancient in origin, like inaccessible geography or the powerful constructs of race, ethnicity, and religion and the complex dynamics that come with them, other factors—like socioeconomic underdevelopment and interest asymmetry—create conditions that an intervening force cannot unravel.
The book then tackles the effects of time on various actors. This section moves beyond the argument of announced timetables and investigates time as a distinct concept unavoidably connected to all factors. Unfortunately, time favors the reality of those occupied, an understanding the book best captures in the proclamation of one Taliban fighter: “You have the watches; we have the time” (47).
The book then delves into dilemmas that all intervening forces must contend with. Wunische points out that statebuilding for the intervening state is not an existential endeavor, yet the subjugated group is constantly threatened by extinction. The resulting difference in will is often underestimated.
The final piece of groundwork examines the paradoxical nature of intervention itself. Perhaps the most obvious but frequently missed dilemma is dependency. Once an intervening force is introduced, the supported side becomes dependent, thus exacerbating interest asymmetry. The new government needs the United States and its money, and this dependency actively undermines progress. The longer the intervening force stays, the more damage is done. But here is the rub: leaving also inflicts grave damage because the new government is essentially a shell, having relied on US money and institutions instead of building a foundation for itself. The result in the case of Afghanistan was a government that collapsed in just over a week after two decades of statebuilding. Thus, as the book argues, the only way to avoid this trap is to not intervene in the first place.
Throughout these assertions, Wunische uses historical examples of US military intervention from early 1900s operations in Haiti to post-World War II statebuilding efforts. He also uses contemporary and ongoing efforts to show how the foundations for overdetermined failure or success exist in all such armed stabilizing attempts.
After establishing the overdetermined factors, Wunische transitions from a review of the past and presents a framework so policymakers may avoid future mistakes. Critically, he does not articulate the factors as problems to be solved but rather as criteria to judge the probable outcome of armed state-building and, therefore, US intervention in the first place. What starts with a desire to understand ends with the revealed purpose of convincing readers of the need to practice restraint and strategic patience, and perhaps to encourage nonintervention.
Unwinnable Wars is an applied case study in structural realism that provides depth to theory and evidence to abstraction. The author presents evidence from public statements of leading officials, data from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report, and arguments from leading international relations theorists. He also challenges current literature and common beliefs by diving deeper into the historical record. He directly disputes sources such as former CIA analyst and National Security Council staffer Paul Miller and retired US Army General David Petraeus, former CIA director and commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, who have argued that the United States needed to do more to succeed. Critically, Wunische dismisses arguments that point to current single causal factors of a particular policy or military strategy and ignore the interaction of variables and systems. He refutes leading counterfactual ideas, showing they all miss the underlying determinates.
In presenting a comprehensive framework, Unwinnable Wars thus presents and tests its theory against ongoing and recent crises. While it challenges policymakers to understand where the United States would get the most for its effort—although no operations are winnable if the same overdetermined factors are present, intervention may be possible in some areas depending on policy aims—it does not deride individuals for their choices. Wunische understands that all players are trapped by structures and system pressures.
Unwinnable Wars should be on the nightstand of every policymaker, politician, and strategist. It presents the most comprehensive understanding of fundamental elements that overdetermine the success or failure of armed statebuilding. If there is a gap in theory, it is only in categorization. Is empire-building a form of armed statebuilding? Did the United States’ expansion westward and destruction of Native Americans constitute stabilizing operations? Wunische cautions against empire-building, implying that it is morally fraught. Although he will likely receive little pushback on that claim, the question remains: If a country is willing to colonize another, can that overcome the overdetermined factors outlined in the book? Or perhaps that line of questioning only illustrates the author’s point: the “cult of action” runs deep in US culture and doctrine and tempts policymakers to believe they can figure out a way to make such efforts work (182).
Ultimately, Wunische’s evidence-based framework may help future generations make better decisions about the United States’ actions in the global arena. Unwinnable Wars provides the simple wisdom that perhaps the best choice is never initiating armed state-building.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Kissinger, USAF