Customer Reviews

Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History

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Publishers Weekly writes many short blurbs for Amazon. And they usually do a great job. Unfortunately, their assertion that Lewis veers close to arguing that "might makes right" is completely wrong. Consider Lewis's take on the Third Punic War--which he says was not a war at all but rather a massacre:

"Rome was wrong; the peace of Scipio Africanus was good, and the Romans could have preserved it by just mediation of the Carthaginian complaints. The Romans appointed a successor to Masinissa in 149; they could have ended the Numidian attacks. It is to Romans' eternal shame--there is no credit due here--that they slaughtered a former enemy that had accepted peace and was living by its word.

"Readers tempted to interpret the thesis of this book as the need for total destruction of an enemy's population centers should consider the decades that followed the Second Punic War, when former enemies were at peace, with the needless sacrifice of that peace in the destruction of Carthage--and the civil unrest and violence that followed in the next generation for the Romans. . . .

"The Second Punic War remains the example of a successful victory," says Lewis at chapter's end. The Third was "a needless and unforgiveable slaughter."

The idea that "might makes right" is nowhere in the above. Nor is it to be found elsewhere in the book. Lewis in fact explicitly states that the opposite is true. After showing how the "relative commitment of each side to its moral cause . . . affected the outcome of [each] conflict," Lewis says that something more than just commitment is involved. "The truth," according to Lewis, "matters"--"the strongest power belonged to those who were, in fact, right, if those who were right knew it."

"This may be unfashionable to say today--in an intellectual climate that sunders fact and value, and understands moral claims as inherently contested matters of opinion--but it remains a demonstrable fact that the Spartan and Confederate slave systems were morally debased and that the freedom upheld by the Thebans and the Union was good.

"The political autonomy upheld by the Greeks, as well as the political relationships between Rome and its Italian allies, was superior to the alternatives presented by Persia and Carthage. Certainly, the war between America and Japan in 1945 was not fought over morally equivalent options--not if peace and prosperity for millions of people are valued.

"The tragedy of Munich is in the failure of the British to recognize that their own moral norms could become weapons when manipulated by a vicious dictator. The British and the Americans--like the Greeks--became truly unbeatable when they grasped how right they really were. As the war progressed, public exposure of the enemy's actions strengthened the victor's knowledge of its own moral rectitude and discredited their former enemies' failed policies in their own eyes."

The overall lesson of Lewis's book is to take ideas seriously, especially moral ideas. Those interested in how such ideas have influenced history will enjoy this clearly-written and often-engrossing book. But they should not look forward to or reject it on the grounds that it supports a "might makes right" viewpoint. It does not. And hopefully this review--or "response" to be correct--shows that.

John David Lewis takes the reader through the important steps of six separate wars in ancient and modern times ranging from the Greeks and Romans to the U.S. Civil War and World War II. In each case he illustrates in detail the importance of moral ideas as the necessary motivating factors in a decisive defeat of an enemy. Only a consistent, principled commitment to the rightness of one's cause and therefore a willingness to take the fight to the "center of gravity" of the enemy will result in the enemy's permanent surrender. The rightness of one's cause should not be arbitrary but be based on a rational, fact-based recognition of the moral superiority of one's civilization. Highly recommended!

One hopes that today and tomorrow's policy makers will read this book as well as Elan Journo's Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism.

Dr. Lewis ought to be teaching military history at our war colleges. America would be invincible then and actually win wars, which we have not done since WWII.

In his book 'Nothing less than victory: Decisive Wars and the lessons of history', Dr, Lewis shows the concrete 'cases' of six wars in history, from ancient times to modern times, and analyzes how in each war only the true breaking of the will of the citizens behind the war, so not of the soldiers, lead to a permanent end of the hostile attitude of all those who initiated the wars.

Dr. Lewis shows, amongst others, how we failed to win WWI because we did not defeat the Germans truly by making them feel directly the horror of their own choices to commit war. No German territory nor civilians were attacked nor was Germany made to capitulate unconditionally in WWI. So the whole thing had to be revisited in WWII and, after initial attempts to appease the unappeasables, we finally figured out that only vanquishing our enemies unconditionally would end their irrationality. And we did.

Of course the great successful war leaders like Scipio and Sherman and their victories were also discussed as examples to show how to wage a war against an attacking enemy rightly and victoriously.

"Nothing Less Than Victory' shows us here that it is morally right, so in our selfish interest, to unconditionally defeat the enemies who attack us, and to do so brutally, without recoiling at hitting civilians, like we do now, that those enemies will not think of doing so again. His premise is that behind each war there are the civilians who either initiated and support it or just support it and, if they are stopped, the soldiers cannot continue.

I wonder why Dr. Lewis left out General Patton's 'Shermanesque' approach to war. He seems to have been the only general who truly understood the need for absolutely defeating Germany and asap. Eisenhower certainly did not.

Dr. Lewis book also makes one think of a projection towards the future of all 'unfinished wars' which we Americans still have in our portfolio. The most important unfinished war being that we did not defeat China unconditionally in the Korean war, as General Douglas McArthur wanted, and we never defeated Russia, and both undefeated enemies are coming back to bite us now, probably together in one war.

If you care about your life in our country, donate this book to all our war colleges, so future officers get well armed intellectually, and give it also to any politicians, educators and intellectuals involved in the defense of our country.

Dr. Lewis' book is a powerful 'weapon', arming all amongst us who are rational to defend ourselves best in future wars initiated by irrational enemies.

I teach an Ethics and Homeland Security course and have used this as supplemental material in the discussions because it offers an excellent counterpoint to the classical authors in the Just War realm.

The book is persuasive and comprehensive but also easy to read non-consecutively.

I only own the Kindle version and it is well-organized with an excellent menu.

With no real end in sight in the War on Terror, the "new normal" of constant deployments and unending conflict is a condition that the majority of the military has come to accept. Is there a better way?

In a wide survey of history beginning with the Theban Wars (382 BC) and culminating with the successful occupation of Japan (1945), John David Lewis argues that protracted warfare is never a necessity, but rather a result of flawed strategy and political failure. War is always quick when fought with proper objectives and aimed at the enemies ideological center of gravity.

"The lives of soldiers and civilians depend upon clear statements of the objectives to be achieved and a commitment to create the resources necessary to prevail," Lewis argues. "Without clearly stated, rational objectives," war becomes "a circular process of bloodshed rather than a goal-directed offense, and military victories on the battlefield [become] irrelevant to the outcome..." Lewis explains that in all of his examples, aggressors launch wars "bent on loot, conquest, or slaves" and that the defenders were unable to act as long as they failed to properly identify the threat. In fact, the defenders "abetted the slaughter as long as they failed to confront the true source of the attacks. Once they did, the battle and the conflict turned quickly in their favor."

Dr. Lewis is a visiting associate professor of philosophy, politics, and economics at Duke University. He draws on over 2,000 years of Western History to demonstrate the need for quick, decisive victory.

For example, in 208 B.C. the Romans had been invaded by Hannibal, and lost during every attempt to oppose him directly. The Roman leader Quintus Fabius implemented a defensive strategy where towns were evacuated and burned that were in the path of Hannibal. Only this scotched-earth policy of "Fabian-delay" could manage Hannibal despite placing Roman civilians in the situation of having to accept an invading army on their soil indefinitely. This situation went on for 15 years with no hope of resolution in sight when Scipio Africanus finally developed a solution. He brilliantly overcame the false alternative of either accepting the roaming enemies on his soil verses launching ineffective attacks against Hannibal. Scipio decided to raise an army and launch a quick, decisive attack against Carthage itself. This resulted in Hannibal rushing back to Carthage to defend his homeland, and an ultimate Roman victory at Zama which ended of the war and established a lasting peace.

Although Lewis does not state the parallels, it is impossible not to see the relationship between our current "fortress America" of metal detectors and color-coded security warnings, and the situation the Roman's found themselves in during Hannibal's invasion when "an entire generation of Romans grew used to a foreign army on its home soil."

In one of the most compelling chapters, Dr. Lewis launches what is probably the most systematic ethical defense of the nuclear bombing of Japan ever written. Citing the projected casualty figures of the planned ground invasion of Japan, the suicidal last-ditch defense planned by Japanese Leaders, the fact that the Japanese-- not American soldiers-- were responsible for the war, and a myriad of other factors, John Lewis contends that the use of Atomic bombs was the only moral and practical course of action. Lewis explains that "the complete loss of hope was central to Japan's decision to surrender" and that only a demonstration that "Americans were willing and able to remain offshore and bomb Japan into the bedrock" could result in an immediate end to the war.

Military readers will come away with a better grasp of history, and will be compelled by the argument that war can only be won with a decisive attack on the enemy's ideological, political, and social center of gravity.

"These wars were fought by commanders who were oriented toward solid objectives and who used flexible strategies to pursue firm goals with an inflexible will..." summarizes Lewis. "Each struck to the center of his enemy's strength, and achieved a physical victory that extinguished the moral and ideological fire behind the fight."

I thoroughly enjoyed the substance of this book, and indeed it greatly helped me make up my mind about the proper conduct of warfare. The lesson, that moral ideas are to be taken seriously as a/the major cause of human events, is of incalculable value to any student of history, whether he is interested specifically in affairs of war, or not. Nothing else will adequately explain how, time after time, a seemingly inferior force can achieve overwhelming strength; whether it be the ancient Greeks successfully standing up to a ridiculously stronger Persian army, or Germany going from a defeated nation with no military to speak of, back to being the dominating power in Continental Europe, able to set the world ablaze once more within a span of barely twenty years.

Much as I loved the substance of the book, however, I must criticize the often sloppy conversion in the Kindle edition, which I read. (At least I hope the same errors aren't in the print edition!) Words are missing, spaces within a word where it is obv iously unintentional, typos abound. For just one concrete example: the ultimate conclusion of the book, in its last sentence, misspells the Latin phrase: "Sic [sic!] vis pacem, para bellum" - it is, of course, supposed to be "si".

4 stars because the sloppy editing ought not to keep any lover of history from appreciating the substance of this book, but needs to be remarked upon nonetheless.

I found this book very informative and thought provoking. In this time of "non-decisive" wins, this book is a great review of what decisive wins mean across the spectrum, glad I was put on to it!