Customer Reviews

Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism

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This book changed how I thought of American foreign policy.

The book is divided into 3 major sections:

1. The true nature of the Islamic threat - how 30 years of Islamic aggression can be integrated into a larger picture - bringing the true enemy into sharp relief.

2. How Bush's strategy, national war doctrine, and neoconservative foreign policy have culminated in our inability to identify and deal with the true threat, rendering the war - as both Bush and Obama have called it - "unwinnable".

3. The current state of the middle east, and what can be done today to turn things around and achieve victory.

The book also has an excellent index, so finding a specific person, place, or idea is a snap.

Elan Journo's Winning the Unwinnable War is an important book giving a principled analysis of the "war on Islamic totalitarianism" (as they call it) that United States need to wage. The book consists of an edited collection of essays by the Ayn Rand Institute's Journo, Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein, many of which were previously published in Craig Biddle's excellent journal The Objective Standard: Fall 2009, Vol. 4, No. 3 The Objective Standard. While as a result the book is a tad repetitive, the themes of these essays are important and bear repeating: We are at war, at least since the Iranian hostage taking in 1979. The enemy is a state sponsored totalitarian ideology best referred to as Islamic totalitarianism. We have neither recognized the enemy, nor fought as if we realized we were at war. It is time we identified both that we are at war (and have been for decades), and who the enemy is. It is also time we fought without the irrational and immoral self-imposed restriction and fight to win.
The book details the history of the conflict, our inadequate response, and how we need to change to win. Highly recommended for all anyone interested in a more principled approach to the subject.

I'm still reading this book but had to write about it now. This book cuts through liberal/conservative/neoconservative hyperbole to get to the real and fundamental issue of our foreign policy. Or rather, what our foreign policy should be. Today, and for many decades, regardless of who is in power, it had been based on altruism and appeasement. Look at the results. This book lays claim to an actual moral foundation based on American self-interest and self-assertion in world affairs. It is my judgment that the "war on terror" should have been over in three to six months with our enemies soundly and totally crushed. This book is the blueprint for that victory.

Journo, Brook, and Epstein have compiled a robust defense for the moral case of American self-interest in Middle Eastern foreign policy. Contrary to popular belief, Journo et al. demonstrate with reference to history and U.S. policy since the Carter administration that the U.S. has been engaging in self-effacing, appeasing action towards its enemies that have only resulted in making them stronger. This most especially includes the recent Bush administration who, far from acting unilaterally with "Cowboy Diplomacy" as their guide, have needlessly sacrificed our military soldiers for the supposed cause of nation building and securing murderous barbarians the ability to vote for oppressive theocratic oligarchies.

The authors explain why America is losing the fight against Islamic Totalitarianism as well as the will to fight at all. Armed with the proper ethics, they make their case that it is the Islamic Republic of Iran that is the well spring of all the attacks against the U.S. and that if America wishes to win and bring peace to our shores we need to topple their illegitimate regime root and all. With their inspiration in ruin Islamists worldwide will lose hope and be morally crushed knowing that their cause to spread Islam across the globe is self-defeating.

After Brook and Epstein explain what is wrong with the current U.S. approach towards foreign policy (championed by liberals and conservatives alike) and its fundamental flaw, Just War Theory, Journo offers a positive moral alternative. A policy true to American self-defense and to the protection of its citizens' individual rights, a policy of rational self-interest: egoism. With Journo's approach we can defend ourselves and the values for which America stands, unapologetically and as he sums up his case, "with our heads held high."

This book is a must read for all policymakers, military personnel, family members of the military, and anyone directly affected by this unnecessary protracted war. We need to do all we can to save American lives and bring them home as fast as possible, this book will do that.

Wow! Anyone interested in US foreign policy, the Islamist movement, our current wars--really anyone interested in the security of American citizens and of our military personnel--must read this book. It is offers a clear-eyed perspective on our current situation, placing it in the context of the history of Islamic totalitarianism.

The book is relatively short (216 pages of text, 255 pages total with endnotes, references, etc.) and is easily readable. The writing is clear and direct. The book is divided into 3 related parts.

In part 1 the authors identify the nature and origin of the enemy: Islamic totalitarianism. They also review in part 1 how our foreign policy (they cite evidence and actions of the Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, and Clinton administrations) appeased and emboldened the Islamists, pre-9/11.

In part 2 the authors review our foreign policy post-9/11. They explain the nature and roots of Bush's "Forward Strategy for Freedom", and in the process demonstrate why it is failing it's (alleged) basic goal of making us secure. They also show how "Just War Theory" and Neoconservative foreign policy are incompatible with a principled policy of U.S. self-defense.

Part 3 surveys the results of Bush's policies across the world, not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in Iran, Pakistan and elsewhere. The authors show that the Islamist threat has been strengthened, rather than weakened by Bush's policies. After exposing the flaws (and roots) of past and current policy, the authors present a strong positive vision for defeating the Islamist threat. They show that we can expect a genuine victory over and lasting security from the Islamist threat. The final chapter offers a bracing tonic: a radical rethinking of our Middle East foreign policy, based soundly on the principle of our actual national self-interest.

This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in what has happened in the Middle East and how we need to respond. This book not only addresses Bush 43's mistakes (as well as those of Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton) but also addresses Ron Paul's "non-interventionist" ideas. It proposes an alternate path that is historically and morally sound and is most likely to keep us safe and secure for the long haul. It takes a clean and objective look at the history of the conflicts in the region and US response to them as well as comparing it to historical successes and failures.

Reading this book gave me the right arguments to counter both the neocons and the isolationists.

I haven seen foreign policy writing like this since "The Resister: The Political Warfare Journal of the Special Forces Underground"

This book needs to be sent to the White House. This integrated analysis should be utilized to defeat terrorism.