{"id":3569,"date":"2026-09-21T09:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/?p=3569"},"modified":"2026-09-21T09:41:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:41:05","slug":"bryan-caplan-war-negligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/bryan-caplan-war-negligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryan Caplan – War Negligence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Negligence of War and Peace<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bryan Caplan<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sep 21, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was still in college the year of the Gulf War. At the time, I opposed the war; and in hindsight, I still do. But I freely admit that the U.S. planned its war carefully<\/em>. They assembled over half a million troops, got buy-in from almost all their allies, and after four days of ground combat, the U.S. was totally victorious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After victory, however, conflict with Saddam Hussein persisted for 12 more years. Why? Because although the U.S. had a careful plan for the war, they decided to wing the peace. There was a confused combination of sanctions, no-fly zones, demands for WMD inspections, and periodic bombing. If not for the totally unrelated 9\/11 attack, Saddam Hussein might still be in power today. If the U.S. had any plan for peace after the Gulf War, it wasn\u2019t much of a plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poor peacetime planning led to another war \u2014 and an even more impressive military master plan. In 2003, using only 250,000 troops, the U.S. achieved full regime change in less than a month. While their list of active allies was much shorter than in 1991, they clearly weren\u2019t necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shock-and-awe military performance of the U.S. was matched only by its truly harebrained plan for peace<\/a>. Guerrilla warfare and sectarian violence began almost immediately and lasted for many years. Instead of installing a reliably pro-Western government, the U.S. quickly handed power over to the Shiite Islamist Nouri al-Maliki. He proved to be uncooperative, incompetent, and power-hungry. While he desperately needed U.S. military support, he went out of his way to antagonize his benefactors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the same vein, the U.S. had little trouble engineering the military overthrow of the Taliban or Gaddafi. But their plans for post-war Afghanistan and Libya were little more than wishful thinking. And to belabor the obvious, it showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could consider \u201cSince 1990, the U.S. has carefully planned its wars, yet poorly planned for the aftermath\u201d a mixed compliment. But when the lives of millions hang in the balance, it\u2019s a harsh condemnation<\/a>. Actual war means killing a lot of innocent people \u2014 and that cannot be justified<\/a> unless you have high confidence that the long-run effects are very good. Truly, with great power comes great responsibility<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That has long been my view, and I haven\u2019t changed my mind. But Trump\u2019s Iran War really does put all of the wars of my adult lifetime in a new perspective. Why? Because for the first time in decades, the U.S. has failed even to competently plan for the war<\/em>! Before February 28, at least Iran wasn\u2019t attacking its Arab neighbors. Oil freely flowed through the Strait of Hormuz. Now, over six months after killing much of the Iranian leadership, the U.S. has no idea how to even get back to square one. Alternating between sour grapes and empty threats may confuse the new Iranian leadership, but that\u2019s about it. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if this conflict runs into 2028. Nor would I be surprised if the U.S. simply withdraws and hopes that its allies can somehow make peace on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even if the war ends today with a durable restoration of the pre-war status quo, the U.S. government has reached a new level of negligence. It used to demonstrate selective care: When we fight, we win \u2014 and win quickly and decisively; we just don\u2019t know what to do after we win. Now it can\u2019t<\/em> be negligent after victory, because there will be no victory. Instead of learning from past failures, it has become a model of failure for future leaders to study. If they\u2019re the kind of leaders who bother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Negligence of War and Peace Bryan Caplan Sep 21, 2026 I was still in college the year of the Gulf War. At the time, I opposed the war; and in hindsight, I still do. But I freely admit that the U.S. planned its war carefully. They assembled over half a million troops, got buy-in … Continue reading Bryan Caplan – War Negligence<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3571,"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions\/3571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbachrach.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}