Eliot A. Cohen - Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War

Cohen and Gooch have done their job well. They have mastered their sources, used considerable imagination... the book is well-written and sound in judgment. Caspar Weinberger, The Wall Street Journal

WHY DO COMPETENT ARMIES FAIL?

Why did the American-led coalition in Iraq fail to wage a classic counterinsurgency campaign for so long after the fall of Baghdad?

Why was the sophisticated Israeli intelligence service so thoroughly surprised by the onslaught of combined Arab armies during the Yom Kippur War of 1973?

How did a dozen German U-boats manage to humiliate the U.S. Navy for nine months in 1942sinking an average of 650,000 tons of shipping monthly?

What made the 1915 British-led invasion of Gallipoli one of the bloodiest catastrophes of the First World War?

Since it was first published in 1990, Military Misfortunes has become the classic analysis of the unexpected catastrophes that befall competent militaries. Now with a new Afterword discussing Americas missteps in Iraq, Somalia, and the War on Terror, Eliot A. Cohen and John Goochs gripping battlefield narratives and groundbreaking explanations of the hidden factors that undermine armies are brought thoroughly up to date. As recent events prove, Military Misfortunes will be required reading for as long as armies go to war.

The general reader will find this a fascinating and informative book; those responsible for their nations security will find in it lessons they will ignore at their own peril.

Major General (Res.) Aharon Yariv, former director, Israeli Military Intelligence

F R E E P R E S S
Published by Simon & Schuster New York

Cover design by Todd Robertson
Cover photograph Corbis

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ALSO BY ELIOT A. COHEN

Supreme Command:
Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime

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Copyright 1990 by The Free Press

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First Free Press paperback edition 2006

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3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cohen, Eliot A.
Military misfortunes : the anatomy of failure in war / Eliot A. Cohen, John Gooch.
p. cm.

Originally published in hardcover by The Free Press... New York, 1990T.p. verso.
1. Military art and scienceHistory20th century. 2. Military history, Modern20th
century. I. Gooch, John. II. Title.
[U42.C56 1991]
355.480904dc20 9050491

ISBN-13: 978-0-02-906060-5
ISBN-10: 0-02-906060-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-8082-2 (Pbk)
ISBN-10: 0-7432-8082-2 (Pbk)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-3548-8

4. Failure to Learn
American Antisubmarine Warfare in 1942

5. Failure to Anticipate
Israel Defense Forces on the Suez Front and the Golan Heights, 1973

6. Failure to Adapt
The British at Gallipoli, August 1915

7. Aggregate Failure
The Defeat of the American Eighth Army in Korea, NovemberDecember 1950

8. Catastrophic Failure
The French Army and Air Force, MayJune 1940

A BOOK ABOUT MISFORTUNE has emerged from what was, for us, a stroke of good fortune. In the autumn of 1985 we met as visiting faculty members in the Strategy Department of the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Following one of many heated but friendly informal debates about strategy and military history in Hewitt wardroomthe immediate subject was the Dardanelles campaign, about which see we decided to teach a seminar together on operational failure in war. More specifically, we decided to examine a dozen cases of what we label here misfortunesthat is, failures attributable neither to gross disproportions in odds nor to egregious incompetence on the part of the victim nor yet to extraordinary skill on the part of the victor. In short, we asked, Why do competent military organizations fail? After the seminar we came to the conclusion (endorsed by our students) that this question deserved book-length treatment.

Although we chose cases sufficiently close to our time to be recognizably modern, we quite deliberately refrained from including one from Vietnam. (To discuss that misfortune, we are more-than-ever convinced, would require not a chapter but a separate book.) We chose to look at the experiences of Western democracies, believing that the nature of a countrys regime shapes its military organizations in important ways. The origins and nature of (not to mention the penalties for) failure in, say, Sadam Husseins Iraq or Stalins Russia are very different from those one sees in free states; for in many, though not all, respects, military organizations reflect the societies for which they fight. To strike a balance between a narrow focus and a broader scope, we have looked at the experiences of four nations over a period of nearly sixty years. We considered and rejected many more cases than we include, for a variety of reasons. In some instances we concluded, upon reflection, that we were indeed dealing with failures born of incompetence rather than misfortunes; in others, we found that the evidence available was too scanty to permit a sober judgment.

We have divided our work evenly, Gooch writing the first drafts of and the last chapter, which are broader in scope than the intervening five case studies, underwent extensive rewriting, so that the result is very much a joint product. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the French, German, and Hebrew are by us.

We have had the assistance and advice of many people, whose help we would like to acknowledge. We begin with our students Edward Colonna, William Dalecky, James Hagen, Joseph King, James Lasswell, David Lindauer, Patrick Saxon, Peter Scofield, Drake Trumpe, Anthony Veiga, and Stanley Winarsky. As is so often the case at the Naval War College, these officers from the U.S. Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force (and in this case a civil servant as well) had much to teach their nominal teachers. This would not be the same book without the benefit of their professional experience and judgment as well as their enthusiasm and insight; individually and collectively they demonstrated the high worth of the ethic of responsibility that we discuss in .