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IPFS News Link • Afghanistan

Leave It to the Generals

• newrepublic.com By Andrew J. Bacevich

Win or quit, or win and then quit. When Donald Trump was a candidate for president last year, this pretty much represented his strategic menu of options for the country's ongoing wars. Whichever way things went, they were going to change, though, and for the better. No more putzing around ineffectually with no end in sight.

Backing up these promises were assertions of rare expertise in the management of wars. "There's nobody bigger or better at the military than I am," Trump told Fox News in 2015. Senior military officers, with all their medals and campaign ribbons, left him singularly unimpressed. "I know more about offense and defense than they will ever understand, believe me." And while the sudden emergence of the Islamic State had caught the Pentagon flat-footed, Trump was nonchalant. "I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me."


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