Achieving Victory In Iraq ─ Countering an Insurgency

In his bestselling book Fiasco, journalist Thomas Ricks wrote, "There was no plan for the aftermath of the conventional war in Iraq." But there was a strategy, argue U.S. Army officers Dominic Caraccilo and Andrea Thompson based on their experiences with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, where they participated in tactical, operational, and strategic decision making. Even if its execution was muddled, that strategy involved handing the battle over to increasingly capable Iraqi Security Forces, and it remains the best shot at victory. Caraccilo and Thompson draw on their firsthand experiences training Iraqi troops and conducting security operations to show how that strategy has succeeded in parts of Iraq and how it can be expanded to bring victory to the whole country.