The thesis of this book is to evaluate how the United States was defeated in the past, and what lessons can be learned to protect us from repeating earlier mistakes. It also analyzes previous reactions after they change course and ultimately triumph on the battlefield, which may guide us and give us resilience in the future.
After reading this book, I felt the author made his point in a detailed and thoroughly researched manner. Giving examples of strategies that caused them to lose battles, such as underestimating the enemy and being unprepared, led to defeat. They, however, soon learned about the enemy's strengths and weaknesses, which led to decisive wins from the Revolutionary War to World War II. They faced losses in war from the Korean War to the Afghan War.
In his conclusion, he emphasized his points through research by summarizing the military strategies used by the United States military forces. Scattered throughout the book are maps of battlefields, charts, and pictures of the major generals who led the war efforts. Overall, this would be a nice addition to a military historian's library and in Military academies.

This is an edited and updated review based on a re-examination of the author’s conclusions, with particular regard to the changed geopolitical context.
In this book James Ellman offers a somewhat novel analysis of what he refers to as the American Way of war where he dissects a number of famous - or even infamous reverses to American arms and offers a view over how, despite the initial setbacks American forces triumphed. However, there must be a question over the selection of the examples chosen, and - indeed - the extent to which the eventual triumph was the result of a uniquely American way of waging war.

It is, nonetheless, an interesting approach to battles and conflicts that have been pored over endlessly in more conventional accounts and draws attention to what probably is the American way, which is - or has been - the devastatingly powerful engine of production that has been the US economy. This has been true from the difference in economic power between the Union and Confederacy up to the Korean War - although this overwhelming imbalance failed to serve it in Vietnam. This reader is less convinced over other aspects of the analysis although there is acknowledged interest and enjoyment from a sometimes provocative approach. The author’s use of counterfactual analyses (what if…?) is interesting but, as always with counterfactuals, they are as much a hobby horse to explore a personal viewpoint as they are realistic analyses of alternative outcomes.

Ellman is, perhaps, on less secure - even controversial - ground when he rather gratuitously chooses to take a swipe at what he terms the ‘grudging’ support of the RAF to the European bomber offensive. Certainly, there is no need for any analysis some 80 + years after the event to add to the criticism of aspects of Air Marshall Harris’ (note to James Ellman - senior RAF officers such as Harris did not have the rank of General!) leadership of Bomber Command. But to comment that it was ‘surprising’ that the RAF was effective at precision bombing when called upon to do that as part of the Point Blank operations is itself surprising, given the well documented history of both the Dambusters raid and the wider contribution of the Pathfinder Force. This struck a strangely chauvinistic chord in what was otherwise a generally non-partisan analysis of the conflicts considered.

What is certainly more open to challenge is Ellman’s comforting conclusions that the reverses in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan could be minimised by seeing them perhaps as ‘battles lost’ rather than defeats in war. This is an unduly positive analysis and leads to the kind of conditions that lead to defeat - regarding the enemy as fighting the ‘wrong war’ and disregarding the referee’s decision.Ellman also pays little regard to the efforts of other players in contributing to the collapse of democracies that envisaged by Eisenhower in his ‘domino theory’.

However, perhaps the most glaring example of a factor that is given insufficient attention is the political context that will invariably contribute to victory or defeat. The current incoherence in the US geopolitical world view has left allies and adversaries alike wondering what value to attach to a treaty or agreement with the USA. Ellman cites Ukraine as an example of the kind of country that the USA ought to have as an ally. Tell that to President Volodomyr Zelensky following his shameful performative humiliation at the hands of Trump and Vance. At the time of writing Trump has undermined NATO, steered the US to the brink of war with Iran and alienated his American First/Make America Great Again base. The future direction of US geopolitical evolution remains unclear, with predictable adverse consequences for the effectiveness of military planning and deployment.

In summary, this is an analysis that deserves to be read and is recommended. The reservations expressed in the final paragraphs above serve to highlight the difficulty arising from the rather less settled times in which we find ourselves.

This was an interesting take on American military history. Usually you get the America as undefeatable from the Revolution through WWII and then everything after that is somewhat abandoned. This does a good job of showing that those definitive wins were born from mistakes and failures. MacArthur being on the cover was annoying to me, but that's a personal bias.