Beware the False Prophets of War

Prognosticating about war is always a chancy business. Even the most arrogant pundit or politician soon learns to slip a qualifying “You never can tell” into their predictions. But making all allowances for that, it is striking just how bad Western governments, commentators, and leaders have been over the past few decades at gauging not only what course wars might take but how they have gone as they have unfolded.

In 1990, many respectable analysts and predicted a bloodbath followed by a quagmire in the Kuwaiti and Iraqi deserts as battle-hardened Iraqi troops faced their outnumbered and supposedly softer American counterparts. The Gulf War, however, ended up being a swift conflict in which friendly fire and accidents did as much damage to the U.S. Army as hostile fire. The Iraqis were outgunned, outmaneuvered, out-led, and—as we later learned—actually outnumbered by