Winning in the Past: The Implications Today

Abstract : In the world environment of today, the threat of general war appears to be receding, as the likelihood of confrontations and limited wars increases. The American people, then, who are more familiar with winning general wars, may have to learn to live with a new definition of what it means to win a war, both militarily and politically. It is the purpose of this paper to review the Revolutionary War, World War I, and World War II as a means of determining what it meant for Americans to win in the past and the implications of that type of win in today's environment. A background of each war establishes the setting within which American attitudes and war aims were developed. Actions resulting from accomplishing these war aims are used as a substrate from which is distilled, 'what it meant to win.'