What Comes Next

Wars do not end when the last shot is fired. War planning has failed to demonstrate an understanding that victory requires consolidation and the emergence of a more healthy society. The most prominent recent example is the Second Iraq War, but the failure reaches back to the American Civil War. This essay is less concerned with the moral obligation to reconstruct after war than the practical necessity of jus post bellum. In order to learn how to achieve such a consolidation of military victory, a shift in mindset is required from both civil and military policy-makers and planners. A change in practice is required at the very beginning of planning for war. Whole of government has been an empty phrase, but experience dictates that an unprecedented degree of domestic and international cooperation is required.