30 e lusive v ictories
and Barack Obama (Afghanistan). This is an incomplete list of
wartime presidents, of course. But through my choices we can con-
sider leadership problems that seem likely to arise again in the future,
including the risks of overly ambitious goals, the complexities of rela-
tions with allies and client regimes, and the obstacles in maintaining
popular support. Th ese presidents make it possible to assess how the
changing nature of war, especially the shift from large-scale industrial
warfare to low-intensity “war amongst the people,” has aff ected pres-
idential eff ectiveness. Presidents sometimes inherit ongoing wars, and
the selection of Vietnam and Afghanistan allows for an examination
of what happens when responsibility for a war changes hands. In each
case, I explore how well the president met the core challenges of
wartime leadership and explain why he could not accomplish certain
tasks.
From these examples we can account for the patterns of presidential
success and, more important, failure. Presidents across time have
fumbled key challenges. Th ey have been overambitious in their war
goals, misunderstood their allies, oversold their wars to the American
people, overstated the risks of not going to war or ending a military
intervention, and neglected to plan realistically for peace. All wartime
presidents have seen their initiative and freedom of action slip from
their grasp, usually without realizing it. In the end, presidents become
the victims of the forces they set in motion, sometimes before the fi rst
shot is fi red.^