Obama's Wars

A fantastic look inside the struggle to make sense of the Afghanistan war from the perspective of the key decision makers. I was dissatisfied with the ending and lack of further information. I suppose I got far more information about Obama’s headache than could ever be expected though. I simply wish the story would have continued further into the future.

Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars would probably be more aptly titled Obama’s War as the primary focus is Afghanistan. When Iraq is brought up, it is usually as a counterpoint or contrast to the events in Afghanistan. With that said, it does not diminish what Bob Woodward has accomplished in this book. At the basic level, everyone assumes that every presidential administration has a degree of infighting. These people are obviously very prideful and opinioned subject to the same feelings of pride, jealously, rivalry as the rest of us.Woodward is able to construct a narrative that shows the reader the civilian-military and even military-military rivalries within the Obama Administration as they try to figure out how to deal with the Afghanistan War and our “allies” in the Karzai family. It really isn’t a question of right or wrong as most rational actors will act in their own self-interest or their organizations interest as the case may be. I thought it was also interesting because the American public hears the decisions presidents make, but often little about the decision making process itself.Obama’s Wars is a terrific book for those who want to know about presidential decision-making processes and those who just want a juicy narrative about the conflicting parties in a presidential administration.

For anyone who is interested in the nitty-gritty of politics, this is an excellent read. For those who are only casually interested in politics, give this one a pass. I loved the book, but I am very involved in politics.Obama's Wars is well-written, comprehensive, and un-biased, which is refreshing for a book about politics. Woodward has amazing access to all of the top leaders in both Congress and the White House, and takes the reader into the discussions and decisions that took place in the White House.The fact that this book is as un-biased as is humanly possible bears repeating. Political books usually are written from a partisan point-of-view, but this one is the exception. The reader feels as if he was actually present and able to come to his own conclusions, instead of reading the author's conclusions.

Reads more like someone's daily journal than a book. Doesn't offer much analysis by the author. Very disappointed that the bombing of Libya by Obama wasn't covered. The whole reason I bought this book was to learn why. Nevertheless, to his credit, Woodward does score interviews with most of the key players, including the President himself. Worth reading to discover who these people are for the interested reader. Perhaps Woodward will write a sequel covering the final two-thirds of this administration.

This was my first exposure to a Woodward book (other than Primary Colors which only half counts). As someone interested in current events, US politics, and understanding the world around me, this was a great first exposure.Woodward gives an open, honest, unbiased, and very detailed account of the aspects of the Obama administration's investigation and decision-making process into the Afghan war and the extension of that war into Pakistan. Most of the book covers the administration's review of the current military situation and their subsequent decision on the number of forces to add to Afghanistan and the role those forces should play.For the first time I felt that I had a somewhat accurate picture of many of the people at the top of the US government. While most of this material is not surprising, the accounts of Vice President Biden and the top military leadership did take me by surprise and gave me a new understanding of those parties.My only complaint about the book is that it doesn't always give dates or a clear picture of other events unrelated to the war discussions going on at the same time.This was a very good book and I have already begun going through Woodward's older books. I very much recommend it for anyone with political interests, regardless of political affiliations.

Bob Woodward, co-hero of the Watergate disclosures, is on the point of giving us his take on President Trump. Having got out of touch with his work since Nixon, I thought it was time to refamiliarise myself to some degree, so on spotting a Marketplace copy going for £0.01 plus postage I leapt into action, and I can certainly recommend others to do as near likewise as they can.A reviewer can reasonably be expected to tell his readers what the book is about, so let me say candidly that I’m guessing about that to a certain extent. Why ‘WarS’ – plural? The one war in question is the war in Afghanistan, but I more than half suspect that Woodward is elevating the Washington infighting to some kind of war status. One does not have to be American to be familiar with the backstabbing, leaking and doublespeak that goes on. What astonished me was not so much its extent as the downright blatancy of it. Here are cabinet decisions, painstakingly kept clear, being questioned as if they had never happened. Here are military strategies, still undecided and under powerful questioning, being aired in the public prints by the very generals who were still supposed to be part of the decision-making process. Obviously we have to keep in mind the scenario of a rookie President, not yet 50 years old, with a mere 4 years’ experience in the US Senate and no service in the armed forces. All the same you could not precisely say that Dwight D. Eisenhower on taking office as President lacked military background, yet as far as establishing his writ in Washington we know what his predecessor said ‘That goddam general will sit in this goddam chair and he’ll say “Do this” and “Do that” and not one goddam thing will happen.’What the story is largely about is the way that the inexperienced but cerebral and determined young president got used to this and by the end of the book was becoming more forceful with his supposed subordinates. He sacked General Stan McChrystal for one glaring offence, and that not the first such either. Interestingly, Woodward seems to say that this took the military aback, so I would have loved to see what the history of this kind of situation was. Whether this book is intended in part as a study of Obama’s development as a leader in certain particular circumstances I don’t know, but whether it is or not, even a plain listing of the relevant instances could hardly avoid creating this impression. By the end of this long book the war in Afghanistan is still in progress, but it appears at least the actions being taken are in accordance with Commander-in-Chief’s commands-in-chief.The style of the book does not sit with me very well, but this is the great Bob Woodward and this is one particular kind of American journalism even if not my own favourite kind. It is really the chronicle of a war of ideas, but it is presented entirely as a string of statements by the participants. To try to get more of an impression of these men of destiny (plus Hillary of course) I turned gratefully to the set of b/w plates infixed to the middle of the volume. Here we found mainly middle-aged men in suits or uniforms, and all of course white except for the c-in-c himself. Whether they are all made of ticky-tacky I couldn’t say, but they all look the same to me. The drama of ideas here was real and it was to say the least important, but the ideas are purveyed to us by these waxworks, and I could not help feeling at times that this presentation trivialised the issues. There is even another basic question on which I can’t make up my mind, and it’s whether the battle-forces correspond, at least roughly, to uniforms versus civilians. It works out like that at times, but these dramatis personae consist of individuals, and when they organise themselves into alliances the alliances keep re-forming their memberships. I wonder whether Bob Woodward has some update for us regarding this in the new era of Trump.Very rightly Bob Woodward explains, or tries to explain, in his preface how he managed to come by so much confidential information, and I am not going to summarise, or try to summarise, this in a review, as I think that would just pile a Mount Pelion of speculation and uncertainty on top of the Ossa of doubt that Woodward has already assembled. Having a set of talking heads to put all this vital data across to us is the kind of semi-chatty idiom that does not appeal to me. What should be a Thucydidean exposition of forceful ideas forging history through the mouths of major spokesmen (plus of course Hillary again) becomes a kind of rambling set of meeting-minutes. I have seen it apparently suggested by another reviewer that this makes the book too long, and I would have to admit that I found it a slightly laboured read. Never mind, it’s Bob Woodward, and it will be a long time if ever that I shall read an account of all this whose honesty I can simply take as read from the start.

I read this book deliberately as, having preordered the new Trump book ‘Fear’, I was interested to see how Woodward treated the work of a president of whom he largely approved, before going on to the Trump book. The styles of each president being entirely opposite: one dealing with war from an intellectual approach, the other not. The book is very informative as to the degree of pressure a group of military advisers try to exert on the commander in chief and how the military advisers disagree among themselves, frustrating and delaying any final decisions. However, Obama finally prevailed. The book seemed to stop suddenly, with few if any conclusions being drawn. Just like any ongoing situation. An interesting and well crafted book which, although full of detail, was never boring.

Woodward's take on how President Obama had to tackle the war in Afghanistan and how to both wind it down while at the same time trying to solve the problem of a complacent Pakistan that was both fighting and abetting al-Qaeda inside their borders. Brings into focus George Bush's administrations lack of having an end game to the war that they started and then had no clue how to end or solve the problems that it created.

After reading 'The Price of Politics' I decided to read 'Obama's Wars', Woodward's earlier work on the Obama administration. And I have to say this book was a disappointment after the excitement of 'The Price of Politics'.The content of the book is very interesting. Woodward proves once again he is unique in acquiring often damning information about the failures of George W. Bush and members of Barack Obama's inner circle. But some of information is stretched out over four or five pages when it could easily have been cut down to one. Sometimes the words went over my head and I had to force myself to re-read whole sections of the book, something I never had to do with 'The Price of Politics'.Slightly disappointing but worth a read.

Good insight into the complexity of US engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Didn't leave this book feeling anything but pessimistic about our world and our entanglement in the Middle East which has no real solutions that will come from US or Europe.