Why have the major, post-9/11, US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances, major capacity-building efforts, and repeated tactical victories by what many observers call the world's best military, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned bloody and intractable. The US government's fixation on zero-sum decisive victory is an important part of the explanation why successful military operations to overthrow two developing-world regimes failed to achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In 'Zero-Sum Victory', Christopher D. Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the government's insistence on a zero-sum victory