The Reality Gap by William S. Lind

Reality tells us that the same rules apply to all. When a country adopts a wildly adventurist military policy, as we have done since the Cold War ended, it gets beaten. The U.S. military will eventually get beaten, too. If, as seems more and more likely, we expand the war in Iraq by attacking Iran, our Rocroi may be found somewhere between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers.