Unintended Consequences: The United States at War

by Kenneth J. Hagan and Ian J. Bickerton

Book Overview

"The United States does not do nation building," claimed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld three years ago. Yet what are we to make of the American military bases in Korea? Why do American warships patrol the Somali coastline? And perhaps most significantly, why are fourteen "enduring bases" being built in Iraq? In every major foreign war fought by United States in the last century, the repercussions of the American presence have been felt long...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1861894090
• ISBN13: 9781861894090
• Release Date: November 2008
• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A thought provoking book! A must read for students of history!

Unintended Consequences is brilliantly written; it is a very concise yet suprisingly detailed book. In less than 200 pages, the authors reviewed the policies surrounding ten wars in U.S. history, and the consequences that resulted from the wars, in a very thought-provoking way. Not a moment of the readers time is wasted wading through information to get to the "meat of the argument". The book is a well-crafted story portrayed in a familiar way - I didn't want to put the book down. The authors challenged me as a reader to think of historical and current events differently. I enjoyed the arguments offered in this book and recommend it to students of U.S. military history and U.S. policy as a research reference and catalyst to analyze U.S. policy in a different way.

A must buy--a tour de force

Unintended Consequences challenges neoconservative strategic thinking that posits war is a manageable and constructive element of U.S. foreign policy. It further subjects the often-rosy public memory of many of America's "good" wars to critical scrutiny, and compels their reevaluation. Unintended Consequences is a timely book that is well written, thought provoking, and exceptionally useful because of its historical treatment of all major American wars. Authors Hagan and Bickerton, noted historians of U.S. foreign and military policy, elected not to focus on merely the 20th century but to succinctly evaluate all wars from the American Revolution to the present Iraqi morass. Their treatment of each war provides an exceptionally useful and concise analysis of the foreign and domestic factors that led to the United States' entry into war, a focused assessment of the conflict's pivotal military dimensions--especially their strategic turning points, and an evaluation of the unforeseen and often undesirable consequences attendant with war. Many of their findings will surprise and likely disturb readers long-inoculated by "good war" mythology. All legislators, strategists, commentators, and educated citizens should study this superb book. Unintended Consequences also lends itself readily for university-level classroom adoption as primer for foreign policy and military history courses.

Consequential Consequences

The basic premise of _Unintended Consequences_ will most certainly be rejected by William Kristol, Robert Kagan and their fellow neoconservatives. In fact, the book will likely infuriate them, for it serves to undermine their central contention, namely, that unilateral and assertive risk-taking, including war, is necessary in order to achieve "benevolent world hegemony" and to "shape the international environment" to the advantage of the United States. One problem with such a formulation, according to the authors of _Unintended Consequences_, Kenneth Hagan and Ian Bickerton, is that it flies in the face of the historical record. In the case of this enlightening book, that historical record includes ten major wars, from the War of Independence to the wars against Iraq. In each instance, careful analysis reveals that the deployment of American power by means of war has invariably subverted the wars' original goals. Moreover, "while the wars the United States has fought may have ended formally, in fact they continued, producing profound and unexpected consequences." Our experience in Iraq is the latest example of such unintended consequences and the subversion of original goals. Each chapter of the book opens with a description of the usually disingenous political explanations for going to war. Next, each chapter, in effect, "fights" the war, clearly demonstrating how the war rendered impossible the achievement of its purported goals. Each chapter concludes with a description of some of the war's unintended consequences. As a professor emeritus of American history, I believe the pedagogical potential of this book is enormous. It provides a very effective way to introduce students of American history to the challenges of foreign policy and to the often unacknowledged role played by war in the development of the nation-state. While packed with solid historical information, the book is nonetheless only 200 pages in length. This means that it can be assigned along with a number of other books and articles presenting very different points of view. The authors are to be commended on their impressive accomplishemnts in this admirable book, which includes the necessary reminder, documented here in abundance, that there are limits to the use of overwhelming American military force. Spencer C. Olin, Professor Emeritus of History, University of California, Irvine

A book worth reading

This is a timely book that should be read by those who care about our world's future. Wars and their unintended consequences distract nations from focusing on vital issues such as reversing global warming. In today's world, wars do not help a country expand its economic influence. Innovation does. The talent and energy wasted on fighting unnecessary wars could be better directed towards inventing new products (like iPod and BlackBerry) and new ways to do things (like Google and Flexcar). American presidents often touted war as the only path to lasting peace and security. But history has shown that wars often -and unintentionally-plant seeds for more wars. For the sake of our children, we must use our brains to solve our differences.

Why we do silly, sad things

The timing of this book is exceptional. In the policy making malaise of the "Long War," people look for scapegoats, for blame, for excuses, and sometimes for real reasons why "things" - my jargon for foreign and national security policy escapades - go awry, particularly for the United States and particularly in current times. Whether it be Somalia or Haiti, Afghanistan or Iraq, US foreign and national security policies and actions have fallen far short of achieving their estimable goals. Bickerton and Hagan now demonstrate to us that this always has been the way of foreign and national security policy with the US. Their book uses historical analysis in the most classic of ways to prove their point, that point being that every - yes, every - American war has had unintended consequences that far outweigh the intended purposes of the war. Beginning with their superb analysis of the Revolutionary War, they point out that this enduring aspect of American foreign and national security policy is a result of our structural form of government, a representative democracy, coupled with the political behavior that has political leaders oversell the goals and demonize the would-be opponents. This book is controversial. Readers looking for comfortable, pat answers to our current problems will find none. In fact, Bickerton and Hagan always recommend dipomacy over the military instrument of national power. However, that may indeed prove antithetical to the American character that demands decisive action immediately. And therein lies the true tragedy described in their book: paraphrasing the old Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, the American eagle ends up being shot with arrows made of its own feathers.