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Reviewed by:
  • Unintended Consequences: The United States at War
  • Willard C. Frank Jr. and Ralph Hitchens
Unintended Consequences: The United States at War. By Kenneth J. HaganIan J. Bickerton. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN 1-86189-310-8. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 223. $29.95.

Willard C. Frank, Jr.'s Review

Wars are messy, uncertain, and confused. Intertwining layers of causes and effects abound. Some of the most substantial and disquieting effects are unforeseen unintended consequences, which often hit belligerents unawares and hard. Thus Kenneth J. Hagan and Ian J. Bickerton, accomplished students of military history and strategy, invite serious attention to the unintended consequences of war. Such consequences are unpredictable, they argue, and make the termination of war on terms of initially stated goals impossible. Leaders resort to war oblivious to its malignant and inevitable unintended effects, both internal and external, derived from the confusion and imprecision accompanying the decision for war, and the chaotic unpredictability of war itself. Much less destructive and more effective, they assume, would be non-violent diplomacy. Unfortunately, they do not explain how that pleasant alternative might succeed.

To demonstrate their thesis, the authors focus on eleven major wars in American history, from the Revolution through the ongoing Iraq War. For each of these wars, the authors identify the stated goals in resorting to war, then explore how the dynamics of war transformed or overshadowed the stated goals, and finally analyze the effects of these wars, especially their unintended consequences. American wars, beyond chaotically destroying lives, ways of life, and property, time and again trampled on human rights and civil liberties, insidiously expanded the power of the central government and particularly the presidency, militarized American values, accentuated military muscle as the way to solve problems, and so seeded further war. The cycle continues in the disastrous war George W. Bush and his neoconservative mentors blindly launched in Iraq in 2003. The Iraq War has indeed been fueled by layers of unintended consequences. Yet boiling ire over the Iraq War turned the authors from a nuanced, contextual, and rational analysis to the style and excesses of a strident polemic. [End Page 921]

Polemics, though, impede thought. The authors take simple statements of intent of leaders as if they were the full sum of motives for war, as if the mindsets, motives, and actions especially of adversaries were extraneous to the analysis. The US in the large majority of its conflicts, although often at steep cost, including unintended consequences, did attain its goals. Given that the nation largely deemed the goals worth the cost, this was a not small attainment. Further, it is a fallacy to draw general conclusions about a war only from selected malignant effects. The authors state that unintended consequences are “unpredictable,” and yet they show major ones recurring in war after war. Study could anticipate them. Planning to preclude all unintentional consequences is impossible, but the evidence presented, if not the conclusion, should make the effort to reduce them possible and necessary. Unintended impressions of US actions on other watching adversaries must inform strategic calculations. The authors state that they base their argument on the “historical record” and do not “engage in counterfactual speculations.” However, their preferred but undeveloped alternative non-war scenarios are laced with counterfactual assumptions. The authors dismiss as “nonsense” Clausewitz’s idea of war as a political instrument, since wars do not simply produce clean desired outcomes. Yet they ignore Clausewitz’s mature thought, which warns of just the troublesome character of war as an uncertain and perilous instrument, which the authors also decry. The argument in this book, unfortunately, seems forced and contradictory, and the text rambling and repetitive.

Yet, the theme of this book is of great import. Wars do have far-reaching unintended consequences. One should not let the deficiencies of this book dissuade one from seriously considering the problem and participating in the discourse the authors encourage.

Ralph Hitchens' Review

“Clausewitz was not only wrong, he was seriously wrong.” So state Kenneth Hagan and Ian Bickerton, world class second-guessers and absolute strangers to nuance. The book’s theme originated with famed sociologist Robert Merton (uncredited): “Unintended consequences inevitably attend purposive...

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