Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force

(Paperback, Revised edition)

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America's debate over whether and how to invade Iraq clustered into civilian versus military camps. Top military officials appeared reluctant to use force, the most hawkish voices in government were civilians who had not served in uniform, and everyone was worried that the American public would not tolerate casualties in war. This book shows that this civilian-military argument--which has characterized earlier debates over Bosnia, Somalia, and Kosovo--is typical, not exceptional. Indeed, the underlying pattern has shaped U.S. foreign policy at least since 1816. The new afterword by Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi traces these themes through the first two years of the current Iraq war, showing how civil-military debates and concerns about sensitivity to casualties continue to shape American foreign policy in profound ways.

Reviews

"[A] highly statistical but thankfully lucid study... [The authors] find that non-veteran civilian elites are more likely to advocate the use of force than either military elites or civilian leaders with military experience... The pattern holds historically. The authors consider a total of 111 instances from 1816 to 1992."--Chronicle of Higher Education "Feaver and Gelpi offer important insights into the character of civil-military relations in the U.S. and into its effects on the nature of U.S. foreign policy... [A]n important work whose findings have wide-ranging policy implications."--Spencer D. Bakich, Virginia Quarterly Review "Feaver and Gelpi's intriguing and well-executed study provides a welcome contribution to scholarship in this area. In it, the authors address a subset of provocative issues within the broader study of American civil-military relations."--Risa A. Brooks, Review of Politics

Author Bio

Peter D. Feaver is Alexander F. Hehmeyer Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University. He is the author of "Armed Servants" and "Guarding the Guardians" as well as coeditor of "Soldiers and Civilians". Christopher Gelpi is Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. He is the author of "The Power of Legitimacy" (Princeton).