The Illusion of Control: Force and Foreign Policy in the 21st Century

Abstract

Seyom BrownWashington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003. 196pp, US$46.95 cloth (ISBN 0-8157-0262-0), US$18.95 paper (ISBN 0-8157-0263-9)As American military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan deepens, American citizens and foreign policy experts consider and debate US interventionist policies in today's international system. Seyom Brown, the Lawrence A. Wien professor of international cooperation at Brandeis University, informs this debate by providing a thought-provoking treatment of US national security posture in The Illusion of Control. Brown contends that there is a growing willingness by US government officials to use military force to achieve American foreign policy objectives and that a number of important structural variables have contributed to that trend. He is concerned that this development runs counter to long term US national interests and that certain guidelines are warranted that would temper the propensity to choose military solutions in complex international situations. He proposes a thoughtful list of guidelines for readers to consider.Brown observes that America's muscular diplomacy is derived from three key developments in the post-Cold War world. First, the international system has shifted from a bipolar to a polyarchic system in which US hegemony is challenged by a wide variety of both state and non-state actors. Second, in response to the increasing scope and diverse nature of potential threats to the US in today's polyarchic world, the author concludes that government officials are increasingly inclined to threaten the use of force in order to maintain control. Finally, given the major technological developments associated with the revolution in military affairs, or transformation as it is currently referred to, contemporary policy-makers function under the illusion, in Brown's view, that military force can bring an unprecedented degree of controllability to the conduct of war. Brown concludes, however, that these developments and the policies which they have evoked are unwarranted and can lead to unwise decision making.Although Brown describes historical examples of instances in which US officials decided whether or not to intervene using military force, he provides no empirical aggregated data that demonstrate that contemporary policymakers in Washington are more inclined to pursue military solutions than before. Because of the public rhetoric of the Bush administration in this regard, it is understandable that one could conclude that a greater propensity to intervene now exists. The matter, however, begs quantitative research, which Brown does not provide. Nor does he address this important idea using Graham Allison's bureaucratic decision-maker model in which the particular identities and interactions among specific policy-makers define the directions in which policies are made. It is possible, if not likely, that key policy-makers with specific agendas define general characteristics of foreign policy decisions in each administration, and that those characteristics can shift dramatically from one administration to the next. An investigation of such players who serve in succeeding administrations could help develop the notion of whether or not a long-term trend supporting increased usage of military force in fact exists.Control by military means is the second major theme of the book--a dangerous illusion according to Brown. Proponents of the revolution in military affairs believe that technological developments in weaponry will permit military interventions that minimize collateral damage yet overwhelm opponents' military capabilities. Battles currently being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, demonstrate the significant limitations of high technology equipment even against irregular military forces. Perhaps those limitations are only now being understood by policy-makers. Initial recommendations and decisions to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan might well have reflected high confidence borne of the relatively painless interventions of the first Gulf war and against the former Yugoslavia. …