CAN INTERVENTION WORK? Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus Cambridge: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. 236 pp., $15.95 (PaPer) ISBN 978-0393081206Since the end of the Cold War, international intervention has gained a prominent role in national and international academic debates: since the early 1990s, many interventions have been undertaken in a wide variety of countries, while the morality of these interventions and their implications for state sovereignty have been disputed. In Can Intervention Work? Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus focus on the feasibility of international intervention, particularly on its practical implications. In other words, Stewart and Knaus examine the effectiveness of intervening actors in pursuing their stated goals. While brief mention is occasionally made of moral and theoretical aspects, the book is concerned with determining whether international intervention can achieve success or is inherently doomed to fail (xiii).The structure of this book is noteworthy. Both Stewart and Knaus are able to draw on many years of fieldwork, as well as extensive work in government and various independent think-tanks and humanitarian groups, to address the fundamental practical issues concerning international intervention. The volume is divided into two independent essays. The first, written by Stewart, focuses on the international intervention in Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001. The second essay, written by Knaus, concentrates on the intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Stewart asserts that the mission in Afghanistan has been a failure, while Knaus holds that intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo was successful: but both effectively highlight different issues surrounding the practical, rather than theoretical or moral, issues of international intervention.Stewart's assessment of the international intervention in Afghanistan is highly critical, and justifiably so. Using a combination of personal and historical narratives, he pays particular attention to the general lack of continuity and consistency displayed by the interveners, as well as the blatant disconnect between the realities of Afghan life and the stated methods and objectives of the interveners. The constantly changing focus of the international force in Afghanistan, from governance to state-building to the rule of law, combined with the force's extensive reliance on shortterm postings and consultants, has inevitably led to a vague and distracted approach to the mission (21 and 23). Stewart's depiction of the current preference in the international community for broad, theoretical knowledge, rather than specialized expertise grounded in specific locales, compellingly reinforces his argument that the international approach to intervention is out of touch with local realities. Stewart effectively summarizes the position of the interveners in Afghanistan: We, by contrast, were so isolated from the reality of Afghan life, through tour length, security restrictions, linguistic and cultural barriers, and barriers of ideology, that we were hardly even conscious of the depth of our isolation (25).The analysis by Knaus of the international intervention in the Balkans presents a far different understanding of the issue. Though Knaus effectively incorporates a historical narrative to explain the context, his analysis is predominantly focused on the subsequent discourse regarding the success of the mission. Knaus highlights four particular schools of thought: the planning school, the liberal imperialist school, the futility school, and the principled incrementalism school. …