Max Boot pisses me off.
He was one of the neo-con cheerleaders for the Iraq invasion, which I considered wrong-headed and wrong-hearted from the very beginning. And he obviously hasn’t changed his mind:
It is true that we paid a heavy price for the last decade of interventionism, in lost and mangled lives and spent dollars, but we also could have derived considerable benefits from the emergence of moderate, pro-Western regimes in Baghdad and Kabul that, with a little support and encouragement, would cooperate fruitfully in the future with American interests.
It coulda been so good… Right. Too bad about those mangled lives…
I question whether there was ever a realistic chance that viable, friendly regimes could have ever grown out of the bloody soil of either Iraq or Afghanistan, and the boneheaded manner in which the conflicts were waged (until McCrystal and Petraeus started real counterinsurgency work) ensured that whatever faint chance there was went a-glimmering.
So we disagree. That’s not what pisses me off. What pisses me off is that I really like the guy’s books. Hell, I would probably like Max Boot. At least I’d enjoy arguing with him.
Whatever I think of his interventionism, there’s no question that Max Boot is one of the leading scholars of irregular warfare, and he writes damn good books. I don’t agree with some of the contemporary policy conclusions he draws from his study of history, but I can’t deny that his knowledge is deep and well expressed.
His most recent tome is “Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From Ancient Times to the Present.” Right there in the Frontier Partisans wheelhouse.
The book is spendy, so I have it on order from the library. But the themes and flavors are on display in a lengthy piece in Foreign Affairs.
JimC says
Downloaded a lengthy sample on the NOOK. This is really good. I’m probably going to have to break down and buy it. I have no patience.
Steve Bodio says
I sometimes feel the same way about Robert Kaplan.
JimC says
Yes, agreed. In Kaplan’s case, I think he became so enamored of the spec ops men he embedded with that he lost perspective on the bigger questions, particularly re: Iraq. I can see how that could happen.
Speaking of which — you’ll get a kick out of this… Watched the Natl. Geographic docudrama on the bin Laden raid (no Zero Dark 30, but worth the hour-and-a-half). As SEAL Team 6 preps for takeoff on the mission, there’s a voiceover of their skipper’s final briefing. He closes it saying, “Tonight We Ride.” I’d like to clip that and send it to Tom Russell. “We’ll kill Osama bin Laden for the bounty on his hair…”
Heh!