PUBLICATIONS

	UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: The United States at War. Ian J. Bickerton and Ken J. Hagan Released March 2007.	'War is not, and I repeat, war is not "the continuation of politics by other means". On the contrary, it represents a catastrophic failure of political skill and imagination - a dethronement of peaceful politics from the primacy it should enjoy...' Secretary-General Kofi Annan's statement to the Security Council on the adoption of a resolution on Lebanon, 11 August 2006.
ISBN 186189 310 8. 224 pages, hard back. Publisher: Reaktion Books, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V ODX, UK

REVIEW:

It is commonly assumed that the wars fought by the United States have ended when hostilities ceased and armistices and treaties were signed.

In Unintended Consequences: The United States at War, Ian J. Bickerton and Kenneth J. Hagan demonstrate that this is not the case.

American wars have most often been followed by extended periods of US military, political and economic involvement in the 'defeated' country.

These protracted intrusions were not anticipated or intended when the decision was made to go to war, and they fundamentally altered the national fabric of the victor and vanquished alike.

This book explores the stated aims of ten major US wars, showing the critical turning points in the conflicts, and analysing the consequences. The book demonstrates conclusively that the unintended consequences of the wars not only outweighed the intended consequences in shaping subsequent years, they produced sharp and significant shifts in US policy.

Here Carl von Clausewitz's maxim that 'war is a continuation of policy by other means' is turned on its head.

War is not a continuation of policy. It is a destruction of policy, and it is the crucible for an entirely new policy - a quite different one that typically leads to another war.

The continued political and military chaos in Iraq is but the latest manifestation of the author's view that war transforms the nationall policies that lead into war.

The unintended consequences of the Iraq war and previous US wars, shoould stimulate a renewed search for peaceful policies and widespread reluctance to resort to war. Reaktion Books

Advance praise for Unintended Consequences

'For too long the western military alliance have looked at Clausewitz as if he can provide the magic silver bullet with regard to strategic military thinking. This book has quite rightly turned conventional thought - hero worship - of that particular military guru upside down.

In a world where the threat is no longer likely to be an easily identifiable nation state, conventional military repsonses are perhaps no longer appropriate.

Not only does it prove that the unintended consequences may outweigh the reason for the action in the first instance, but, in the contemporary world, results are likely to be even further divorced from those originally anticipated.

It is just what is needed in today's world - historians who are prepared to stir the hornet's nest!'

- Lt. Cdr T.T.A. Lovering, MBE RN, editor of Amphibious Assault: Manoeuvre from the Sea (Royal Navy, 2005)

'Mincing no words, these accomplished historians, one Australian and one American, plumb the past, from the American Revolution through Iraq, keenly demonstrating that US wars have produced unintended, often negative, outcomes.

US leaders, exaggeration of threats, their ignorance of local conditions, and their flawed assumptions that political 'victory' can be achieved through military force have led to unforseen, unwanted consequences.

Clausewitz got it wrong: war is not a continuation of policy but rather a radical alteration of policy.

Sharply departing from the traditional way of thinking about US wars, Bickerton and Hagan challenge us to understand that war has raised more problems than it has solved.'

- Thomas G. paterson, University of Connecticut, author of Contesting Castro and past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

About the authors.

Ian J. Bickerton has a PhD in history with an emphasis on US foreign policy. He is the co-author of leading US and Australian textbooks on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He has taught US modern history and history of US foreign relations at undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of New South Wales, and is currently Visiting Research Fellow in the School of History, University of NSW, Sydney.

He can be contacted at i.bickerton@unsw.edu.au

Kenneth J. Hagan has a PhD in history with emphasis on US foreign policy. He is co-author of a leading US textbook on the history of US foreign policy, a history of 19th century US naval intervention overseas and a comprehensive history of the US Navy from the 1770s to 1990s.

He has taught US military, naval and diplomatic history at undergraduate and postgraduate levels for forty years and is a retired captain, US Naval Reserve. He is currently Professort of Strategy and Policy, US Naval War College, California.

He can be contacted at kenhagan@comcast.net

Information about distributors and on-line sales can be found at Reaktion Books