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In Search of Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace
“With In Search of Monsters to Destroy , Christopher Coyne offers readers a crisp, concise, and devastating indictment of American imperialism. His provocative proposal for a nonviolent ‘polycentric’ approach to national security comes as a welcome bonus.”
— Andrew J. Bacevich , President and Chairman of the Board, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft; Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History, Boston University
Imperialism and militarism build empires, not liberalism.
So says Christopher Coyne, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, in this eye-opening, must-read book on America’s recent foreign policy failures.
After 9/11, the United States tried to establish liberal political regimes in the Middle East and in the mountains of Afghanistan—but the effort, according to Coyne, was doomed to fail. And his logic is simple.
Illiberal means , such
can lead only to illiberal ends . What else are the hundreds of thousands of dead and mutilated civilians the US left behind in the Middle East and Central Asia? What else are the destroyed ancient cultures and nearly obliterated nation-states? Coyne also points out that the illiberal perpetrators can end up nearly bankrupt and humiliated in the process—and profoundly less secure. Sound familiar? Coyne insists that, if we do not absorb these truths, the rest of the 21st-century will be a repeat of its bloodstained, unstable beginning. But Coyne is no isolationist. He insists there are workable, proven alternatives to imperialism, militarism, and empire—ones that preserve freedom, promote security, and foster mutually enriching friendship among the nations of the earth. These alternatives stand in stark and admirable opposition to our current militaristic culture, proving that nonviolent approaches to domestic and international conflicts not only minimize violence, but also promote cultures of peace throughout the world. Read In Search of Monsters to Destroy, and you’ll never look at the nation state or international relations the same again.
— Andrew J. Bacevich , President and Chairman of the Board, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft; Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History, Boston University
Imperialism and militarism build empires, not liberalism.
So says Christopher Coyne, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, in this eye-opening, must-read book on America’s recent foreign policy failures.
After 9/11, the United States tried to establish liberal political regimes in the Middle East and in the mountains of Afghanistan—but the effort, according to Coyne, was doomed to fail. And his logic is simple.
Illiberal means , such
can lead only to illiberal ends . What else are the hundreds of thousands of dead and mutilated civilians the US left behind in the Middle East and Central Asia? What else are the destroyed ancient cultures and nearly obliterated nation-states? Coyne also points out that the illiberal perpetrators can end up nearly bankrupt and humiliated in the process—and profoundly less secure. Sound familiar? Coyne insists that, if we do not absorb these truths, the rest of the 21st-century will be a repeat of its bloodstained, unstable beginning. But Coyne is no isolationist. He insists there are workable, proven alternatives to imperialism, militarism, and empire—ones that preserve freedom, promote security, and foster mutually enriching friendship among the nations of the earth. These alternatives stand in stark and admirable opposition to our current militaristic culture, proving that nonviolent approaches to domestic and international conflicts not only minimize violence, but also promote cultures of peace throughout the world. Read In Search of Monsters to Destroy, and you’ll never look at the nation state or international relations the same again.
242 pages, Hardcover
Published December 8, 2022
8 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
About the author
Christopher J. Coyne
48 books16 followersChristopher J. Coyne is Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University and Associate Director of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails (Stanford, 2013) and After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy (Stanford, 2008).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 13, 2023
Coyne provides a thought-provoking book about the economics of war. It’s not a pretty picture. But there so many rent seekers who make it uglier than it needs to be. By considering insights from economics, Coyne makes a strong case for less war, more diplomacy, and more free trade. Check it out!
September 4, 2023
"Policy is not designed and implemented in a vacuum. Just because policymakers know what they want to achieve abroad does not mean that they will know how to do it."
Coyne offers a trenchant libertarian critique of U.S. foreign policy. Using political economy and classical liberalism theories, he shows that the United States' pursuit of empire is self-defeating and creating monsters that later have to be destroyed. He makes a convincing case, using the examples of the Afghanistan War on Drugs and the Global War on Terror's drone strike campaigns.
Rather than removing opium or reducing the number of terrorists, U.S. policy led to a seven-fold increase in opium production in Afghanistan, and we used a method of terror in the war on terror. These unintended consequences are why we should think twice about waging armed interventions abroad. By effectively driving up demand for opium and creating terror in communities, we created space for people to move into the high-paying drug trades and to have sympathy for suspects of terrorism. A better way would be to pursue far limited military aims in the world and to lean on other tools of statecraft to deal with our policy challenges.
Coyne offers a trenchant libertarian critique of U.S. foreign policy. Using political economy and classical liberalism theories, he shows that the United States' pursuit of empire is self-defeating and creating monsters that later have to be destroyed. He makes a convincing case, using the examples of the Afghanistan War on Drugs and the Global War on Terror's drone strike campaigns.
Rather than removing opium or reducing the number of terrorists, U.S. policy led to a seven-fold increase in opium production in Afghanistan, and we used a method of terror in the war on terror. These unintended consequences are why we should think twice about waging armed interventions abroad. By effectively driving up demand for opium and creating terror in communities, we created space for people to move into the high-paying drug trades and to have sympathy for suspects of terrorism. A better way would be to pursue far limited military aims in the world and to lean on other tools of statecraft to deal with our policy challenges.
December 29, 2024
Coyne's "In Search of Monsters to Destroy" unpacks the broad, top-down failures of America's approach to liberal primacy around the globe.
It delves into the inherent tendency for single, state based agencies and actors to fall prey to waste, fraud, and abuse of resources in places like Iraq an Afghanistan, and how our continual effort to play the world's policeman only serves to exacerbate the problem.
A good read for those who are more familiar with the nuance of America's foreign policy history, and want to take a more philosophical approach to understanding the root causes of some issues with it.
It delves into the inherent tendency for single, state based agencies and actors to fall prey to waste, fraud, and abuse of resources in places like Iraq an Afghanistan, and how our continual effort to play the world's policeman only serves to exacerbate the problem.
A good read for those who are more familiar with the nuance of America's foreign policy history, and want to take a more philosophical approach to understanding the root causes of some issues with it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews