Can Intervention Work?

by Rory Stewart, Gerald Knaus

Best-selling author Rory Stewart and political economist Gerald Knaus examine the impact of large-scale interventions, from Bosnia to Afghanistan. Rory Stewart (author of The Places In Between ) and Gerald Knaus distill their remarkable firsthand experiences of political and military interventions into a potent examination of what we can and cannot achieve in a new era of "nation building." As they delve into the massive, military-driven efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans, the expansion of the EU, and the bloodless "color" revolutions in the former Soviet states, the authors reveal each effort's enormous consequences for international relations, human rights, and our understanding of state building. Stewart and Knaus parse carefully the philosophies that have informed interventionism―from neoconservative to liberal imperialist―and draw on their diverse experiences in the military, nongovernmental organizations, and the Iraqi provincial government to reveal what we can ultimately expect from large-scale interventions, and how they might best realize positive change in the world.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Middle East, War, Military Fiction, Essays, History

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2011

About the author

Rory Stewart was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Malaysia. He served briefly as an officer in the British Army (the Black Watch), studied history and philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford and then joined the British Diplomatic Service. He worked in the British Embassy in Indonesia and then, in the wake of the Kosovo campaign, as the British Representative in Montenegro. In 2000 he took two years off and began walking from Turkey to Bangladesh. He covered 6000 miles on foot alone across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal -- a journey described in The Places in Between.

In 2003, he became the coalition Deputy Governor of Maysan and Dhi Qar -- two provinces in the Marsh Arab region of Southern Iraq. He has written for a range of publications including the New York Times Magazine, the London Review of Books, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and Granta. In 2004, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire and became a Fellow of the Carr Centre at Harvard University. In 2006 he moved to Kabul, where he established the Turquoise Mountain Foundation.

In 2010 he was elected as a Conservative member of the British Parliament. In 2014 was elected chair of the Defence Select Committee. He served under David Cameron as Minister for the Environment from 2015 to 2016. He served as a minister throughout Theresa May’s government as Minister of State for International Development, Minister of State for Africa and Minister of State for Prisons. He ultimately joined the Cabinet and National Security Council as Secretary of State for International Development. After May announced she would be stepping down, Stewart stood as a candidate to be Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 2019 leadership contest. His campaign was defined by his unorthodox use of social media and opposition to a no-deal Brexit. He stated at the beginning of his campaign that he would not serve under Boris Johnson and when Johnson became prime minister, in July 2019, Stewart resigned from the cabinet.

On 3 October 2019 Stewart announced he had resigned from the Conservative Party and that he would stand down as an MP at the next general election. He initially put himself up to be an independent candidate in the 2021 London mayoral election but withdrew on 6 May 2020 on the grounds of the election being postponed due to COVID-19, saying he could not maintain the campaign so long against the big budgets of the Labour and Conservative campaigns. In September 2020 he became a fellow at Yale University, teaching politics and international relations.

Reviews

[Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I adore Rory Stewart. I am a huge fan of clinically insane people in government. I think he is incurably, fascinatingly insane, and I always find his writing clever and insightful. Plus, he walked across Asia, taught at Harvard then got elected to Parliament. Like I said, crazy. (Though he was elected in his homeland of Scotland, which probably explains a lot).

The overarching theme of the book is not terribly uplifting. The answer to the title is a qualified, "Maybe. If you're lucky." Stewart's descriptions of the people flying to Kabul made me laugh out loud while I listened in my car. "The tattooed men with bulging biceps were clearly bodyguards. The man who smiled compulsively had to be a missionary. Only a missionary would bring a blond 2 year old to Afghanistan." (I'll leave the darker implications of that to the reader and say only that the Afghans loooved my blond medic. He was not amused).

Stewart takes us on a tour de force of troop levels in Afghanistan from the invasion until the start of 2012. It's fascinating to learn that the Brits 'held' Helmand province with 200 soldiers in the middle part of the decade. When I was there we were drawing down from 30,000 or so. There is no way on God's green Earth (or that Hellscape He dumped in Helmand province) that that place was in any way pacified by 200 kafir soldiers. This all leads to Knauss' later conjecture that increased troop levels cause higher casualties (I'll buy correlation but not direct causation in this case). Stewart focuses largely on Afghanistan and Knauss on Bosnia, which is understandable, as that is where each of them had the bulk of their experience (though Stewart's chronicle of his year as a governor in Iraq was a fascinating- and, to me, helpful- book titled Prince of the Marshes), but it really does make the book a sequence of two essays and less of a coherent narrative.

The most depressing part of the book would actually have been funny if it had not cost lives. Stewart reads each new ISAF (or whatever they were called in the beginning) Commanding General's statement upon arriving in Afghanistan. For 10 years, all ten statements sounded exactly like this: "The last strategy didn't work, but this will be a decisive year as we have a new strategy and only need the resources to implement it." Ten times. It's awful to hear it read aloud by the narrator time after time, knowing how many lives were lost there.

Stewart also talks at lenght about the old British foreign service, and how language proficiency became a nonfactor in placement and promotion in (I think he said) 2005, and how they now select based on things I would specifically not hire people for my company if they had it on their resumes. "Women's and gender roles. Not 'Women's and gender roles in Afghanistan,' just 'Women's and gender roles.'" He seems genuinely astonished at the array of ways to say 'Theory of Government,' on a resume, and, at the risk of sounding like an old man that the world has passed by, I agree with him. I think you should have some language and cultural knowledge of the people you live/work with. I did, and it helped. During my time there I got more- and that helped more. (This I posit was both correlation and causation).

I found Stewart's tales of the old foreign service Brits in the Raj, serving 15 years in one place, then 16 in another, mind-bending. No wonder they were so good at administration- they were permanent residents! They build lasting, decades-long personal relationships! (I'm not advocating people living there. Though language skills and some time spent in cultural study would be helpful)

Stewart's piece is entertaining but not a positive look at nation-building, or intervention or whatever we are calling it.

Knauss talks extensively about Bosnia and the intervention there. I rewound the piece where he talked about how long NATO administered Bosnia because I thought I heard him wrong. I hadn't. It was 15 years at least. Quick show of hands, How many of you reading this knew that? (Put your hand down, Mom.)

I found this piece muddled and somewhat meandering; Knauss may not have Stewart's gift for delivering a foreign land onto paper. I learned quite a bit that I didn't know, but the upshot is that Bosnia is largely a functioning country where people have returned from whence they were ethincally cleansed. Which is good. I found some of the conclusions from the story at best unhelpful, though. The primary one of these was the aforemention increased force presence (say, as per Rand Corp plan) actually increases violence. What I can tell you is that if we didn't have troops out in Helmand, the Taliban would have gone about their daily business of extortion and occasional spasm of terror against the local populace (I will not comment here on the new regime simply being a change of actors and not actions when we leave).

The most depressing conclusion was that "Nation building under fire" has never worked. (The full sample size consists of all US work- Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. So we're 0 for 3). Sample sizes are small (3), so we have to examine the methodology, but no one is sure which method works, so that is hard if not impossible to do. So the question remains: why did Bosnia work and Iraq/Afghanistan didn't? The most interesting theory Knauss put out is that entry to the EU was a carrot to get leaders who hated each other (and, indeed, each other's peoples demonstrably, having killed as many of them as possible) to if not work together, at least negotiate on things they could find common ground on. As opposed to say, murdering each other.


Ultimately, what you get out of this book is a sense of pessimism. I love anything by Rory Stewart, and if you are interested in foreign policy it is well worth the read. If you are not, read Prince of the Marshes for your Rory Stewart fix.

A final aside. Why do the voice actors feel the need to do accents? Do they have it in their contracts? This guy had a lilting Scottish accent and did a passable Afghan accent (even pronouncing "Afghan" "Illfan" the way they do), but his American accent was generally just a growl, and many of his other European ones were just comical (Italian was my favorite. I would actually get excited when I knew it was coming). Just read the book folks. I know it gets dull, but just read the book.

[Wu Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Can Intervention Work?” 書名己知一二，就是說西方社會在巴爾幹一帶地方的干擾可行嗎？ 書中不是探討應不應該，而是深入分析其失敗的地方。 在2021年美國敗撤阿富汗來說有點事後孔明，但此書在2011年出版，一早已知美國和其他國家資源錯配。此2位作者都是在哈佛大學任教，十年來一直不斷四出遊說要把方向重設。


2位作者也承認近年的外國干預都敗在西方國家駐當地的思維，錯在藥石亂投。Rory Stewart 說當需要干預人權及生命受摧毀的地方時，比喻為登山營救，而登山營救者不是要把醫生送上山，而是要一個熟知地勢的人，遇過所有惡劣天氣的人，知道險峰在前而迴路轉行的人。可是比喻和理論往往比行動容易，2位作者在書未也沒有提供確切的方案，我想大概要登山時，都是摸着石頭而行。

此書大致圍繞着一個阿媽是女人的重點：
“Most foreign powers, they contend, are much weaker than they imagine, more isolated from local society than they realize, hopelessly ignorant of local cultures, and frequently subservient to misleading and airy academic theories.”

[Alex Linschoten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half autobiography, half policy critique, this essay by Rory Stewart has a few interesting anecdotes but isn't really worth buying. His arguments are mostly sound, but the framing -- 'How Rory Failed to Prevent the Surge' -- can be a little trying.

[Jerrodm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two well-written and insightful essays by long-time practitioners of international peace and conflict resolution/state building efforts. The overall message is a sobering one -- peace-building and state-building are not impossible, but they are frequently orders of magnitude more complicated, dangerous and costly than we initially assess, and possible more than we can initially assess. The conclusion, that Western powers (the book is written pretty much explicitly at Western policy makers in the post-9/11 environment) should think twice and think hard about what must be spent, and what might be won or lost before contemplating large-scale efforts to reshape failed or defeated states.

The essays draw principally on two recent examples of Western state-building exercises in post-conflict areas: Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. In both cases, the authors highlight the initial confidence with which policymakers went in about being able to engineer a solution, only to be befuddled by local conditions, resistant populations, etc. The resulting step by step further into the state-building quagmire is an important lesson -- no matter how savvy, political leaders seem irresistibly drawn to the argument that "just a little more" effort, investment, troop presence, or whatever, is needed to tip the scales and get things moving in the right direction, at which point we'll be able to check out and let the process run on its own.

What I think our recent history has shown, and what these authors highlight, is that that idea is fundamentally flawed, and that any effort to remake the institutional and social fabric of a country or people requires, at minimum, a commitment of decades and a commensurately large investment of people and money. That's not to say it's indefensible under all circumstances to do this, but the costs of such an investment, in lives lost, in war and post-war costs, in continuing exposure to foreign countries' populations and the resulting frictions that can engender, etc., means these kinds of intervention should only be considered where really pivotal national interests are at stake.

It's not so much that one must go in with a clear exit strategy; it's that one needs to go in recognizing that the exit is a generation away, and that the problems that arise along the way are likely to be much larger and more complicated than they appear before hand, and some will be completely unforeseeable. So enter only with trepidation. It's a useful message to revisit periodically, since we tend to periodically get sucked back into a "several thousand U.S. troops can fix it" perspective on global problems.

[Antenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Focusing on Afghanistan since 2001, Rory Stewart identifies reasons for the failure of intervention to achieve a "sustainable solution". Goals have been unclear, obscured by buzzwords and western-style "management speak". Leaders sent in to sort out the problems have stayed for only short periods, with foreign specialists remaining ignorant of the local culture since they rarely set foot outside protected compounds for security reasons. So, each successive surge of ever larger numbers of troops, with additional resources and revised policies, has failed to stabilise the situation.

Little heed was taken of McNamara's "lessons" from Vietnam, notably that "there may be no immediate solutions. We failed to recognise the limitations of modern high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine...We viewed people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experiences. We do not have a God-given right to shape every nation in our own image or as we choose. We exaggerated the dangers to the United States".

In contrast to Stewart's somewhat rambling, anecdotal contribution which often seems overly concerned to display his literary style, Gerald Knaus produces a systematic, coherent and very informative analysis of the relatively successful restoration of peace in Bosnia from the late 1990s, although recent events may have undermined this. Triggered, some say too late, by shame over inaction in the face of genocide in Rwanda and Srebinica, intervention in Bosnia largely took the form of targeted bombing and training to support Croatian and Bosnian soldiers against the Serbs.

Knaus examines four interpretations of intervention in the Balkans. He is critical of the "planning school of nation-building" as developed by the American Rand Corporation think tank which argues that the number of troops and resources needed to subdue a population of a certain size can be calculated "scientifically" using formulae. It is a simple questions of inputs versus outputs. The fact that Vietnam at one point had more than 600,000 troops covering a population of 19 million suggests the inadequacy of this approach, which is also likely to be prohibitively expensive anyway for a large country.

At the other extreme is the "sceptical futility" school which Knaus finds too negative: "if you understand the culture, if you avoid counterproductive violence......... if you train the local forces well, if you pick your allies wisely, if you protect enough civilians and win their loyalty and more you might succeed," but that there are too many "ifs" to make this likely.

Knaus concedes that a period of tough, authoritarian "liberal imperialism" may be necessary as practised by Paddy Ashdown when High Representative in Bosnia, but he clearly favours what he calls "principled incrementalism", a kind of "muddling through with a sense of purpose" in, for instance, the process of enabling displaced groups to return with a degree of grassroots organisation.

Although very interesting and chastening reading, this book might have been more effective if ideas could have been integrated into a continuous whole, rather than presented in two separate sections by different authors with some repetition. Coverage of a wider range of war zones would also have been useful to demonstrate key points.

[Shafiqah Nor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read on a compilation of essays by Rory Stewart (I am a fan of his works) and Gerald Knaus questioning the variables, objectives, justification and success/failures of humanitarian interventions

Stewart focuses more on Afghanistan and a little on Iraq. While the latter half, Knaus expands on NATO's intervention on Bosnia and a little on Rwanda.

This book was published in 2011, and I can't help but observe how advance Stewart's thinking was on his essay on Afghanistan in what he had predicted would be a 'failed intervention'. He compares it to Vietnam as another intervention based on "exaggerated danger to the Uniter States" and criticized foreign bureaucracy and revolving diplomatic core of countries for the lack of local expertise. Additionally, the buzzwords and jargon of "rule of law" and "sustainability" often seen in international development are complicit for such failures - there is also little will to understand local norms, especially when security becomes 'paramount'. Stewart also challenges the credibility of the Rand formula which is used as a "scientific method" of quantifying then number of troops to deploy.

I respect Stewart's intellectual humility, he discloses his own shortcomings and referenced other expertise/academics much more knowledgeable on Afghanistan in his piece.

I also enjoyed Knaus' piece, he challenges the idea of Bosnia being the 'successful intervention' too frequently cited as a model case. He explores the concept of moral obligation to intervene by the international community, and the fine balance of threading towards occupation. I appreciated that he referenced Michael Ignatieff on R2P and Samantha Power on Bosnia.

The book brought back memories of my MA essays on state-building and consolidation of democracy.

[Meir Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short (192 pages) but good book with two mostly unrelated essays. The first is by Rory Stewart, detailing the failings of the US state-building project in Afghanistan. Stewart echoes the problems described in Séverine Autesserre's "Peaceland": the international "state-builders" often did not have deep knowledge of Afghanistan, did not stay long enough to get experience, did not speak to locals, etc. Stewart also criticizes the lack of a coherent plan of action, indicating that the international effort opted for abstract and circular language and goals that could not be corrected if they weren't working (as indeed they weren't). There are some effective passages and Stewart is a gifted writer, thinker and practitioner, so this was an illuminating essay.

The second essay deals with the success of the intervention in postwar Bosnia. It is most interesting for the historical details, which I was mostly unaware of. Knaus makes various points about the ideas underpinning intervention and its success or failure, but this would mostly be of interest to students of political science, and they probably would have better sources to look into. The details of how the Bosnia crisis developed and how the intervention worked despite the prediction of many skeptics is very interesting.

Overall, a good pair of articles, nothing more and nothing less. It does not give any kind of overall answer to the title, as can be expected from 192 pages, but they are interesting data points, and well written.

[Mick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Stewart's other books more. Worth a read for those interested in International Relations.

[Alana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the Rory Stewart essay -- the Gerald Knaus essay was irritating to finish.

[John Hayward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for everyone involved in foreign affairs.

[Matt A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intervention only seems to work out between loving parties (a parent preventing a kid from touching an oven, a friend physically restraining a friend from suicide).

Intervention only seems to fail between all other parties (Iraq/Afg./Libya/Vietnam war, regulating the market, Obamacare, drug confiscation, speeding tickets, Net Neutrality, etc.)

This book asks a supremely easy question (one most children know the answer to). It then tries to give a really complicated "yes", all the while desperately avoiding the obvious and simple "no".

[Anne Maesaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Rory Stewart. He knows more about the conflict in Afghanistan than all the government officials and diplomats put together. In this book he details why most conflict interventions fail, specifically the ones in the Middle East. I only wish our government officials would read this book and follow some of his recommendations. Every conflict has to be dealt with differently and not the cookie cutter UN mediated scripts.
That being said I found the section by Gerald Knaus redundant and not particularly interesting. I felt that it repeated much of what Rory Stewart had already covered and did not really enhance the reading experience. Could have easily been left out of the book.

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is affected me because I've lived and worked in one of the places discussed. It left me at times sad and ashamed and then hopeful and fired up. And finally lost and confused because - like most books of this nature - the conclusion was weak. There is no clear answer or solution to the question "can intervention work".

In “Can Intervention Work?” Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus critique foreign intervention through two case studies - Afghanistan and Bosnia. Both authors are critical of foreign interveners mostly because we do not take the time to get to know the societies we are "helping" - we don't learn the language or get to know the local cultures which leads to the application of theories and tactics which fail. I can't disagree. I recognised too much in this book and saw the problems first hand. After 10 years of war in Afghanistan, international efforts have clearly been undermined by an extreme detachment from the lives of ordinary Afghans. It made for depressing reading.

The authors conclude - I believe - in making a strong case for intervention on moral grounds. More "developed" nations can not stand by for too long and see human rights being abused without being obligated to step in. Which I still whole-heartedly agree with. But it also makes a strong case for lowering our ambition and expectations about whether or not we really can or should change a society. Not unless we are willing to invest heavily in manpower and resources and spend time getting to know the local culture. There is no magic bullet. The book left me sad. I wish I hadn't played my minor part in the mistakes made. Having said that I still believe that intervention is justified at times.

I read this on a train coming back from Washington DC, which was rather poignant given the power base it is. It's exactly in the capitols where grand theories of intervention are planned - far from the realities on the ground.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew ! I respect Rory Stewart a lot, and his descriptions and insights are "overwhelming" and sadly far too commonly observed.

He definitely exposes some of the madness that goes with Intervention, and the total lack of local knowledge, history, customs, culture that powerful people/countries show. And then we are surprised that it does not work, or has failed,not counting the misery and destruction involved. Man Oh Man !!

A very impressive, and while it is blunt and shows how wrong the west in Afghanistan has been, it does not rule out intervention

We must
- stop using buzz words that are so remotly relevant to the
- local culture, history, societies structuer etc.
- hence having short postings, and having this "horrid" churning of totaly green strangers coming in with new strategies and resourses ( and armed on top) is clearly not the way.

Some buzz words mentionned I liked: "effective and accountable state", good governance, gender sensitive, How would that translate to a distant village, occupied by foreign armed forces.

the 2nd half of the book is written by Gerald Knaus, and concentrates more on Bosnia, and defines 4 main school of thought camps:

- the planning school: a good strategy, with the right amount of resources with the RAND corp being it's pinnacle.

- A whip and some cash - the liberal imperialist school. identify the bad gusy and root them out and all will be solved.

- The futility and intervention skeptics School

- and finally a Principlad and incrementilisme school, (Knaus's option)

[Joe Chernicoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Continuing education is a task all (hopefully) intelligent American undertake. That does not mean you have to attend seminars or workshops, or enroll in classes at institutions of higher learning. Books written by knowledgeable authors can be, and are, the path to higher learning.

Regardless of your own knowledge, political leanings, and other relevant factors which have a tendency
to lock your mind onto a given track of thought, as a wise person you understand that oftimes the real case is that you can always learn something which can help fine tune your thinking, and fine tune your understanding of what governments and their representatives do.

Can Intervention Work? is a book of two essays, each written by a different author with on-the-ground experience in the intervention process. Rory Stewart, a best selling author, and a member of Parliament, writes about intervention in Afghanistan; Gerald Knauss the founding member of the European Stability Initiative, provides a highly informative insight to the Balkan intervention.

Fascinating reading from both authors. You may have understood how intervention can work without realizing it, but then the question arises, does it, in all cases? And does a successful intervention in one country translate into success in another?

This book should make you look at our ongoing interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan with a more understang eye - this a book I would expect almost everyone to appreciate.

[Clay Wescott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two insightful essays look at two interventions. The first, Afghanistan, will end badly. Soldiers and civilians come for their short tours, adding their bit to the state building template. Each new commander arrives, blames his predecessor for the problems, and promises to do better. It might have worked if the goals had remained counter-terrorism; but the parties involved have overreached, trying to build a capable, accountable government, to protect against exaggerated dangers to the west. The western version of this doesn't translate to most of rural Afghanistan. The second example is Bosnia, where intervention has largely succeeded. But many misunderstand the reasons. It's not because of sound planning and ample resources, nor because of liberal imperialism (a whip and some cash). What's worked is principled incrementalism: building an elite constituency for reform, with the promise of joining the EU, backing it up with a comprehensive judicial process lasting 15 years and counting, and grabbing other opportunities as they come, not pushing harder than the people are ready to go. But Bosnia isn't a model that proves other interventions can work. Most interventions fail, particularly those trying to achieve state building under fire (think Vietnam war).

[notabattlechick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though the title may suggest a boring case-study slog through modern interventions using quantitative metrics and social-science methodology, the book is far different. And much better for it. The two authors (Stewart and Knaus) instead offer two extended meditations on interventions in Afghanistan and Bosnia based both on personal experience and relatively in-depth research, though both touch on larger themes of intervention, miltiary force, humanitarianism, and the global order. Both essays are insightful and contain excellent points for discussion and consideration. For a group of gloablly-engaged nerds, or students of foreign policy, the book offers a plethora of potential discussion topics. The conclusion, I think, could be stronger, and I can't for the life of me figure out why Kanus's essay on Bosnia is placed second in the book--the chronological jump back in time is odd, and because the essays really do stand alone (there's nothing in Stewart's essay on Afghanistan that would require you to read it first), it's an editorial choice I simply don't understand. But, a short, engaging read. Highly recommended.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two essays on international intervention to prevent or respond to crises. In the first, Rory Stewart reveals the extent to which the West failed in Afghanistan and makes a compelling argument for longer tours and regional or country expertise, rather than subject matter expertise, in the foreign service.
In the second essay, which I actually found more interesting, Gerald Knaus teases out successful and potentially successful strategies, through a methodical analysis of four theories of state-building. Both important reads, and Knaus's dissection of success in Bosnia - and which schools of thought erroneously claimed responsibility for it - is very enlightening.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The answer to the question the book poses (I'm saving you lots of reading time-but you should read book and not just take my word for it) is no. Rory Stewart is extremely credible and even has the stones to second guess the late Richard Holbrook! Gerald Knaus brings hindsight to the table in his step by step analysis of the Balkans and what we can learn from that era of "nation building" and how it relates to our current efforts in the Middle East. Lots of name (and place name) dropping and news flash-I did skim after a while-but that said, if you are trying to wrap your head around what and why the heck we are involved in Afghanistan this is worth the time.

[Kaycecejim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rory Stewart writes strongly and convincingly about the failure of intervention in Afghanistan - adopting a far more polemic approach to Knaus' academic one. The distinct approaches, emphasises and conclusions of the authors makes this an insightful and engaging exploration of contemporary neoliberal interventionism.
Be warned, this is far from fiction, and it is not recommended in that respect - the two authors convened an academic programme on this topic at a prestigious American university, and this book is a product of that.

[Julian Haigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book presenting a balanced case, at least compared to the overly 'high-level' country strategy papers. Perhaps of most clear use, the book highlights some mistakes that occupying forces continually make but doesn't suggest any workable solutions to delivering limited and pragmatic intervention targets for domestic (home country) political consumption (and neither can I!)

[Colin Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read about Afghanistan. The authors go into a level of detail that is refreshing and analyze some of the ways that the intervention was mishandled--like waiving the requirement that the senior officials speak the local languages. The second half, which deals with Bosnia, assumed far more background knowledge than I had and was far less engaging.

[David Kirlew-Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a high quality critique on current international intervention strategies from people who know foreign policy. There are plenty of historical references and reliable sources are used throughout. I found the Rory Stewart portion of the book to be the most accessible, but the whole thing is worth reading.

[Phil Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unmissable read for anyone seeking to understand the mindset and ethics of modern western foreign policy. Great companion piece to Martin Jacques 'When China Rules the World'. The radical differences in approach between China and Western Powers sets the stage for one of the titanic challenges of the 21st century

[Jenna Copeland Kristensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I buy the central argument of these essays and feel that the authors have written an intriguing and compelling book. In fact, I can see parallels with global business and thus found it interesting to compare to my everyday life. The book did seem to drag towards the end.

[Carol Brady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't gotten beyond the Rory Stewart section. I am a great fan of his books and personal take on Iraq and Afghanistan. From his walk across Afghanistan to Prince of the Marshes, his experiences give you a real insight into the political and social problems of those lands.

[N · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slentrende og ufokusert om erfaringene fra først og fremst Afghanistan og Bosnia.

[Mary Louise]

Can't wait to read this.