Going to War? Trends in Military Interventions by Stéfanie von Hlatky and H. Christian Breede
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702017740107 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Third, the contributions were written before the November 2016 US presidential
election. Haglund observes that NATO will remain the central Western security
organization ‘‘unless and until the United States itself chooses to reassess, radically,
its own interest in the alliance’’ (6). Moens notes that ‘‘all of the bad blood gen-
erated by Bush’s propensity to act unilaterally has been flushed away by now by
Barack Obama’s propensity to work closely with allies in diplomacy and action’’
(94). Today, President Trump proclaims personal friendship with, and admiration
for, Russia’s President Putin, despite Russian military encroachments in Eastern
Europe and strong indications of Russian interference in the US election. Trump
suggests that NATO is obsolete as it was created ‘‘a long time ago,’’ and speculates
on the breakup of the EU. For the generation largely represented here, and perhaps
a new generation of scholars of Canadian defence and security—as well as for the
current Liberal government facing the daily upheavals emanating from the Twitter
account of the leader of Canada’s southern neighbour—it is game on.
Ste
´fanie von Hlatky and H. Christian Breede, eds.,
Going to War? Trends in Military Interventions
Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016. 264pp. $34.95 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-0-77354-758-2
Reviewed by: Uriel Marantz (uriel.marantz@carleton.ca), Norman Paterson School of
International Affairs, Carleton University
How do countries perceive national and international security threats? How do
they mobilize capabilities to respond to threats, and how do military responses
affect domestic politics, alliance commitments, and international environments?
These are some of the many questions addressed in Ste
´fanie von Hlatky and H.
Christian Breede’s Going to War? Trends in Military Interventions. The book offers
a multifaceted approach to the complex problem of military intervention and
makes several worthwhile contributions to the literature, though some minor con-
ceptual issues beg clarification. It also makes several worthwhile contributions to
the literature.
The work is divided into four parts. Part one assesses national security threats
and capabilities, part two focuses on trends in military intervention, part three
catalogues the alliance politics of contemporary interventions, and part four
unpacks the uniquely Canadian experience. Contributors were asked to focus
on a wide range of related issues, such as what proximate triggers would lead
Canada and its allies to use force abroad, what effect shrinking defence budgets
would have on future capabilities and interventions, and how NATO’s post-2001
missions would impact future alliance-based interventions. This carefully
researched anthology packs an impressive amount of conceptually innovative
and methodologically diverse substance into about 250 pages of compelling argu-
ments on the future of military intervention. The findings are explicitly policy-
relevant for Canada.
Book Reviews 587
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