Review: Occupational Hazards
| Author | Alexander Cooley |
| Published date | 01 June 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400217 |
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| Reviews |
| 586 | Spring 2009 | International Journal |
presumes, in other words, that power may support international community
rather than destroy it. It is not clear that Kagan can logically assume the
same, though his prescriptions seem to require it. Kagan insists that we
cannot speak of an “international community” where there is no agreement
on international norms, morality, or conscience, but the corollary of this is
that we
can
speak of such a community when common norms exist (76).
This seems confirmed by his hope for a concert of democracies and his
comment that “a democratic Russia and China would be better international
partners” (99).
The problem is that such moderate views sit oddly with Kagan’s initial,
ultra-realist analysis of the apparently invariable behaviour of
all
nations
which, never satisfied with a little power, must seek to expand it, thus
perpetuating the endless competition of power politics that marks the “return
of history.” It is surely useful to be reminded that the international triumph
of liberal democratic values, implicitly leading to a less dangerous world, is
not preordained but must be won politically, and that material and military
power is not irrelevant in the contest. But to presume, as Kagan seems to,
that such a triumph is even a possibility is already to transcend the narrow
power realism with which he begins.
John Kane/Griffith University
OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS
Success and Failure in Military Occupation
David M. Edelstein
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. 235pp, US$35.00 cloth (ISBN
978-0-8014-4615-3)
As new US administration officials inherit the daunting task of managing
reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, they would do well to read
David Edelstein’s thought-provoking book on the comparative political
dynamics of military occupations. In this timely and well-written study, the
author reminds us that successful military occupations have been relatively
rare occurrences in the history of international relations and that the often-
cited model cases of the US postwar occupations of Japan and Germany
succeeded for very specific, yet rarely specified, reasons.
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