Force Without Authority

Force Without Authority explores why the United States' costliest military operations since Vietnam fell short, influencing both Republican and Democratic leaders towards withdrawal and retrenchment.

Covering the sweep of US armed interventions since the end of the Cold War, Jason Brownlee sets America's post-9/11 invasions in a thirty-five-year foreign-policy arc—from caution to bravado—and back.

The al-Qaeda attacks suspended America's traditional aversion to high-risk military missions abroad. For the better part of a decade, presidents from both parties committed US troops to nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, by the 2010s, the focus shifted to a less hazardous and less ambitious programme of eliminating enemies from a distance without reshaping politics on the ground.

This same calculus pushed successive administrations towards diplomacy with America's most formidable foes.

Critical and wide-sweeping, the book delivers a bracing audit of America's unipolar moment and presents a compelling case for statecraft over bluster.