In Leaders at War, Elizabeth Saunders examines the use of military force by states to intervene in other nations’ domestic affairs.  Why, she asks, do some military interventions explicitly seek to transform the societies and institutions of the states they target while others do not?  And more basically, “why do great powers like the United States undertake overt intervention in some conflicts or crises but not in others?” (2)  As Saunders rightly notes, it’s not enough to study interventions that occurred; we should also examine those that might have occurred but did not.

 

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In Leaders at War, Elizabeth Saunders examines the use of military force by states to intervene in other nations’ domestic affairs.  Why, she asks, do some military interventions explicitly seek to transform the societies and institutions of the states they target while others do not?  And more basically, “why do great powers like the United States undertake overt intervention in some conflicts or crises but not in others?” (2)  As Saunders rightly notes, it’s not enough to study interventions that occurred; we should also examine those that might have occurred but did not.

 

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