The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power is both polemic and history by a new, independent contributor. Most of the text includes expert prose narrating some of the more obscure events in world history across a dizzying span of time from the founding of the American Republic to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Like so much recent commentaries, 9/11 gives the argument greater importance. Max Boot argues, that small wars, often undeclared and with no clear purpose or exit strategy, have comprised most of the American military record and have contributed most to the Pax Americana. Drawing on stories of Americans from Decatur to Farragut to Butler, Boot recovers a sense of the American character more realistic than Hollywood movies.

Boot's audience clearly are isolationist and unilateralist elements within the political establishment, for whom he delivers a critique of the Powell Doctrine. Boot assumes, that America needs to be a global sheriff, as it has for almost two centuries through small wars. Boot argues, that the resistance to a more visible international role stems from erroneous lessons learned from the Vietnam War. First, Boot argues, that political leaders in Washington and senior commanders, like Westmoreland, fought a large war, when they should have learned from the history of small wars and conducted a counter-insurgency campaign. The resulting loss of nerve conditioned military leaders to eschew small wars, the overwhelming staple of military combat previously, for large set-piece wars where overwhelming force could be deployed. Also, after conducting two successful large wars in World War Two and Korea, the United States forgot the lessons, previous soldiers had learned in small wars.

Boot also argues, that American reluctance to conduct humanitarian missions and nation-building is also another legacy of Vietnam. However, before that, the United States had trained police forces, conducted civil affairs training, and health campaigns as a part of successful counter-insurgency campaigns in Asia and the Caribbean. American troops had even served under foreign commanders in such places as China, where the United States maintained a presence on and off for a century. When opportunities arose in the 90's for similar missions, American troops had little experience and military leaders were too reluctant to stay the course.

Implicit in Boot's argument is the assumption, that the United States' various campaigns contributed to world peace and the rule of law. His discussions of Caribbean campaigns in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua highlight the role of the Marines in construction, disease eradication, and police reform. He takes issue with the view, that the United States was merely protecting business interests. In the longest and most controversial counter-insurgency war against Filipino rebels, Boot highlights the benefits of American efforts, even considering the brutal military tactics employed.

Boot's narrative is buttressed with impressive accounts of colorful American and indigenous personalities, 30-odd pages of endnotes, an index and bibliography. His prose is competently lively and analytical. Aside from an awkward chapter on the Marine Small Wars Manual, his argument is expertly rendered. And his argument is never more needed, as the United States embarks on low-intensity counter-insurgency campaigns in numerous countries.

The Savage Wars of Peace is a fascinating summary of the United States' successes and failures during 200 years and twenty-plus "small wars" from the Barbary Coast in 1801 to the Philippines in 1899, the Mexican border in 1915, the Yangtze Valley in 1927 and Kosovo in 2000. This well written book provides both entertainment and food for thought. Most of these "small wars", especially the numerous pre-World War II conflicts, are little, if at all, remembered. Even military professionals seem to have forgotten some of the principles and lessons learned which could have served us well in more recent forays.

Besides the entertaining narratives, Boot makes a convincing case that 1) murky conflicts without identifiable conclusions or "exit strategies" can lead to favorable results (although sometimes it takes hindsight to realize that), 2) fighting styles that limit casualties (on both sides) can achieve lasting results and 3) there have been far more undeclared "small wars" in American history than big ones and yet the professional military perceives the small wars as aberrations rather than the norm.

The Savage Wars of Peace makes a great jumping off point for detailed study of the individual campaigns. The 22-page bibliography plus 34 pages of notes provides many starting points for further research. My only criticisms are that I would like to see more photographs and maps, and the proofreader needs to check more carefully for a few date errors (e.g., on page 305 a Marine unit arrives in Vietnam in June 1966 and then engages in a significant action in September 1965; which year is correct? This type of thing occurs elsewhere.).

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to everyone interested in U.S. history or military history and strategy.

The history of the U.S. is often broken down by the major wars it has been involved in, especially the Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II. Boot's book looks at the many other little wars we have been involved in and their impact on both our history and our military thinking.

The first thing that must be done in a book like this is define what a small war is. Boot defines it as an undeclared war basically done at the insistence of the President, fought usually in an atypical field of battle and usually with a goal other than unconditional surrender of the enemy. Duration or scale is not a factor; by Boot's definition, the Vietnam War was a small war and the much shorter Gulf War was a big war.

Going from the battles against the Barbary pirates to Bosnia, Boot selects some of the U.S.'s more significant minor wars and discusses their causes and resolutions. His tone is sometimes critical of American action, but generally depicts the U.S. in a better light than other countries engaged in these (often) imperialistic efforts. Boot is definitely not an isolationist: the final part of the book deals with his argument that these wars are necessary and that America is damaged more from reluctance to fight than by fighting.

This is an excellent book. For a somewhat alternative look at U.S. history, this fits the bill. Even if you disagree with his interventionist viewpoint, there is still enough valuable historical material here to be a worthwhile (and enjoyable) read.

Although Mr. Boot's objective is admirable, he fails to deliver a cogent and thoughtful critique of the American judicial system. Perhaps, if Mr. Boot had an educational and professional background in this area, his book would have provided more inciteful analysis rather than being packed full of bromides and anecdotes.

Sensationalizing the shortcomings of the judiciary does not further the debate or help us toward the ultimate solution. Obviously, this approach reflects Mr. Boot's journalistic background which generally entails glitz over substance.

Whether you are liberal or conservative, Max Boot's "Out of Order" is likely to get you mad. Mad because the judicial system is painted as so-out-of-control, or mad because you think Boot is a conservative hack (who writes for the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages).

What Boot has done, and done effectively, is gather horrible anecdote after horrible anecdote, organize them in general categories like corrupt judges, incompetent judges, and so on. The picture that he paints is pretty grim: if a judge isn't on the take, he or she might be plain weak, stupid, arrogant, or deluded.

But how seriously are we to take Boot's thesis? While the individual cases that he discusses are (to varying degrees) disturbing, the central problem with this book lies in the fact that the reader is supposed to evaluate a judge based on one case, out of thousands or more that the judge might see in his or her career.

At the same time, Boot strangely ignores some obvious targets for those who would like to criticize the judiciary. For example, Judge Stephen Reinhardt (a federal appeals judge in California) is usually the posterchild for judicial activism: he is one of the judges most-often reversed by the Supreme Court. Yet, Judge Reinhardt rates only one mention, and it is actually praise from Boot. Now, I'm not suggesting necessarily that Boot would think that Reinhardt is worthy of criticism (though I think it fairly obvious, given their respective ideologies), but there is a history and pattern of judicial opinions from which one could draw definite conclusions.

As other reviewers have noted, this is a critical weakness of "Out of Order." It's a collection of anecdotes, almost a survey of judges across the country, but not very deep in its scope.

Max Boot has shown himself to be a thoughtful writer and deputy features editor for the Wall Street Journal. I have enjoyed his work in that paper for several years. His book is a thoughtful, entertaining and at times enraging look at the judiciary in this country. It falls prey to what I consider to be a congenital shortcoming which is the fact that the author is a journalist and not a lawyer or even a law school graduate. Hence, this is essentially someone who is intelligent and well informed but is still "on the outside looking in." Like all top-notch journalists, he is adept at "getting up to speed" and doing the research necessary to speak effectively on the subjects he writes about. I've had several dealings with Wall Street and NY Times journalists and editors and I have to say that Max Boot is perhaps the least insufferable, smug and self-impressed of the bunch. (Take this for the compliment it is. If you knew these folks you'd realize just how self-impressed they are when it comes to hawking their own books and to "playing up" their purported expertise on various substantive subjects like the American legal system.) Max Boot is an intelligent, workmanlike writer who has done his homework on an important subject.