"Written for students and scholars, Force Without Authority explains the course of US interventions from the liberation of Kuwait to the withdrawal from Kabul. At a moment of global pre-eminence, US officials acted unilaterally against nearly defenceless regimes while abjuring serious confrontation with more formidable states. After the 9/11 attacks, American leaders and the public became unusually risk-acceptant, an attitude that drove the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. The use of force to impose American preferences on the people of these countries provoked the deadliest anti-US resistance movements since Vietnam. The costs of the ensuing attempts at nation-building and counterinsurgency eclipsed the casualties of the initial invasions and compelled rethinking. By 2011, the United States was embracing airstrikes and renouncing large-scale ground combat. Through armed drones and Special Forces raids, US presidents could assassinate wanted terrorists. As for regime change and civil wars, they would let indigenous belligerents fight their own battles and build their own governments.

Hence, the "light-footprint" strategy proved lethally efficient and politically unambitious. This reorientation dramatically reduced US losses to war without resolving the inner contradiction of a superpower trying to bluff independently minded states to submit to Washingtons agenda. Rather than projecting strength, US operations revealed an enduring sensitivity to casualties (the "Vietnam Syndrome") and a glaring deference to foes with a proven ability to strike back"-- Provided by publisher.