Reflection on The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Empire by Max Boot

Boot's biggest point in this book is that America's small wars (Nicaragua, Haiti, Philippines) are the way we fight wars and the big wars (WWI/II, Korea) are exceptions. I think he is right about that. He convincingly points out dozens of different operations that US forces have been a part of from our founding until the modern day, and it is clear that we have a long history of interventionism. The problem is that he ties this history to his own interventionist ideology, and pointing out past interventions is seemingly his way to argue that there is precedent for more interventionism in the future. But the book is weak in evidence that those interventions worked. Boot is always arguing that the occupation just needed to go on for longer, and I think he would always argue that even if we occupied countries for centuries.

This is definitely a well researched book, though it is not really systemic in its treatment of small wars. The book is really split with the time period from the Revolution through World War One just recounting different random small wars and then a big skip to Vietnam and a little bit about the nineties. I don't think I changed to many preconceived notions, though I think I am a little more appreciative not of how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not a pure waste. While we should have been focused on China, fighting those wars definitely honed the skills of a generation of American warriors, and so it was not a pure loss of time, blood, and money. However, I would still say that America should not be invading landlocked countries without planning to stay for the long haul. The clearest lesson that I can get from this book and my other readings is that you can't win an occupation unless you plan for it to be permanent. If there is going to be a handoff later, you are always going to lose the territory by design. The great empires of history did not invade lands so that they could do nation building and then leave.

Miscellaneous Facts and Quotes:

• "The strategy of guerrilla war is to put one man against ten, but the tactic is to pit ten men against one." -Mao Zedong
• Congress authorized the Medal of Honor for officers after the battle for Veracruz in 1914 and gave out 55 medals, which was probably too many. Smedley Butler tried to refuse his because he thought the award was now watered-down.
• Haiti invaded and occupied the Dominican Republic from 1801-05 and 1822-43. The Dominicans could not defend themselves and even volunteered to return to Spanish sovereignty in 1861, though Spain pulled out in 1865. The Dominicans asked the USA to annex them but the treaty was defeated in the Senate in 1871 even though President Grant was interested.
• Smedley Butler voted for the socialist candidate Norman Thomas in 1936 and shared speaking platforms with members of the American Communist Party. He also opposed US intervention in World War Two. 
• In the early twentieth century, marines were known as "State Department troops."
• General Victor Krulak was only 5'5" 138 pounds. 
• Between 2003 and 2008, 10,000 people died of suicide bombings in Iraq
• "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." -Vegetius (Let him who desires peace prepare for war).