Occupational Hazards

Edelstein elucidates the occasional successes of military occupations and their more frequent failures through 26 cases since 1815 in which an outside power seized control of a territory where the occupying party had no long-term claim on sovereignty.

David M. Edelstein is Assistant Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University. In addition, he is a core faculty member in Georgetown's Security Studies Program and Center for Peace and Security Studies.

This is an excellent work that is also a groundbreaking piece of scholarship. Occupation, especially after a dictatorial regime, often gives rise to nationalistic and ethnic groups who may have been oppressed and have incentive to organize and resist foreign troops. Also, without internal controls such groups may declare war on one another, hence the probability of civil strife and war. Therefore, chaos usually is the result because the occupiers want to impose new political institutions and cultural values. This is a powerful work that should be required reading in all of the military academies and war colleges. Policymakers in the Bush administration may have learned a thing or two had the book been available five or six years ago. Policymakers of the present and future should put it on their must-read list. Essential.

Military occupations are inherently risky affairs. According to David Edelstein, only seven of the twenty-six international military occupations conducted since 1815 have succeeded. Occupational Hazards attempts to explain not only this high failure rate for military occupations but also what distinguishes a successful occupation from an unsuccessful one. Given the challenges the United States faces in its recent occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, this broad analysis is a welcome addition to the literature.

Occupational Hazards is one of those rare books that seamlessly blends theory, historical case studies, and policy relevance. For all of those reasons, this is a very good book. I really hope that it attracts the attention it deserves from U.S. policymakers, the ones who most need to do so before they embark on future military occupations.

Barry R. Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

In Occupational Hazards, David M. Edelstein offers a simple, clear argument about the question of why occupations succeed or not. This theory and policy question is a timely one, and Edelstein has researched it well.

Jack Snyder, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations, Columbia University:

If only we had had this book before the invasion of Iraq! David Edelstein lucidly and compellingly explains why successful military occupations have been so rare in history and what conditions are needed for them to succeed.