How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon.

• Author: Gomez, Eric

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

Rosa Brooks

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016, 448 pp.

On October 7, 2001, the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom, the opening act of America's war in Afghanistan. Fifteen years later, in addition to the unresolved war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military is bombing Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, firing cruise missiles against Houthi rebels in Yemen, and using drones to kill terrorists in Somalia. The smorgasbord of threats to the United States has also expanded in the last 15 years. Cyber weapons, the proliferation of unmanned weapons systems, and advancements in North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities are just a few of the issues causing handwringing among the foreign policy establishment in Washington. So, what is to be done?

In How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon, Rosa Brooks reflects on the novel characteristics of modern warfare and makes a case for new laws and institutions to manage its complex realities. Brooks mixes insightful stories about her experiences working in the Pentagon--from April 2009 to July 2011 she was a counselor to former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy--with hard-hitting academic discussions on international law and history. This combination works very well. But not all of Brooks's arguments about the state of war and what should be done about it hit their mark. Brooks does an excellent job of describing the current state of affairs, but her recommendations for managing future wars are not entirely convincing.

The key premise of How Everything Became War is that, in an age of nonstate actors, new technology, and general interconnectedness, the distinction between war and peace has broken down. Instead of there being clear states of war and peace, the world is now faced with a continuum where most activities fall somewhere in between. Russia's intervention in Ukraine, characterized by disinformation operations, "little green men" in Crimea, and proxy forces, is an example of such "gray zone" conflicts. Brooks argues that such conflicts are not a temporary aberration but a new paradigm that is already affecting the international legal system and the U.S. military.

The international laws, norms, and institutions that are supposed to govern state behavior in war are ill-suited to the continuum model because they are...