Book Review: The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency, John Mueller

John Mueller, The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and

the Case for Complacency. (Cambridge University Press, 2021 ).

John Mueller (b. 1937) is a political scientist at Ohio State University, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, and member of the American of Arts and Sciences. In his recent book, The Stupidity of War, Mueller assesses the record of America's military nation of wars since 1945 with documentations of important people such as Robert McNamara (In Retrospect The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, 1995). McNamara had done so much to build up the US nuclear arsenal, reflected years later that "Each individual decision along the way seemed rational at the time. But the result was insane." The word "stupid" is repeated throughout Mueller's book, especially of leaders in Washington's perceived threat and its yearly authorizing of increasing military spending in upgrading the Pentagon's lethal arsenal to the tune of billion of dollars per year. With the exception of the war between Iran and Iraq (1980-1988) and Ethiopia and Eritrea (1998-2000), the world has seen the rise of Aversion and the Decline of International War, so claims Mueller.

Mueller quotes Thomas Jefferson in saying that Europe was once the most warlike continent in the planet with an "arena of gladiators." Despite the Westphalian Treaty of 1648 after Europe's Thirty Years War, the rise of nation states with each having sovereignty over and defending its own territory and not interfering in the internal affairs of others. Noninterference, however, was compromised by the US being the one remaining superpower in the world after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Such can be seen in the genocide in Rwanda, 1994; ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, 1999; and killing of citizens in Libya in 2011-all done with the obligation to protect in the name of human rights of the victims.

With regard to China and Russia, Mueller claims that an international war involving the US and the two countries seem very unlikely because they are not ''Hitlerian" out to conquer the world. Other reasons are the following: Today, China is a rapidly aging population. In the year 2050, half of its population will be age forty-five or older, and a quarter will be over sixty-five. This is a consequence of its one-child policy sinCe the late 1970s. Also, the leaders of the PRC are so plagued with domestic problems, such as the growing gap between rich coastal areas and the poor interior of China. Other than the territorial expansion under the Qing (ruled by the Manchus, a conquest regime), the Han Chinese traditionally do not have ambitions of territorial conquest. As for Russia, Mueller sees it as economically not viable, despite its possession of oil and using such as a weapon.

Mueller cites Albert Einstein in the aftermath of World War II on world peace when the latter said that “Only the creation of a world government can prevent the impending self-destruction of mankind." Likewise, Edward Teller, a physicist who was later to be instrumental in the development of the hydrogen bomb, put it in 1946, world government "alone can give us freedom and peace." Even the famed philosopher Bertrand Russell was equally certain that the prevention of international wars can come about with "the establishment of an international government with monopoly of serious armed force." Finally, Mueller asks the question whether or not "anarchy" is a desirable condition because left to their own devices, most of the nations in the world will come to the conclusion of reversing the course of several millennia to accept the fact that international war is decidedly stupid method for solving their disputes. They would scarcely require an effective world government to assure world peace, nor would they need a "hegemonic" America to police the world, says Mueller.

- Franklin Woo