To the shores of Tripoli.(Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power)

Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. Basic Books, 448 pages, $30

If this book can be said to have heroes and villains, the heroes are the Marines and the villains the one-dimensional army thinkers like William Westmoreland and Colin Powell whose strategies have been a disaster for American arms and prestige. Max Boot, the editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal, has examined the limited wars that dominate American military history and are the rule to which the Civil War, the two World Wars, and Korea are the exceptions. These limited wars can be variously termed, among other things, counterinsurgencies, sublimited wars, low-intensity conflicts, or the wonderful new coinage "military operations other than war" but Mr. Boot settles on "small wars" (the actual translation of the Spanish "guerilla").

In the post-Civil War era, the Marine Corps, which had existed in various forms since 1775, gained a motto, a march, and a mission. The government was beginning to take an interest in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and troops were needed to help stabilize some very unstable countries. The missions tended to take four basic forms: punitive raids or campaigns, protection of Americans or American interests in a foreign country, the pacification of rebellious and marauding populations, and the annexation of land or trade concessions (Mr. Boot calls this last item "profiteering" to maintain the alliteration). Between 1898 and 1940, Marines fought "small wars" in China, the Philippines, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, in some cases more than once and often on a long-term basis--four decades in China, for instance. These assignments earned the Marines the nickname of "State Department troops" But they were very good at them and proud enough of their achievements to cite the motto "Can Do" to go along with "Semper Fidelis." The Marine Corps's own Small Wars Manual (1940) notes that "Small wars represent the normal and frequent operations of the Marine Corps." (This is not to forget or undervalue the U.S. army's campaign in Mexico against Pancho Villa in 1916-17 and the troops committed to the Russian Civil War from 1918--1920, both of which are featured in the book.)

One of Mr. Boot's key points is to refute the idea that U.S. intervention was to protect business interests at the expense of legitimate states. He shows that the United States generally landed in the countries with the least U.S. investment and the most instability--ones generally threatened by insurgencies and coups--hardly good places to do business. The United States tended also to employ a supremely effective variation of the carrot and the stick: the U.S. troops not only fought a bold and sometimes vicious campaign against the insurgents, but also built roads, hospitals, sewer systems, schools, and a general healthier and more prosperous life for those who gave up fighting. Mr. Boot shows that in these countries the United States was generally what stood between chaos or despotism and the reasonable rule of law. The United States was heavily criticized for its intervention in Haiti in 1915. Yet in reality U.S. troops were what kept out the dictators. In nineteen years of occupation, the Marines built 1,000 miles of roads, 210 bridges, 9 airfields, II hospitals, 14-7 clinics, etc. As Mr. Boot points out, "Having arrived in Haiti to the sound of gunfire, they left to the tune of the Marine Corps anthem, belted out by the Garde d'Haiti band."

The 1940 Small Wars Manual seems to stand as a marking point in U.S. military policy. It came out just as we were to embark on our largest and most successful war. The victory in World War II heralded a new way of waging war and led many to refer to total war as the "American Way of War" But as we went forward, the tactics and strategy that won against Germany and Japan failed us. As the manual points out, small wars are ambiguous assignments, "to establish and maintain law and order ...