Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public [Paperback]

Jon Western (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2005

Selling Intervention and War examines the competition among foreign policy elites in the executive branch and Congress in winning the hearts and minds of the American public for military intervention. The book studies how the president and his supporters organize campaigns for public support for military action. According to Jon Western, the outcome depends upon information and propaganda advantages, media support or opposition, the degree of cohesion within the executive branch, and the duration of the crisis. Also important is whether the American public believes that military threat is credible and victory plausible. Not all such campaigns to win public support are successful; in some instances, foreign policy elites and the president and his advisors have to back off.

Western uses several modern conflicts, including the current one in Iraq, as case studies to illustrate the methods involved in selling intervention and war to the American public: the decision not to intervene in French Indochina in 1954, the choice to go into Lebanon in 1958, and the more recent military actions in Grenada, Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq.

Selling Intervention and War is essential reading for scholars and students of U.S. foreign policy, international security, the military and foreign policy, and international conflict.

(2006)

Editorial Reviews

Review

An excellent contribution to our understanding of how different groups in American government and society—with different beliefs about the proper use of force—try to sell their position on either promoting intervention or preventing it. It is a natural for courses on American foreign policy or for students studying the role of the media in foreign policy.

(James Goldgeier, George Washington University 2006)

Historians and political scientists will find value in this book.

(Choice )

In a series of five fascinating case studies, Jon Western develops a complex model of the power plays and tussle for real-world effect amongst Washington's foreign policy elites.

(Media International Australia )

Western's book is especially timely because the era of active interventionism sponsored by the George W. Bush administration may continue beyond the presidential election of 2008.

(Doris A. Graber International History Review )

Western has done an excellent job on an important topic and his book is worth reading for any scholar studying the war, news, and public opinion connection. Students, in particular, will find this book extremely useful.

(Political Communication )

About the Author

Jon Western is Five College Assistant Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke College. He has also been on staff at the United States Institute of Peace.

(2006)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (May 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801881099
• ISBN-13: 978-0801881091
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,077,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Hucksters of War, November 13, 2007

By 

H. Campbell (houston, texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public (Paperback)

This excellent and highly readable summation of the political dynamics of war selling in America should be required reading for all Americans, especially all those seduced by Bush's lies and disinformation on Iraq (I was not one of them, but then, I live by the axiom that ALL politicians lie ALL the time.) Starting with the non-intervention of 1954 Vietnam and ending with the Iraq Con Job of 2003, the author tells a convincing tale of the interplay between a biased government, a sceptical electorate and a critical/accomodative media. The key ingredient in an administration getting its aggressive, warmongering ways is the control of information; the less data available to journalists, the more data the president can spin any way he likes. The public, always willing to give their elected leader the benefit of the doubt, will then begin to bend inexorably to the winds of war, never stopping to think critically about the frequently inconsistent stream of news they receive. Throw in some biasing event like 9-11 and the spin cycle job of manipulating threat imagery becomes infinitely simpler.

This book admirably compiles succint examples of events that resulted in intervention and those that didn't. Sadly, a president I have had some modicum of admiration for, Eisenhower, comes off badly as a cynical and willing tool of the very military-industrial complex he decided to warn about when he left office. Perhaps as the end approached he sat back and contemplated how history books like "Selling War and Intervention" would make him look.