In impressive and often fascinating detail, she documents that the boundaries between war and peace have grown so hazy as to undermine hard-won global gains in human rights and the rule of law ... Brooks writes with clarity and epigrammatic wit, but the random oscillations of her views may annoy some readers. Can’t she make up her mind? Of course, she can. She is not one of those best who lack all conviction. Her honesty in the admission of second and third thoughts is a rebuke to the multitudes who can no longer remember that the Iraq war they denounce is the one they endorsed.
...a masterful analysis of how global connectedness has created vast new responsibilities (and vulnerabilities) for the armed forces of the United States.
Despite harsh criticisms of our post 9/11 record, Ms. Brooks’s book is not intended as a polemic. Her aim, she says, is to help America become a force for good in the world, and to that end she proposes reforms. Unfortunately, they are often vague or utopian ... moments of insight aside, Ms. Brooks’s general analysis is often tendentious ... She sweeps up widely different policies in a simplistic thesis and overbroad assertions.
At its finest, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything is a dynamic work of reportage, punctuated by savory details ... When Ms. Brooks’s book lives up to its subtitle it delights. The author is a chipper field guide and canny ethnographer, writing with refreshing honesty about the folkways of the Defense Department, which often confound outsiders ... Ms. Brooks’s writing possesses a few grating tics...I also sometimes wondered who Ms. Brooks was writing for.
...lively, informed, and insightful new book … Brooks has made a fresh and useful argument, but she carries it too far. I would not give up on the basic distinction between war and law enforcement, because to a very significant extent, at least under Obama, that argument was won in favor of the requirements of law enforcement, which are more protective of rights … But it may still be worth using Brooks’s argument to secure whatever additional safeguards we can from those who would continue to rely on war standards to counter terrorism. I would rephrase her argument not as a substitute for the ‘category problem’ she identifies of distinguishing between war and peace but as a supplement to it.
While ambitious and astute, the book is also diffuse and in some important ways misses its targets. The author offers an insightful history of the progressive efforts to formally circumscribe the domain of war and curb its most horrifying excesses ... To work across so many genres is challenging, and perhaps only a writer of Brooks’s caliber and experience should attempt it. But the risk of this approach is that one may engage a few of the intended target audiences but fail to reach others ... while her essential argument is fairly clear, there are times when Brooks still seems to be debating where she comes down.
This continuing reshaping of the military's role is the heart of the book, but Brooks has more to say. She addresses the concept of sovereignty, which gives a nation an absolute right to govern affairs within its own borders without foreign interference ... How Everything Became War is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the continuing evolution of the modern military, and who is prepared to engage in serious thinking about the future of armed conflict.
...an interesting and worrying book … Ms Brooks has a wider purpose, which is to examine what happens to institutions and legal processes when the distinctions between war and peace become blurred and the space between becomes the norm, as has happened in America in the decade and a half since the attacks of September 11th 2001 … In other words, military skills would be integrated with civilian skills ‘within a single large but agile organisation.’ It is a nice idea. But one guaranteed to annoy almost everybody.
