Why do states commit to costly interventions? Why do leaders set ambitious foreign policy goals but neglect the means necessary to achieve them? For example, during the run-up to Iraq 2003, why did the president and the bulk of senior officials optimistically expect that postconflict noncombat operations would secure their political objectives at minimal cost to the United States, even though most estimates indicated otherwise? Aaron Rapport addresses these questions in a timely and innovative book. In investigating how leaders weigh the costs and benefits of interventions, he builds upon a growing body of social psychological research that explores the effect of time horizons on decision making.

Specifically, Rapport asks, why do decision makers often have unjustified confidence in respect to noncombat operations? The author defines noncombat operations as activities carried out by personnel in a theater of combat in which the use of force or threatened use of force is not the primary means by which objectives are secured (p. 2). He emphasizes state building, which involves the creation or restoration of a government capable of exercising sovereign control over a defined territory, as well as the construction of infrastructure, which facilities the activities of the state and civil society (p. 14). To be sure, as Rapport notes, while noncombat operations are distinct from postconflict operations, military units may be simultaneously engaged in combat and noncombat state building.

This discussion of unanticipated costly and protracted noncombat operations leads to the first argument advanced in Waging War, Planning Peace. Rapport uses construal level theory (CLT) to explain the presence of overoptimism. He argues that people think about objectives in the distant future differently than they think about similarly valued objectives in the short term (p. 16). Individuals with short time horizons engage in concrete construal thinking, emphasizing the “how” over the “why.” In contrast, individuals with long time horizons engage in abstract construal thinking, resulting in overconfidence. Here, leaders are less mindful of the costs associated with obtaining their aims and, thus, are more prone to underestimate resources such as time and effort that must be expended to reach their ends (p. 20). This long-term optimism is reinforced as those with long time horizons emphasize the desirability over feasibility of goals, are less receptive to concrete information about how proposed action meant to achieve their goals might transpire, and use deductive reasoning which obscures how the case at hand departs from the more general set of phenomena to which it is related.

Rapport then supplements his optimism argument by categorizing political goals as maintenance objectives or transformative objectives (pp. 25–26). He argues that leaders who pursue maintenance goals in which the objective is to return to the status quo, such as preservation of a foreign regime, putting a recently deposed foreign regime back in power, or resorting to peace after an outbreak of violence, will have shorter time horizons and, thus, relatively less overconfidence. Leaders who have transformative objectives and seek to alter the status quo, such as regime change, have long time horizons and, in turn, are subject to overconfidence. Hence, when leaders value long-term goals, noncombat operations projected to occur postconflict will be assessed abstractly, promoting overconfidence about their costs and risks.

The second part of Rapport’s argument incorporates traditional security studies variables—balance of forces, strategic assessment and intelligence estimates, organizational structures, and civil–military relations. For example, he argues that the balance of forces in a military conflict will also affect leaders’ time horizons. The more this balance is perceived to favor the intervening state, the more attention individuals can afford to give to future actions, rather than near-term or ongoing operations. Thus, larger military advantages increase confidence that military operations will be successful, allowing them to focus more on the future.

To explore these arguments, the author engages in a series of well-researched case studies. Centering his study on the United States, Rapport uses structured, focused case studies of four U.S. wars from 1941 onward: preparations for the occupation of Germany during World War II; assessment of the never-realized occupation of North Korea during the first year of the Korea War; evaluation of noncombat operations during the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam, 1964–65; and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. To evaluate leaders’ perceptions of noncombat operations as occurring postwar or overlapping combat operations, time horizon, and the value of future objectives, the author draws from a series of primary documents, including but not limited to, archived documents, transcripts, testimonies, and memoirs.

There is much to like about this book, and scholars from various disciplines would be well served to read it. Waging War, Planning Peace adds to the growing political science literature that explores how political leaders matter. In drawing from psychology, Rapport provides a means to systemically evaluate leaders’ perceptions, preferences, and time horizons. More importantly, he provides a bridge for understanding how such insights about personal characteristics of leaders affect military intervention. The book also improves our understanding of the success and failures of state building during conflict. Rapport addresses how the success or failures of military operations, as well as the tempo of operations, affect the ways in which leaders prioritize noncombat operations.

While few, this book also has some limitations. The author shows that leaders’ ability to engage in concrete construal thinking varies across space and time, yet it is unclear how the experiences and influence of various actors and organizations interact to effect the outcome of noncombat operations. While he attempts to account for this shortcoming with his discussion of organization and civil–military relations in his theory chapter, and these factors seem to matter in the cases discussed, the interaction is undertheorized.

Overall, Waging War, Planning Peace is an important, informative, and interesting read. As Rapport notes, since 1945 the United States has engaged in more military interventions than any other country in the world (p. 215). Hence, it is a necessary book for those interested in decision making, foreign policy, and combat and noncombat operations.