Less Powerful Than We Think

Exum tends "to believe the actions of local actors are more significant than those of U.S. policymakers":

In general, we Americans -- especially some of our friends on theAmerican Right -- tend to overestimate the importance of what we do incomparison to what local actors do. (Iraq and Afghanistan, seriously,should have taught us better.) That doesn't mean we fold up our tentsand head home: we just have to be realistic about what we can hope toachieve through the application of U.S. power...