"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."-Leon Trotsky
Perhaps the only positive outcome of 9/11 is that it forced Americans to take a greater interest in the military, the intelligence community, and America's foreign policy. Many books have tried to make sense of the post-9/11 era, and Rosa Brooks's "How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything," despite its provocative title, does not add much to the conversation. Brooks's pedigree is impeccable: she's a law professor at Georgetown, a senior fellow at New America, a columnist, and has worked at the Pentagon, the State Department, and for Human Rights Watch. So she knows what she's talking about, but the book covers familiar ground and offers no new insights. It lacks a focus and strong thesis and it jumps all over the map, with some anecdotes from her own experiences clumsily woven in. Her voice, while informed, adopts a somewhat jaunt tone at times, which belies the gravity of the subject. I also think the famous Clausewitz quote about war ("War is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means.") comes up 3 times. My favorite out of context quote, about Lindsay Graham, who is "nowhere near as dumb as he tries to appear." Some more helpful books in navigating the treacherous waters of our current era: "Dirty Wars," "Drfit," "Ghost Wars," and "Black Flags."