Checking the Costs of War
Sources of Accountability in Post-9/11 US Foreign Policy
Checking the Costs of War
Sources of Accountability in Post-9/11 US Foreign Policy
A thorough reassessment of how domestic factors do and do not constrain the use of American military force abroad in the early twenty-first century.
More than two decades have passed since the September 11th terrorist attacks resuscitated debates about the “imperial presidency” within the United States. During that same time, the United States has fought costly and inconclusive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pivoted to the Pacific to counter China, and pulled its gaze back to Europe and the Middle East in response to wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Moreover, new technologies and ways of funding and staffing wars have made the costs of war less visible to the public while polarization has increased and a new legal doctrine of presidential power has gained force.
Against this backdrop, Checking the Costs of War reassesses how domestic factors have both constrained and failed to constrain the use of military power across different contexts and over time. Richly empirical chapters explore the varying effects of different kinds of potential checks: legislative, public opinion, and bureaucratic. Collectively, chapters offer new insight into the prospects for war and peace today.
368 pages | 20 halftones, 20 line drawings, 21 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2025
Political Science: Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, and International Relations
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Unfettered Foreign Policy? Domestic Checks on Presidential Powers after 9/11
Sarah E. Kreps and Douglas L. Kriner
Chapter 2. Purely Partisan Warriors? Legislative Rhetoric in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars
Sarah E. Kreps and Douglas L. Kriner
Chapter 3. Varieties of Bipartisanship: How Democrats and Republicans Align on Foreign and Domestic Policy
Jordan Tama
Chapter 4. Cassandra’s Reward: The Electoral Benefits of Early Opposition to an Unpopular War
Benjamin O. Fordham
Chapter 5. Congressional Midterms, Presidential Reelection, and US Foreign Policy
Christopher Dictus and Philip B. K. Potter
Chapter 6. Modern Day Minutemen? Public Opinion and Reserve Component Mobilization
Jessica D. Blankshain and Lindsay P. Cohn
Chapter 7. Gender and the Political Costs of War: Partisan Cues, Gender Heuristics, and the Politics of Public Opposition to War
Aaron Childree, Katherine Krimmel, Max Palmer, and Douglas L. Kriner
Chapter 8. Nondominant Communal Groups and Casualty Sensitivity: Evidence from Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States
Ronald R. Krebs and Robert Ralston
Chapter 9. “Hand to Hand Combat”: Bureaucratic Politics and National Security
Andrew Rudalevige
Chapter 10. War Powers, the “Deep State,” and Insurrection
Rebecca Ingber
Chapter 11. A Post-GWOT Syndrome? Institutional Response, Public Opinion, and the Future of US Foreign Policy
Sarah E. Kreps and Douglas L. Kriner
Acknowledgments
Index