The Anatomy of Racial Inequality

ments and officials. Covert operations do not have the same record of success for democracies when compared to overt wars. Democracies do not always initiate wars from the moral high ground, rather, as Reiter and Stam state, “there are a disturbing number of cases of democracies initiating wars to advance national power, to create or expand empire, and to extinguish inconveniently located peoples.” There are a few minor problems with the datasets employed. For example the HERO dataset leaves out of the African campaigns in WWI as well as some other conflicts. The assignment of Libya as “target” in the Ugandan–Tanzanian War (1978–1979) is problematic. The Soviet–Afghan War is left out, and the Italo–Ethiopian War (1935–1936) is more complex than presented. There are a few other problems with the cases, but whether or not they would impact on the authors’ conclusions is very doubtful. Dick Cheney is incorrectly titled the American Secretary of State when he was, in fact, Secretary of Defense; actually James Baker was Secretary of State during the Gulf War. On page 70, Chapter 3 “minority Bathists” is incorrect, as it should be minority Sunnis or even Al-Tikritis. One could argue that the authors’ definition of democracy is too weak, so weak that it really includes Republics and Constitutional Monarchies with limited republicanism or very limited democracy. Along these critical lines, one could also argue that the finding that democracies do not have higher levels of war material needs to be re-examined with focus on the post-WWII wars. Finally, one danger is that some readers will assume the general finding will fit a particular case. Each war has complicated conditions that make military-political difficulties. Just because democracies have won roughly 80% of their wars does not mean that any particular war entered is likely to be included in the 80%. Many complexities still exist in winning a war. These few criticisms aside, the authors have written a fascinating, empirically-based study that will be interesting to scholars and students of international conflict. As such, they provide an excellent contribution to the academy. I would not hesitate to make this book a required text for a graduate level seminar on international conflict. Finally, the authors have written and presented their study in an organized and very readable manner. This reviewer commends Reiter and Stam for their contribution to the study of international conflict.