Quotes by Rosa Brooks

12 quotes found

Popular Quotes

“It has often been our best instincts, not our worst, that have led us to do harm in the world”

“It takes a whole government to really screw up a war. A dollop of American hubris goes a long way too.”

Common Themes

“...And unpredictability can spread: one powerful outlier can pave the way for others, and as more states joint the outlier, the foundations of the rule of law begin to crumble.US counterterrorism p...”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

foreign-policy-of-the-us international-law war

“It has often been our best instincts, not our worst, that have led us to do harm in the world”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

good-intentions nation-building war

“What line separates the lawful wartime targeting of an enemy combatant from the extrajudicial murder of a man suspected, but not convicted, of wrongdoing? (p8)”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

drone-attacks rules-of-war war

“I don't believe that humans can be reduced to homo economicus, but as a group, government officials are remarkably sensitive to financial, political, and reputational costs. Thus, when new technolo...”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

drone-attacks war

“We prefer to imagine brutal wars and atrocities as events that "just happen" every now and then, much like tornadoes or lightning strikes; this metaphor suggests that we can't generalize from them,...”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

responsibility war

“While it is a truism to observe that if humans were angels, law would be unnecessary, we could equally turn the truism around, and note that if humans were devils, law would be pointless. In this s...”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

brutality culpability law violence

“It takes a whole government to really screw up a war. A dollop of American hubris goes a long way too.”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

hubris war

“Most fundamentally, the U.S. military isand will continue to bea product of our culture and our collective decisions. Whatever it is, it's what we have made it.”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

civilian democracy government military

“the U.S. government has a long history of overclassifying information that shouldn't be classified at alland keeping information classified until long after any justification for classifying it has...”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

code-word confidential democracy secrecy

“Many at the State Department think its their job, not the Army's, to develop cultural and regional expertise and relationships. In such quarters, the RAF concept looks less like an innovative appro...”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

bureaucracy empire-building job-security military

“As budget cuts cripple civilian agencies and programs, they lose their ability to perform ad they once did, so we look to the military to pick up the slack. . . . This requires still higher militar...”

— Rosa Brooks

civilian congressional-failure dynamics military

“Most fundamentally, the U.S. military is—and will continue to be—a product of our culture and our collective decisions. Whatever it is, it's what we have made it.”

— Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

civilian democracy government military