Conclusion

Summary

This conclusion makes two arguments. First, it contends that containment strategies need sound “theories of change,” which are predictions about how the pressures of containment will compel the target state to change its behavior without the need for war. A robust theory of change is crucial for maintaining both strategic coherence and domestic political support for containment strategies. I explore this point with a comparison of Cold War and Iraqi containment strategies in which I show that the former policy had a robust theory of change while the latter did not. Second, the conclusion argues that US foreign policy-makers, politicians, and intellectuals have long interpreted the ultimate cause of other states' behavior as stemming from the nature of their political regimes. This type of thinking, inherent to certain strains of liberalism, has often pushed the United States to pursue total solutions by seeking to fundamentally change other states' regimes, as it did with Iraq.