The Grenada Invasion: Politics, Law, and Foreign Policy Decisionmaking

Robert Beck’s study focuses principally on two related questions. First, how did the Reagan administration decide to launch the invasion of Grenada? And second, what role did international law play in that decision? The Grenada Invasion draws on extensive interviews and correspondence with key participants-and on the recently published memoirs of those who participated in or witnessed the administration’s deliberations-in order to render a new and more complete picture of Operation Urgent Fury decisionmaking. Beck concludes that international law did not determine policy, but that it acted briefly as a restraint and then as a justification for action.