as a military historian. Boot served as a foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain in his 2008 United States presidential election bid. He stated in an editorial in World Affairs Journal that he saw strong parallels between Theodore Roosevelt and McCain. Boot continued to write for the CFR in several publications in 2008 and 2009. Boot wrote for the CFR through 2010 and 2011 for publications such as Newsweek, The Boston Globe, The New York Times and The Weekly Standard. He particularly argued that President Barack Obama's health care plans made maintaining U.S. superpower status harder, that withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq occurred prematurely while making another war there more likely, and that the initial U.S. victory in Afghanistan had been undone by government complacency though forces could still pull off a victory. He also wrote op-eds criticizing planned budget austerity measures in both the U.S. and the U.K. as hurting their national security interests. In September 2012, Boot co-wrote with Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael Doran a New York Times op-ed titled "5 Reasons to Intervene in Syria Now", advocating U.S military force to create a countrywide no-fly zone reminiscent of NATO's role in the Kosovo War. He stated first and second that "American intervention would diminish Iran's influence in the Arab world" and that "a more muscular American policy could keep the conflict from spreading" with "sectarian strife in Lebanon and Iraq". Third, Boot argued that "training and equipping reliable partners within Syria's internal opposition" could help "create a bulwark against extremist groups like Al Qaeda". He concluded that "American leadership on Syria could improve relations with key allies like Turkey and Qatar" as well as "end a terrible human-rights disaster". Another well received book by Boot, titled Invisible Armies (2013), is about the history of guerrilla warfare, analyzing various cases of successful and unsuccessful insurgent efforts such as the fighting during the American war of independence, the Vietnam War, and the current Syrian Civil War. He states that traditional, conventional army tactics as employed by the American military under the administrations of President Bush and President Obama against guerrilla organizations have produced strategic failures. Boot has discussed his book in various programs such as the Hoover Institution's Uncommon Knowledge series, appearing on it in January 2014. Political beliefs Boot considers himself to be a "natural contrarian". He identifies as a conservative, once joking that "I