Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy

Rating:
Summary: Blueprint for action
Review: "Present Dangers" is a remarkably clear collection of recommendations. In it, the authors (many of whom will no doubt occupy high positions in a Bush Administration) offer prescriptions to correct years of misguided foreign policy initiatives as well as to forge solutions for our forgotten military.

"Present Dangers" is a self-contained package. Robert Kagan and William Kristol didn't only select essayists that tell the reader what is wrong with today's policies, they, without exception, offer credible solutions as well.

This book will generate controversy in the same way President Ronald Reagan's foreign and military policies generated alarm among the status quo seeking elite who view themselves to be the sole legitimate practitioners of the art of diplomacy.

"Present Dangers" shows how America can seize the initiative on the world scene -- to shape the world to be a safer, freer place, more conducive to American interests and values.

After eight years of drift and confusion, this book is a welcome call to sensible action.

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Summary: Conservative Internationalists Provide the Game Plan
Review:

This is a very worthy book, and should be much much higher in the popular sales ranking. I bought this book at the same time that I bought the more historically grounded "While America Sleeps", and could not have asked for a better companion volume. Finally, I understand the forces that are tearing George W. Bush in two-on the one side, the conservative isolationists, who believe that we must reject internationalism in all forms, and eschew intervention or "911 missions" at all costs-and on the other side, the conservative internationalists, who by this excellent account have both a pragmatic and realistic grasp of the lessons of history, of the shrinking globe that we find in the present, and of the speed with which "regional" threats can become global challenges.

The two introductory contributions, one on the national interest and global responsibility, the other on the differences between conservative isolationists and conservative internationalists and all others, are extraordinarily essential readings for anyone who hopes to understand the early days-and contradictory signals-of the next Administration. Individual chapters by very well-qualified experts cover the conservative internationalist view of China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Europe and NATO, Asian Allies, and Israel. More general chapters address the decline of America's armed forces and the strategic case for dealing with weapons proliferation. The book concludes with three truly essential readings for any citizen, student, businessman, bureaucrat, or policymaker: on morality and foreign policy by William Bennett, on statesmanship in the new century by Paul Wolfowitz, and on strength and will in historical perspective by Donald Kagan.

Well-footnoted and indexed, this is a very serious professional contribution to the rather lackluster national discussion about where our national security and foreign policy should be going. As one who previously advocated a change from 2+ major regional conflicts (MRC) to 1 MRC and three separate forces for dealing with crime, environmental and cultural movements, and electronic and economic warfare (1+iii), I am now fully persuaded, mostly by the Kagan's book "While America Sleeps" but also by this book, that we absolutely must go toward a 2+iii national security strategy.

My one concern about this book is that it completely ignores what is quaintly called Program 150-all that State Department, Peace Corps, Agency for International Development stuff. It also mentions intelligence and counterintelligence only in passing. Conservative internationalists clearly have the brain power and the strategic vision and the historical understanding to be vital protectors of America's interests, but they must expand their vision to go beyond guns and consider the potential contributions of both diplomatic and economic butter, and applied intelligence. There is in fact a need to have a very strong Presidential program that fully advances, in an integrated fashion, American investments in diplomacy, defense, transnational crime fighting, economic assistance including a Digital Marshall Plan, and cultural exchanges worthy of a great Nation. This book lacks an appreciation for all the "soft" stuff, but it covers three of the four bases very nicely. A "strong buy."

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Summary: The Misnomer of Conservative Internationalism
Review: The neoconservatives dominating the foreign policy establishment, particularly in the figure of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, have hijacked America, making her a means to the ends of others rather than an end in herself. Wolfowitz's supporters include journalists William Kristol and Robert Kagan, who outlined their vision in their book, Present Dangers. The book advances a bastardized Wilsonian idealism baptized with a GOP infusion, using realist language to cloak idealist commitments. As in other areas of American political life, there is no true "opposition," and no alternative.

Wolfowitz writes in Present Dangers, "nothing could be less realistic than the version of `realism' that dismisses human rights as an important tool of foreign policy," unaware that there cannot be a true international law to underwrite this globocop position. A legal system requires a basis in common values and understandings. The world is too big and too different to achieve such commonality. Anybody can agree on abstracts like "peace" or "prosperity," but the different expectations of how these goods translate into reality are irreconcilable. For the same reason diversity is not strength at home, diversity prevents the establishment of universal peace abroad. Failure to internalize this results in the kind of folly seen in JFK's ridiculous mouthing that "we all breathe the same air." Well, so do chickens and sheep.

When dispensed as if it were a McDonald's hamburger on sale, freedom loses its value. Those who desire freedom must earn it for themselves, if it is to have a true basis and appreciable worth. Even in the United States, a citizen is primarily responsible for securing his own freedom and defense. The police merely show up after a crime has occurred to perform investigative work for the judiciary. Police cannot be everywhere at all times, nor should they be.

The desire to wield the U.S. as an instrument for world progress is hypocritical when considered in light of the American founding. Americans did not want a power 3,000 miles away to govern them. Why should we become the same distant governors of other far-flung peoples? As conservatives, we would object if the government said that the American homeowner should not own a firearm because of fears that it may harm an innocent person. Why then, do some conservatives not see the same hypocrisy when the U.S. says certain sovereign nations should not have weapons of mass destruction to prevent them from being used on the innocent? The Wolfowitzim have cast America as an international gun-grabber.

Kristol and Kagan see America's mission as one of spreading its superior culture and "democratic" values. Their innate liberalism emerges here; they overlook the fact that human beings are not equal and interchangeable. One size does not fit all, globally. America is better than other modes of culture, and not "morally equivalent," yet recognizing our superiority should not lead to imposing ourselves on lesser cultures, but distancing ourselves from them. Were America to succeed in remaking the world in her image, America might lose her distinctiveness in the process. America is a precious jewel; why cast her pearls before swine? The world is a nasty place. We should feel blessed to be Americans, and not be so eager to fight other people's wars or select other people's governments. Refraining from meddling in the affairs of others also lessens the likelihood that a botched job of "nation building" will create grievances justifying terrorism against us. The crowd that says America needs to crusade around "doing the Lord's work" should think about this. Good conservatives oppose domestic welfare and entitlement programs, so why support the same odious concepts at the international level?

The neocons always talk about "global leadership" without clearly defining what interests America should be leading the world toward, or explaining how we came to have them. Nor do they cite where the authority comes from to pursue them. All they are certain of is their desire to write themselves blank checks, drawn on our finite treasury and precious blood. America once knew better.

Conservatives should reconnect with their pre-WW2 Old Right foreign policy roots, grounded in realism, nationalism, and armed neutrality. Recommended readings include: Reclaiming the American Right, by Justin Raimondo; The Twenty Years Crisis, by E.H. Carr; Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, by Harry Elmer Barnes; A Republic, Not an Empire, by Patrick Buchanan; Isolationism Reconfigured, by Eric Nordlinger; The Paleoconservatives, by Joseph Scotchie; and Christopher Layne's article, "Why the Gulf War Was Not in the National Interest."

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Summary: Neoconserative fantasy foreign policy
Review: The problem with neoconservative foreign policy is not that it is conservative and realistic but rather that it is liberal. The descriptions of problems here presented are real enough but the policies advocated in response are simply unrealistic precisely because they are imbued with a kind of moralizing and crusading liberalism that is not going to solve America's foreign policy problems but rather exacerbate them. Doubtless American intervention is required in many areas (and not in the form of social work as advocated by the UN and the Left), but proclaiming complex problems to be simple forces of good and evil that can be solved with the revolutionary and forceful imposition of democracy is classic Wilsonian liberal nonsense. It is simply a liberal-minded fantasy that you can import democracy and human rights to places that do not have the historical and institutional background to support it. It is true that a realisitic foreign policy that encourages intervention without the aid of some rhetorical flourishes of high-minded but naive and impractical principles will fail to be legitimized in the mind of the demos; however, to go so far as to actually implement these principles as policy is not only doomed to failure but will most certainly result in "blowback" against American interests. Much more prudence and the reassertion of realistic geopolitical strategies wrapped in the rhetoric of Wilsonian fantasy worlds is needed in place of the actual implementation of crusading liberal ideologies when it comes to foreign policy. We should expect much more especially from William Kristol, being the student of the great Machiavellian scholar Harvey Mansfield.

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Summary: Absolutely a must-read: know your enemy!
Review: This is undoubtedly one of the most important books on US foreign policy published in recent years and should be read by anyone who cares about the future of the United States and the rest of the world. This is the manifesto of "conservative internationalism" whose proponents, including many of the books authors, now infest the Bush administration and are his loudest ventriloquists. Here, then, is the current administration's strategic vision.

The basic argument is that the US needs to exercise world domination, here spun as "benevolent global hegemony" and that there are a number of external obstacles which stand in the way and must be dealt with. These are Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, the Middle East peace process and an independent Europe. In its clear and reasoned enunciation of strategy and future plans, it both rivals and surpasses the later chapters of Mein Kampf. Here is the game plan which must be read to understand where these people intend to take the world next.

If we ignore the desirability of this mission, its feasibility (the cost in money, lives and freedom) certainly merits discussion, but here the book is thin, relying on fairy story assumptions (budget surpluses!!!) and wishful thinking.

The one distasteful aspect of the book is the attempt to wrap the entire endeavour in the cloak of "American morality", understood as protecting citizen's liberties. This is breathtaking stuff from accomplices in the most extensive attempt to incinerate the Constitution in recent history.

Stripped of its ideological air cover and romantic fantasies, this is still an important, timely and lively document since this is the future course of foreign policy which the Bush administration plans to pursue.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely a must-read: know your enemy!
Review: Whether you agree with the American foreign and defense policy of the Bush administration or not, this book is essential reading for those interested in the topic. It's a series of essays on different foreign and defense policy issues written by people who are highly influential in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz.

The central thesis seems to be that the US is (or maybe WAS immediately after the Cold War) at an unprecedented position of influence and power over the world, and should use it to secure the safety of the whole world before those who wish to threaten the free world acquire the means to do so. The book was written at the end of the Clinton administration, but many parts of the book are extremely prophetic including the need to confront the members of the "Axis of Evil" about their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the palestinian uprising against the stalled peace process which had not yet begun when the book was written. Like I said, even if you're not in agreement with Bush administration policy, you'll learn what some of the influential minds are thinking (and why their right!).

Rating:
Summary: Not worth buying or reading
Review: While I disagree with much of the content of this book, that is not why you shouldn't buy this book. The reason not to buy is that this book is greatly out-dated. It was from before 9-11, and the neo-con perspective and focus on the world is now quite different.