|
As military officers, we shared an ironic kinship of sorts, each of us demonstrating a peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time."Tracing the path that got our country to its current place, he cites failures of leadership at both the political and military level, but identifies the American citizen as the ultimate navigator of the ship. He also lost his son in Iraq.
But, unlike other books that take wide swings at America with little more than misplaced resentment and childish emotion, Bacevich scolds the citizens of America as a wise, but heartbroken father rebuking an out-of-control son.A quick survey of the world geopolitical scene highlights America's increasingly vulnerable position as on overly-extended superpower who's frequent, often clumsy use of military force has done little to win the hearts or minds so frequently cited on PowerPoint slides in Pentagon staff meetings. This philosophical, but precise foreign policy manifesto is a cold, hard slap to American imperialism, selfishness and entitlement.
After serving twenty-three years in the Army he earned a PhD at Princeton then went on to teach at West Point, Johns Hopkins and finally Boston University. Bacevich expresses his "dismay at the direction of the U.S.
foreign policy since the end of the Cold War." And though he offers plenty of critiques regarding the Bush Administration's global ramblings, the thrust of his message is that the crisis extends much deeper and further back in time than a single administration.Bacevich weaves into his narrative the teachings of American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) who "warned that what he called 'our dreams of managing history' -- born of a peculiar combination of arrogance and narcissism -- posed a potentially mortal threat to the United States." This ideology of exceptionalism combined with an ever-growing military-industrial complex have proved a toxic mix.Few understand both the realities of this phenomena with such clarity and conviction as retired Army Colonel and West Point graduate, Andrew Bacevich. Bacevich writes, "In joining the Army, my son was following in his father's footsteps: Before he was born, I had served in Vietnam.
In what is likely that hardest argument for readers to swallow, Bacevich says that it is our insatiable appetite for cheap consumer goods and fossil fuels combined with our penchant for debt that has led to a "tacit agreement" between the citizenry and the government - one which gives a silent nod of approval to our leaders to do whatever is necessary to keep the current culture of "free" consumption running indefinitely.There will be people who don't like this book because of it's critical nature, but with hundreds of thousands of troops spread across the world fighting in the name of American ideals and the national debt passing $12 trillion it's both timely and necessary to hold a mirror up to ourselves as a nation and see if we like what we behold.
With a lot of data Andrew Bacevich is trying to show us the real situation we are in, the flaws of our system, politician and electorate.I hope they will read and listen.A small step in the right direction to impriove our future
A good editor could have helped out. The message is by no means warm and pleasant, but it did an excellent job of communicating the mindset of those who are running this country. So, who is running the country. The other thing this book needs badly is a good introduction. A quick peek online yields a succinct definition (thanks to wikipedia) in less than a minute, the book should do this. This explains a lot of things. The governing "elite" is busy trying to run the world, and using our military as their tool of choice.
Domestic spending (read between the lines: health care) is a threat if it gets in the way of military imperialism.One thing I very much enjoy about the book is that it is non-partisan. The big issues hold constant as we have had democrats or republicans in the white house, and the recent jump to a democratic president has not changed all that much. I just finished reading this book and liked it very much. First and foremost is the authors habit of quoting Reinhold Niebuhr like an evangelical Christian quotes the bible. Clearly the author is infatuated with this guy, but I am left wondering "who is he and why should I care.". Let's define for example just what we mean by "American exceptionalism" (or just plain vanilla exceptionalism for that matter). I am going to read the book a second time (that is my highest endorsement) and compile a complete list. Feckless, risible, hegemony, and my favorite: obstreperous.
Some shocking revelations (to me, but I am not terribly well informed on these issues) come forth. Rip out all the references to Niebuhr and use the space made available for a good introduction and the book would get 5 stars.Bacevich certainly likes big words. Read the book and come to your own conclusions. It is refreshing to read a book that does not get on a bandwagon blaming "the other party" for all the problems.A few things hold this book back from a 5 star rating. That is OK, I like big words too - but he makes a point of using a lot of them. I decided some time ago to not hold back on using a big word when appropriate, but sometimes you have to decide whether it is your goal to impress, intimidate, or communicate.
He held many of the recent past military leaders to a very high standard of conduct and found them largely wanting. Why not a balanced budget ammendment to curb both Presidential and Congressional spending appetites. I found him exercising his most authentic voice when describing the failure of miitary leadership in the chapter on the Military Crisis. As for incompleteness, he seems to argue that we are a profligate people, that we are living beyond our means, which leads to a dependence upon imported oil, which in turn leads us to use military power in the Middle East to insure our access to that oil.
For my taste I would have preferred that these had been put in a more broad historical context, perhaps referring to and using "A Nation Among Nations" by Professor Thomas Bender which attempts to view american history in the context of several different issues and how they were handled across the globe, instead of a stand alone litany. On the other hand, in the chapter on Profligacy he sounds much more like an Old Testament prophet or perhaps a scold and in the chapter on the political crisis, he sounds extremely uncertain, almost wishy-washy, about the standards to hold our government officials to. See for example Robert Samuelson's "The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath" for an excellent exposition of how Reagan with Volcker broke the back of inflation. I would side with the former.
He mentions abolishing nuclear weapons. While he is fairly aggressive in decrying the Executive Branch, and he begins to do the same with respect to Congress, but then backs off. This is the first of his works that I have read. Clearly, the jury is still out on AGW and strategies for curbing fossil fuel emissions. Again, I do recommend that this book be read, but wish that Professor Bacevich had written a more complete theory, and can only hope that he will soon flesh this small volume out in a more complete manner.
In the chapter on Political Crisis, I believe he is insufficiently critical of former President Carter, in particular for his handling of both the Iranian hostage situation, and the high levels of inflation experienced during his tenure, while at the same time giving former President Reagan insufficient praise, for his handling of both. He mentions curbing emissions to reduce global warming; he mentions 'containment' of radical Islam. While I have given this book only three stars, nevertheless I strongly recommend you read it. For example, Japan and South Korea are essentially 100% dependent upon imported oil, as are some European countries. we are too dependent upon imported oil, and that leads us to the military incursions, then one is led to ask why those nations with a much higher dependence upon imports are not. While I am familiar with the name, I am not well read in his works.
If the argument is more simple, i.e. However, again, when he says 'we' are living beyond our means--that our requirements exceed our means to meet them--it would be extremely helpful to define the 'we', for as the old saying goes, if everyone is to blame, then no one is to blame. He describes the problem with the military theory of 'full spectrum dominance' and compares it to Professor Francis Fukuyama's 'The End of History' seemingly dismissing Fukuyama's 'democratic capitalism' also, without explanation. As other readers would know, Professor Bacevich quotes heavily from Reinhold Niebuhr. In this Professor Bacevich is correct. Also, perhaps dealing with the background of the Constitution would have been helpful rather than using the Declaration of Independence for the most part; such as was done recently by Professor Richard Beeman in his "Plain, Honest Men".
How does one contain an 'idea'. I note that several reviewers found the lack of detailed solutions by Professor Bacevich problematic, while others seemed satisfied that he had 'identified' the problem. For example, others have outlined and summarized the main arguments by Professor Bacevich. In the Profligacy Crisis chapter, Professor Bacevich chronicles briefly a history of the United States, listing both well and ill conceived strategies. As I write this review we are just a few days beyond the unfortunate meetings in Copenhagen, where the best that was achieved was an agreement for each country to prepare of list of actions; and a few weeks beyond the release of hundreds of e-mails prepared by leading AGW proponents, apparently showing their less than open mindedness with respect to hard temperature data.
The reason for my relatively low rating for the book (vis-a-vis the majority of reviewers) rests on two criteria-I found the book both uneven and incomplete. Recall the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes. The crises described by Professor Bacevich are real and worth thoughtful consideration. By uneven, I mean that his voice / arguments vary widely among the three different crises he describes. None of the above should be taken to say that the Americans are not great consumers, we are. I, for one, found Fukuyama's theory worthwhile and would have appreciated an explanation of why Professor Bacevich seems to not--or perhaps I am the only one not in the know.In his closing chapter he begins to outline a few paths the United States might pursue instead of the current heavily military power strategy. And, of course, what would happen if we stopped.
In particular, does he mean we as individuals, the group we, or does he mean also the federal government representing 'we'. oil imports tend to come from Canada, Mexico, the North Sea, Venezuela, the west coast of Africa, as well as the ME. Not all crises are dealt with by military force. Second, since there are nearly 200 reviews posted for this boook, I will attempt to limit my comments where they may provide additional insight.
This matters both in describing the 'crisis' as well as contemplating appropriate remedies.Even in what I see as his strongest chapter, on the Military Crisis, he is unsatisfyingly incomplete. I've worked most of my career in the business area and have neither a diplomacy nor an academic background. I'm certain each of us has our own litany of excesses we note in others every day. If I have his argument correct, then the problem with it lies in the fact that Asian / Pacific countries and Northwest European countries are the main consumers (+/- 85% of the roughly 17 million barrels per day of PG oil production).
Why not term limits for Congress to counter the gerrymandering they have accomplished to avoid serious competition. Thus, if one examines the factual information with respect to oil flows and US imports, it would appear that the reasons for military presence in the PG are a good deal more complicated than simply to protect US Middle East oil access. First, I believe that it is important to give a context to a review--briefly I am almost a decade older than Professor Bacevich, not a military academy graduate, and not having fought in Viet Nam. At a somewhat higher level, it seems Professor Bacevich comes close to saying that we need 'systemic' changes in the United States, but avoids doing so. While containment did work with respect to the USSR, it is not clear to me how it would work against a non-nationally based group. It would seem that this relatively small component could be eliminated by relatively simple conservation techniques, if the appropriate policies were enacted.
If defending our sources of imported oil were the basis for using US military, then perhaps it should be used with respect to Venezuela. Also, the US dependence upon all PG produced oil is roughly 4% of total US energy consumption. Perhaps obviously, I may repeat comments by others since I did not read all prior reviews. Obviously such proposals are aimed at the group 'we', and not at each of us individually. Thus if one argues that the purpose of our military presence in the ME is to protect oil, then it must be for the A/P and NWE countries which consume it, which leads one to ask why are we doing the oil protection for those nations. U.S.
For example, if the federal government is dysfunctional, and we are deluding ourselves by assuming we will get the desired change by simply electing a new President every four or eight years, then why not propose changing the system. Even in family conversations I believe, where there is a strong mutuality of language and frames of reference, we frequently find it is not until we begin exploring 'solutions' that we find we truly share an understanding of the 'problem'.
I ordered this book on 11/19 and as of 12/23, I have not received it. Not good enough in my opinion.
|
