At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World

by Michael Hirsh

Book Overview

As correspondent for Newsweek, Michael Hirsh has traveled to every continent, reporting on American foreign policy. Now he draws on his experience to offer an original explanation of America's role in the world and the problems facing the nation today and in the future.
Using colorful vignettes and up-close reporting from his coverage of the first two post-Cold War presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Hirsh argues that America has a new...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195152697
• ISBN13: 9780195152692
• Release Date: June 2003
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 9.5" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Poignant thesis!

The author cites many examples to buttress his argument that America is squandering its goodwill. However, there is no mention of the Peace Corps, which continues to provde many of America's best 'envoys'.

Well Documented and Spirited Argument

Michael Hirsh's "At War With Ourselves "is a well documented and spirited argument for how our nation must re-think its past position relative to the rest of the world. America has been given an unsolicited mandate to help "repair the world". (Heb."Tikkun Olam"} Mr. Hirsh's empirical knowledge and extensive travels have well prepared him in forming his thesis, particularly because of his firsthand contacts with governmental personnel during different American presidential administrations. For those seeking a stimulating, serious and no nonsense theory, this book is a must read. Future generations would benefit greatly by utilizing this work perhaps as a textual reference to the past as well as a guide to formulating policies for the future.In addition, future global leaders might find his work instructive and helpful in formulating new relationships with the United States

Hirsh Writes Hard Truths

I need not expound too long. But, Hirsh's book presents to us, and to me a Republican, hard truths that have been traditionally hard to accept in the past and are harder, under the present political climate, to accept.While the writing, at times, can be slow going, overall, the book is easily readable.It is a book for the times.

Unilateralism and multilateralism: finding a middle ground

"Newsweek" editor Hirsch supplies a lucid, readable account of the tensions in US foreign policy between practitioners of "Wilsonian idealism" (multilateralism) and "conservative realism" (unilateralism). He focuses on the Clinton and second Bush administrations as examples of the problems with either worldview: while Clinton, he argues, "staked his foreign policy on negotiation and norms," Bush favored "the assertion of hard power and little else." The unfortunate results, in Clinton's case, were the Bosnian conflict and the massacres in Rwanda and, in Bush's case, the deteriorating debacle in Afghanistan (and possibly in Iraq, although the verdict is still out).Hirsch proposes a middle way: diplomacy and cooperation with international organizations and agencies, backed by the might of US and regional military force. The world's major powers will "feel both unthreatened and protected by the United States . . . only if Washington itself embraces the international community" while simultanesly projecting its power. The "international community," he convincingly asserts, not only exists but is largely our creation, and it provides the best means for America to affirm its hegemony without seeming arrogant and to encourage democracy and well-being without seeming hypocritical. He offers as a model the resolution of the 1999 crisis in East Timor, when Indonesian forces began slaughtering thousands of East Timorese residents, who were increasingly clamoring to reestablish the independence they lost in 1975. After an initial (and lethal) hesitation, the US coordinated an able, multilateral response: America suspended much-needed assistance to Indonesia, the IMF withheld money, the UN passed a resolution authorizing a peace-keeping force, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (of which Indonesia was a member) made a stink, China backed military invention, and the Australians supplied the troops. The combination of diplomacy, economic sanctions, regional pressure, and military force proved immediately and extraordinarily successful. Hirsch's discussion of why our intervention in Afghanistan seems to be failing, on the other hand, shows how military force alone--without regional cooperation and financial leverage--is a recipe for disaster (and the events of recent weeks lend this section of the book considerable weight).Hirsch's conclusions often resemble the analysis offered by Clyde Prestowitz's "Rogue Nation," even though the two authors approach their topic from widely divergent points of view. Hirsch's book is surprisingly deficient, however, in scrutinizing America's role in the Arab world (and the Islamic world in general). He skirts entirely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the repercussions of American energy policy--two issues troubling American strategy not only in the Mideast but throughout the world.Like any book on foreign policy, "At War with Ourselves" won't satisfy everyone, and it will surely anger those at either end of the political

Our Foreign Policy - How We Got Here and Where Should We Go

A comprehensive review of American foreign policy, going back to the Founding Fathers. Michael Hirsh explains clearly and in great detail how the world has changed and how we must change if we are to take advantage of our unique position as the world's first and only "Uberpower". The writing is literate and the book is well indexed with excellent "notes" and references.