Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk

by Walter Russell Mead

Book Overview

From one of our most brilliant and original writers on U.S. foreign policy, a stunning and timely book on the policy of the Bush administration and its current grand strategy for the world. Mead... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400077036
• ISBN13: 9781400077038
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Brief Yet Comprehensive

One of the positive by-products of 9-11, is an increased interest in Geo-politics across all spheres of American society. Mead's book is a perfectly succinct and comprehensive answer to "no blood for oil" and other slogans that are bandied about by good people who feel at a loss faced with the seemingly inexplicable actions of their government, and its friends and adversaries. Ought to be required public school reading.

The American Project

Walter Russell Mead is the Henry A Kissinger Senior Fellow on US Foreign Policy at the Council of Foreign Relations and the intellectual power that he brings to bear on the issues of foreign policy are as impressive as his job title. He marshals the disciplines of politics, economics, sociology, history and religion to produce a provocative and compelling analysis of America and its role in the world. This important book describes what Mead calls the "American Project...to protect our own domestic security while building a peaceful world order of peaceful states linked by common values and sharing a common prosperity." This project is rooted in American history and tradition. (This work should be read in tandem with Surprise, Security, and the American Experience by John Lewis Gaddis.) Mead identifies four schools of thought that animate our way of thinking about foreign policy. 1)Wilsonians are idealistic internationalists who believe the spread of democracy abroad will give us security at home - many of the neoconservatives are of this persuasion. Present-day Wilsonians are notable for their lack of confidence in international institutions. 2)Jeffersonians adhere to isolationism, even less of an option today than it was in the 19th century. 3)Hamiltonians are the business class that promote enterprise at home and abroad; they believe that globalization contributes to peace and security. 4)Jacksonians are described as "populist nationalists." They have the individualist's suspicion of government. And, oh yeah, they like to fight. In foreign policy that translates into overwhelming force and total victory. The Bush administration's war on terror has been, according to Mead, a combination of Revival Wilsonianism and Jacksonianism. The internal conflict between these two approaches are never more obvious than in the present occupation of Iraq. While the Wilsonians are delicately trying to plant the seeds of democracy, the Jacksonians want victory over the evildoers regardless of the consequences. Another trend that Mead describes is the shift from managed capitalism ("Fordism") which is a cooperative arrangement among the managers of state, business, and labor to a global capitalism ("millenial capitalism") which is less regulated and less equitable in its distribution of winners and losers. The Hamiltonians are promoters of millenial capitalism. It is a worldwide phenomenon that the state elites dislike because it diminishes their control over the economy. One more reason they hate us. The poor also liked the old system because it brought government subsidies. Alas, they too hate us. Mead's prescription for helping the poor is of course in tune with millenial capitalism. The money for old style foreign aid is no longer there since Western governments are all running huge deficits already. He advocates private banks lending money in the form of microloans. This has been done succussfully in Bangladesh and elsewhere. (Re

thorough, engaging, worthwhile, and occasionally brilliant

"Power, Terror, Peace, and War- America's Grand Strategy In a World at Risk", by Walter Russell Mead is a masterful analysis of the current state of America's foreign policy and its derivation from the political and philosophical attitudes that have emerged in the U.S. since WWII and more importantly the most recent changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the attacks of 9/11. Mead maintains that the foreign policy of the American government is a sub-set of the foreign policy of the American people, reinforcing the idea that legitimate power and policy in a liberal democracy must be `bottom up' or consensus driven. Mead indicates, like Huntington, that the American "Grand Strategy" has always had a messianic component based on what Robert Cooper in "The Breaking Of Nations" would call national identity, rather than interest driven and that it has been distilled from the past competition of contradictory agendas resulting in an ideology with global intent. Historically our global aspirations were greatly aided by the maintenance of world order by Great Britain at no cost to us. Great Britain was our main trading partner as well as our biggest rival for foreign markets (see Niall Ferguson "Colossus"). These global aspirations have resulted, through the application of varying degrees of `hard, soft, sweet, and sticky power ( Nye)' , in our current position in the world order considered hegemonic by some (Gramsci). Since WWII we have replaced Great Britain as the provider of world order and with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, we have acquired the intent to be so powerful that potential rivals will be dissuaded not only from challenging us militarily, but from even attempting competition in that realm (see James Mann "The Rise Of The Vulcans). This is in accord with the view that the Westphalian concept of balance-of-power is no longer useful in the modern or even post-modern age and that a benevolent hegemon as a guarantor of stability is superior to collections of allies or alliances that may or may not survive real world challenges. Mead devotes a large portion of this book to the breakdown of the 'Fordist' system, which he typifies as the combination of mass production and mass consumption and its replacement with Millennium Capitalism. Under the Fordist system large companies, labor unions, regulated utilities and governments all work together in an essentially managerial society to create improved standards of living leading to the rational utopia of the European Enlightenment. The result is the much-heralded Hegelian "end of history". The end of the Cold War should have only accelerated this trend of ever deepening harmonies. Instead we got 9/11 and an America that (according to Cooper) has rediscovered the Nietschean "will to power". We have realized also that Capitalism is a revolutionary economic system and that we are bound up in

a perfect book

This book, along with John Lewis Gaddis' SURPRISE, SECURITY AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, will tell you what's going on in U.S. foreign policy and why.POWER, TERROR, PEACE, AND WAR is a page-turner. I read it in two days, and am now wishing for more. Probably the most important aspect of the book is that it explains what America is trying to build in the world, not just what America is trying to destroy. It also explains why the world is not convinced that the American project is either sound or good. POWER, TERROR, PEACE, AND WAR contains the most balanced assessment of the Bush White House I have seen. I would not call this book an argument for American unilateralism, although it does explain why the Bush administration has acted as unilaterally as it has. And I cannot predict, after reading this book, which candidate Walter Russell Mead will vote for in 2004.The final chapter is a tour de force, offering novel solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to U.N. reform, to Mexican immigration and to the retirement of the Baby Boomers (hint: the last two issues are linked). Amazing.

A Great Vision of American Grand Strategy

Mead's account of American grand strategy is clear, insightful and readable. Power, Terror, Peace, and War comes in the wake of a flood of books that have attempted to distill and explain the Bush administration and its policies. The problem with most of these books is that they fall too far to the left or too far to the right. Mead's analysis cuts through much of the partisan debates about our national interest and gives a sharp look at some of the problems we face as a nation. In my view, Power, Terror, Peace, and War, is a concise and thoughtful assessment of America's role in the world that really hits the mark.