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| The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project) |
| By: | Andrew Bacevich |
| Media: | Book |
| ISBN: | 0805088156 |
| Average Rating: |  |
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Exceptional book on the fall of the American Empire and insights that could stop the freefall
Andrew J. Bacevich's The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project) is a tour de force treatise on modern American foreign policy agenda and National Security. Key to Bacevich's success with The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project) is his balanced treatment of the causes of America's downfall. Namely, Bacevich is careful not to blame one side or the other of the great political divide in the US - he lays blame to both Democrats and Republicans, and ultimately concludes that the American public as a whole is complicit in our woes. Bacevich proposes, with much strength, that American foreign policy and National Security agenda are set in large part by our glutinous consumer ways - our, public, need to consume cheap goods dictates how our leaders set policy, policy which is enhanced by hawkish power elite who have provided the drive to generate an executive branch with power out of proportion with the balances originally intended by the Founders.
As Bacevich points out 9/11 represents a convenient excuse to continue pursuance of National policies that feed our needs, war in the Middle East was largely a forgone conclusion that 9/11 provided public support for. Bacevich is critical of George W. Bush and his policies but is quick to point out that while Bush and his security hawks took things to another level, it was merely a continuation of policies already pursued by previous Presidents since the Second World War, Republican and Democrat alike. These policies have shifted the US from a creditor nation that ran in the black, produced and exported more than it imported, and lent to others, to a debtor nation that continues to go deeper into the whole with each passing day. As Bacevich points out continuance of our current National Security policies will simply lead to more debt and woe. Our military forces are pushed beyond their limits and our power is largely illusion. The only way to rid us of our current downward spiral, as Bacevich proposes, is to fundamentally alter our consumptive ways so that National Security can focus on defense once again rather than preventative wars to maintain our import needs.
The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project) should be required reading for all voting age (or nearing) Americans - the choice of future is ours as the public, if left to the power elite (both sides of the political aisles) we will simply continue down the same path, one leading quickly to ruin on levels similar to the far of the Roman empire.
Sharp critique of America by a non-partisan pragmatist
Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich has written a sharp non-partisan critique which speaks truth to power. He sees a tendency for the US to become enmeshed in a seemingly never-ending "long war" as he describes it, and doesn't blame any one particular party or president, although he skewers many past presidents.
While I agree with much of his thinking, sometimes he doesn't nail down his argument (but he's still right, generally.) For example, he sees American foreign policy as "an outward manifestation of American domestic ambitions, urges and fears", and suggests that domestic dysfunction CAUSES foreign policy blunders. This seems too strong. I see correlations (not cause-and-effect relations) between domestic dysfunction and foreign policy blunders, and both are, in my view, symptoms of deeper, more pervasive forces underlying our decaying democracy. I don't see how people shopping excessively causes foreign policy weakness (with perhaps two exceptions: (1) oil addiction indirectly funds Middle Eastern extremist groups (2) excessive purchase of consumer goods from China possibly undermines American manufacturing capacity.)
I see a consensus emerging that America's woes can not be solved by partisans from left or right, but that problems are deeper and more dangerous. Powerful non-partisan thinkers are contributing from different angles to a tough critique of America. These critics have TEETH. Along with Dr. Bacevich, read Dana D. Nelson's excellent "Bad For Democracy" who argues that the presidency, itself, is undemocratic, and that people have reduced their role as citizens to doing the minimal task of voting for president every four years -- that's all people do -- which isn't enough to sustain a democracy, she argues. Further, check out Kevin R. C. Gutzman's "Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution", a sharp non-partisan look at constitutional law. Bacevich's critique hammers away from the foreign policy and military analysis angle, and there is substantial agreement with Benjamin Ginsberg's brilliant "The American Lie" regarding American political corruption.
Bacevich was influenced significantly by a thinker from the 1930s through 1960s named Reinhold Niebuhr, who saw in America an unrealistic tendency to think we can manage history. Good fortune and pre-eminence made the US susceptible to self-adulation, thought Niebuhr. He counseled realism. He saw American culture as having a tendency to equate happiness with comfort. Bacevich echoes these concerns, and sees America as insisting that the world maintain it's spendthrift lifestyle by providing cheap oil, cheap credit, cheap consumer goods. But over-spending erodes American power as we become dependent on foreigners. The worship of freedom brings a mixed blessing, writes Bacevich, because it undercuts the nation's ability to fulfill its own commitments. We court bankruptcy. Our economic crisis? Cultural crisis? Political crisis? They're all of our own making, he writes. To support the American way of life, we've used military power as a crutch to support an American imperium.
Bacevich argues persuasively that American power has its limits. We can't continue to spend huge sums on preventive wars without weakening the nation's economy, and an afterword (written January 2009) discusses the current economic meltdown in this regard.
I somewhat disagree with Professor Bacevich about the economics underpinning American decline. I think economic activity is like a wind summoned by hunger for goods and services, stoked by wily inventors and creative business wizards, that envelops a region of the world when conditions are right (capital, legal foundations, demographics), and when it blows strong for decade after decade, people get wealthy. But with this newfound prosperity comes laziness and inertia, an affection for doing things the same old way, a rigidity. So the winds of commerce won't last forever -- they find a new place and blow there. Prosperity undoes itself. And I think America has had it's time in the wind, but now the winds of commerce are shifting to Asia, and there's not much that can be done to steer them back. I don't think America's economic troubles were CAUSED by excessive spending or freedom, as Professor Bacevich suggests, but are natural cycles that come and go.
But I agree that foreign policy blunders, such as Vietnam and the second Gulf War, as well as excessive regulation and corruption, can cost dearly and hasten economic stagnation. That the US has run out of oil isn't so much its own fault but rather the result of its location. The American continents, as Jared Diamond points out in "Guns, Germs & Steel", are oriented north-to-south, while the larger landmass of Europe & Asia & Africa is oriented east to west. Since there is much more territory for the growth of different species along this west-east axis of the Eurasian landmass, more animals lived there, and died -- which turned into oil. So naturally the Middle East has the largest reserves of oil. And oil is such an amazing fuel with so many uses that I find it hard to blame Americans for learning to exploit it in many different ways for work and pleasure. Too bad we're not on top of it.
Bacevich criticizes the Joint Chiefs of Staff, most recent presidents, Congress (essentially an "incumbent party" he writes, with their main focus on re-electing themselves.) We live in the age of the permanent national security crisis. He thinks changing presidents won't help much; I agree. He writes: "Counting on the next president to fix whatever is broken promotes expectations of easy, no-cost cures, permitting ordinary citizens to absolve themselves of responsibility for the nation's predicament." He notes if the US no longer needed mideast oil, then many in the Pentagon would lose their jobs, military bases would close, and the Navy's Fifth Fleet would stand down. To prevent terrorism, Bacevich wants to contain Islamic extremism and keep it from spreading with more intensive surveillance of Islamic activity as well as multilateral police efforts. He doesn't specify how this might be accomplished. I still think my strategy to prevent terrorism (below) is steel-tough. He writes: Americans must stop thinking they can tutor Muslims in matters related to freedom; I agree. He writes: Let Muslims discover Islam's shortcomings for themselves; I agree. He favors abolishing nuclear weapons since conventional weapons are becoming increasingly powerful and better able to deter a nuclear-armed nation; I was not convinced here. He favors expensive research to find energy alternatives; again, I wasn't convinced here.
Overall, a powerful critique by a shrewd and ballsy high-octane thinker highly critical of American exceptionalism. I think America is broken politically and that the ONLY way to restore it is with a Second Constitutional Convention. I think Dr. Bacevich is one of the few Americans smart enough with sufficient integrity to be a delegate to this Convention. I call him to be a delegate. So far, he has not responded, but I continue to urge him to attend. Last, this is a must read book. Five stars!!!
Thomas W. Sulcer
author of "Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism" (Amazon/Kindle)
soon to be free via Google Books & Project Gutenberg
Sharp rebuke of citizens, politicians, and generals (3.5 *s)
This somewhat tedious and not entirely consistent polemic, written by a retired colonel, excoriates the United States, especially the imperial Bush II presidency, for its zeal in imposing American economic and political ideals on noncompliant parts of the world through high-tech military means, which can supposedly be accomplished quickly and precisely with few complications. Of course, recent adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate the complete fatuity of those martial actions. But the author also contends that our hyper-consumeristic society, in which freedom has morphed into self-indulgence, virtually requires that the world satisfy our appetites for oil, credit, etc, and basically gives tacit approval of political and military aggressiveness to secure the world for our needs.
The US certainly had some international military presence before WWII, but the author contends that the expansion of the executive branch to include national security bodies, precipitated by the rise of the Russians and Chinese Communists, was transforming to the nature of US governance, especially in a willingness to intercede internationally. The secretiveness of the NSC, the CIA, the Pentagon, etc and the marginalization of Congress permitted policy positions that were frankly based on paranoid delusions of the extent of Communistic power and capabilities, best exemplified by Paul Nitze's NSC 68 report in 1950, which to this day still has immense influence among neo-conservatives. Parallel to the development of these formal structures has been the reliance of presidents since JFK on a select group of Wise Men or advisors, who operate independently of accountability or need to comport with reality. Many global misadventures lie at their feet.
The author, in more than a little axe-grinding, suggests that recent top military commanders have been mostly incompetent. There is also a fuzzy debate about whether generals have been excessively constrained by civilian tampering - by the Wise Men. One can wonder if - and it is a big if - the US had been militarily successful in Iraq and Afghanistan, would this book have been written.
While the author dates the exaggeration of our enemy's capabilities back to Nitze, its current manifestation is best demonstrated by neo-conservative Paul Wolfowitz, the principal advocate of preemptive war. The author is not entirely consistent in his claims that the US foreign policy has been characterized mostly by pragmatism before Bush II, but now is ideologically driven, given the continuity of a national security apparatus prone to distorted views. What he does make clear is that the high tech capability of our military has made its use become very appealing since the Clinton years, the thinking being that a problematic foreign regime can be carefully excised through precision bombing without collateral civilian damage. The miscalculations in Kosovo alone should have given the Bush II administration some pause.
The author's views on freedom are extremely limited. There has always been the notion that material prosperity is an element of freedom, but the run-up of huge personal debts and national trade imbalances of recent years has created dependencies being played out globally. However, in a democracy, freedom has to be gauged on the ability or even desire of citizens to have a voice in political affairs. But in the national security state, citizens are propagandized rather than allowed to provide input and oversight. The author makes no call for citizen empowerment. In fact, American reliance on an all volunteer army, in the author's eyes, calls into question American interest in civic affairs.
This book is one of several written by the author over the last ten years that criticizes the US turn to establishing an empire through military means. The author is certainly correct that it is not possible financially or from a manpower standpoint to dominate the world militarily, not to mention the philosophical problems. He invokes the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr throughout the book to condemn American arrogance and sanctimony in its thinking that empire can be established almost benignly. He points out that war always has unintended and devastating consequences, yet we seem to be at a point where we cannot stop ourselves on our self-destructive path. There are limits to power.
As far as solutions to counteract our national hubris, or belief in American exceptionalism, the author can suggest only indirect measures such as eliminating nuclear weapons, achieving independence from foreign oil, and controlling global warming. But there are no suggestions as to how to start the process. He is definitely not a democrat (little `d'), so he does not call for citizen empowerment to put us on the correct path. In fact, he criticizes the American belief that electing candidates that espouse change can work, when there is no underlying movement by voters to alter their ways of life. The forces for continuity are subtle and significant. Basically the book is more or less a continuation of the author's, shall we say, need to scold the US, the imperial Presidency and especially the military, for its hubris in attempting to dominate the world. It's doubtful that this latest book breaks much new ground and some may find the curmudgeonly tone a bit off putting.
Right on.
Like other thinking military leaders, it appears that his fresh voice was squelched causing Col. Bacevich to look elsewhere for employmnet. The speak truth to power was definitely not in favor under the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld era, when the focus was "produce only intelligence to please." If it doesn't please, and is not in comic-book format, you are dismissed.
I am proud of the fact that the author served. I am also proud that he could walk away and teach as he does now.
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