'Blowback' is a term originally used by the CIA to describe the
unintended consequences of American policies. In this devastating
and controversial critique, Johnson explains how this concept looks
set to challenge America's superpower status in the post cold-war
era. Johnson lays out the dangers to the country's global hegemony
caused by an overextended empire, overzealousness in acting as
policeman in every corner of the planet, and the insistence on the
use of American capital to force economic integration on its own
terms. These policies unsurprisingly build up resentments, and the
US government condemns attacks against American citizens and
property as being the work of terrorists, illegal arms merchants
and rogue states, when in fact they are often acts of blowback from
earlier American 'imperial actions'. Similarly, blowback emanates
from the outrage surrounding the victimization of foreign civilians
by American service personnel in a continuous trail of 'military
accidents' from Germany and Turkey to Okinawa and South Korea,
nonchalantly brushed aside by the US government. However, Johnson
chooses the main focus of Blowback to be on East Asia, rather than
other high profile troublespots such as the Balkans, the
Middle-East or Central America, as respect to the region's recent
influence on the world's balance of power and its pivotal role in
America's future economic harvest. Significant changes are clearly
evident in Asia such as China's increasing attempt to emulate
high-growth economies elsewhere in Asia, the reunification of the
two Koreas and Japan's need to overcome its political paralysis. In
this, Johnson argues that American's policy-making needs to undergo
a radical overhaul to cope with a more self-confident China and a
more independent Japan and responsibility has to be reassigned from
military mavericks to ambassadors and diplomats in Asia. For too
long, the US has relied on its carrier task force, its cruise
missiles and its unfettered flow of capital for dealing with crises
and desperately needs to seek more options. Blowback is
informative, factual and largely unbiased, although it is sometimes
difficult to agree with all of Johnson's statements and some of his
links between the causes and consequences of blowback are highly
debatable. For example, Johnson simply attributes the 1988 bombing
of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie as retailiation for the 1986
Reagan administration's aerial raid on Libya that killed President
Khadaffi's stepdaughter, when it is probably more likely to be the
culmination of a multitude of motivations and chain of events.
Despite these occasional flaws, Johnson's opinions are
fundamentally sound and Blowback stands up as a not too taxing read
for those interested in American foreign policy and its unofficial
empire. (Kirkus UK)
This provocative & important book, with a new preface by the author written after the momentous events of 11 September, is a powerful account of the consequences of American global policies. The 21st century, Chalmers Johnson tells us, will be a payback world in which the US will reap the global resentments it is now sowing.
'Blowback', a term that officials of the CIA first invented for their internal use, refers to the unintended consequences of American policies and the dangers faced by an overextended empire that insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms. From America's role in Asia's financial crisis, to its early support for Saddam Hussein and its actions in the Balkans, Johnson reveals the misguided actions of a hugely powerful nation. In the wake of the Cold War, the US has imprudently expanded the commitments it made over the previous forty years. In 'Blowback' Chalmers Johnson issues a warning: it is time for the American empire to demobilize before its bills become due.
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