Unilateral big-stick carrying may seem well and good to the
"hegemons" in the Bush administration, writes erstwhile Clinton
advisor Soderberg, but it hasn't made the world safer or better. In
the tradition of Clinton and other Democratic leaders (John Kerry
comes to mind), the author argues that the way for the White House
to win friends and influence people abroad is to build strong
international alliances and share the burden of promoting peace and
order with our partners. The Bush administration had the chance to
extend the Clinton approach in addressing recent events, she
continues, and did so to some extent in Afghanistan. But it chose
to do otherwise after the fall of the Taliban. The present
administration's insistence on going to war in Iraq "will prove to
be a test of the myth of the hegemon's view of America's role as a
superpower," writes Soderberg, who contends that going it alone in
the modern world leads to isolation and the accumulation of
enemies. The Superpower Myth has some interesting moments, as when
the author recounts the 1993 attack on American soldiers in Somalia
so ably depicted in Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down (1999). Soderberg
describes a livid Bill Clinton demanding to know what had gone
wrong, letting a few heads roll as a result, then taking charge of
his own foreign policy. Lessons learned: Don't allow Pentagon types
to go unquestioned, and don't allow the United Nations to lead
American troops into battle. The second lesson has become an
article of rhetorical faith among politicos, but the first has been
lost on the onetime cold warriors of Ford and Reagan vintage who
now serve Bush II. The point is well taken, but Soderberg's
arguments swim in a sea of dreary detail; her narrative is less a
book than an extended white paper, with all the requisite
problem-describing, pundit-quoting, and policy-recommending. May
set a think-tank denizen's pulse racing, but won't do much for
general readers with a concern for America's role in the world.
(Kirkus Reviews)
"For eight years, Nancy Soderberg served with distinction and
creativity at the highest levels of American government. She is
uniquely positioned to explain how the world works in this new
era--and when it's in danger of breaking down." --Dr. Madeleine K.
Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State. Are there limits to
American power? The neoconservative brain trust behind the Bush
administration's foreign policy doesn't seem to recognize any. For
the first time, we have people in power who believe that as the
world's reigning superpower, America can do what it wants, when it
wants, without regard to allies, costs, or results. But as events
in Iraq are proving, America may be powerful, but it is not
all--powerful. In practice, no country could ever be strong enough
to solve problems like Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq
through purely military means.;In the future, America's power will
constantly be called up to help failed and failing states, and it
is becoming clear that the complex mess of Somalia has replaced the
proxy war of Vietnam as the model for what future military
conflicts will look like: a failed state, a power vacuum, armed
factions, and enough chaos to panic an entire region. Using vivid
examples from her years in the White House and at the United
Nations, Nancy Soderberg demonstrates why military force is not
always effective, why allies and consensus--building are crucial,
and how the current administration's faulty world view has
adversely affected policies toward Israel, Iraq, North Korea,
Haiti, Africa, and Al--Qaeda. Powerful, provocative, and
persuasive, this timely book demonstrates that the future of
America's security depends on overcoming the superpower myth. Nancy
Soderberg (New York, NY) was a foreign policy advisor to Bill
Clinton from the 1992 campaign through the end of his second term.
From 1993 to 1996 she was the third ranking official at the
National Security Council, serving as Deputy Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs, and from 1997 to 2001 she
was a U.S.;Ambassador to the United Nations. She is currently the
Vice President and Director of the New York office of the
International Crisis Group and a foreign policy analyst for MSNBC.
General
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