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Title: While America Sleeps : Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today by Donald Kagan, Frederick W. Kagan ISBN: 0-312-28374-1 Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback Pub. Date: 10 November, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A great power needs the willingness to enforce peace
Comment: I did enjoy reading it. It is a well researched book. I found the similarities between Britain in the 1920s and 1930s and the United States today an interesting idea. The central thesis is that both these powers had too small a military for its needs and that this is the cause of many of its problems in national policy. The writers then take us on a journey of both countries policies and point out where they feel this is shown out.
Although I do agree that both had large commitments and that their military although big by world standards was too small for their needs. I cannot agree in almost all of the examples quoted where a stronger force would have changed much. As the writers point out the British forces were stronger enough to handle the Turks in 1920 if they really wanted too. The results of this conflict from the British point of view were quite satisfactory. A pro Western and neutral Turkey controlling this important region developed out of this conflict. A larger Greece would still have fallen under Nazi control and by controlling more of the region would have been worse for the Allies then what did happen. I would agree that this conflict certainly was a lot bloodier particularly to Greeks. then it should have been. Later on with other crisis's such as the Corfu, monitoring Versailles, Ethiopia, the Rhineland and Munich in all these occasions the British suffered from lack of will not lack of military force. If the will had been their, then the military was strong enough.
These arguments would also be true of many of the examples quoted of the US too for example in 1990s both in Yugoslavia and Iraq.
A stronger military at best could be said to give more confidence to the decision makers.
The real lesson in the book is that victorious powers often after the war must have the willingness to enforce the peace they fought for. Overall it is certainly a worth while read.
Rating: 4
Summary: America in Danger - Humans in Danger!!!
Comment: While America Sleeps" is an engaging, insightful work of comparative history.Life of Americans in Danger! Life of Humans in Danger! A Book by Donal Kagan is the perception of self delusion, military weakness and threat to peace today. Using Great Britain between the wars as a point of comparison for the US today, the authors outline the great dangers faced as a nation. The book refers that US has taken a huge "peace dividend" and gutted it's military since the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, US foreign policy has been consistently erratic, misguided and low over the same period. When confronted with aggression, US has failed and totally ineffective and a half hearted stand. Bush administration had many of the right ideas about the role of a lone superpower, but failed to implement them. This was due largely to a failure to educate the public, and a lingering "Vietnam Syndrome" that continues to plague the military. They go on to lambast the Clinton administration for both failing to understand the dynamic of global relations, and for utterly misapplying military force. The Author foreshadows impending doom and the book is thought-provoking treatise on the role of military power in foreign policy.It challenges the lack of will in political leaders and controversially disturbing warning against over reliance on air power and technological superiority. Its time to think 'America in Danger! Life of Humans in Danger!
Rating: 2
Summary: A Point Too Narrow
Comment: Both Donald and Frederick Kagan have well earned reputations as thoughtful analysts of the current global scene and as intelligent and insightful historians. That is why their newest book, While America Sleeps, is something of a small disappointment. For while the book makes the indisputably correct point that a modern and effective military is the sine qua non of an effective foreign policy, the Kagans fail to offer an explanation of what that foreign policy ought to be and why.
That said, the parallels pointed out by the Kagans between the Britain of the 1920s and 1930s and the United States of the 1990s and early 21st century are remarkable. Especially fascinating is the interesting similarities drawn by the authors between the 1919 Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I and the 1991 armistice ending the Persian Gulf War. The Kagans note that the peace in both cases was made with a weakened but not absolutely defeated power. They further point out that, to compensate for this fact, the victorious powers imposed an onerous peace which, in order to work, would require a permanent obligation by the victors to impose their terms. That, in its course, would require the victorious powers to maintain large military forces and a willingness to use them should the terms of the peace be violated.
Here the Kagans have hit on the nut of the matter. As the Europeans, particularly the British and the French, are learning to their great cost in the War on Terrorism, military power and a willingness to use it matters. Despite the best hopes of man and the fondest dreams of Eurofederalists, economics, commerce, treaties and international law do not govern the world, brute force still does. The prudent exercise of power, particularly military power, saves lives and makes for a more peaceful world in the long run. At the end of the day, there is no substitute for the prudent pursuit of a national self-interest.
Ironically, though, this is the point at where the Kagans fall down. They point out that in 1919, Britain was the only power capable of acting as a global policeman, and that in 2002, the United States finds itself in a similar position. They rightly point out that, in order to play that role, armed forces of sufficient quantity and quality are essential. Yet, they never tackle the essential question of whether the role of global policeman is appropriate.
Consequently, the Kagans are left offering American policymakers no useful guide to what constitutes an appropriate foreign policy. They correctly point out that the American armed forces were, and remain, badly overstretched. Yet, they never question whether the United States should have been going into places like Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkans. Because of the book's narrow fixation on the necessity of a properly constituted military establishment, the authors never get to the more essential question of when America should use its military power.
The Kagans are not wrong when they say that the phrase, "America cannot be the world's policeman," has become tired and overused by those who are pushing other agendas. However, they are wrong to suggest that the phrase itself lacks a kernel of truth. They ignore the possibility that the United States ought not try to be the world's policeman. Not only because this would not be sustainable in terms of domestic politics, which has to be considered though not slavishly so, but also because being the world's policeman would tend to draw together a coalition of interests hostile to the United States.
The fact is that America is wasting its military resources and its money in the Balkans in a cause in which it has only the remotest of stakes. NATO forms the boundary of America's national interests in Europe, not the Balkans. America currently finds itself leading an alliance of military dependents in the War on Terrorism because, instead of compelling the states of Europe to develop military forces to protect their own Balkan interests, America supplied the forces for Europe.
Similarly, the fact is that, in Haiti, America had no serious interests worthy of a military intervention, but was left with no choice but intervention because American foreign policy was unwisely couched in globalists terms of universal norms. Historically, the United States had been willing to accept any regime in Haiti so long as it danced to America's tune in the global arena. The innovation that the character of the Haitian regime mattered to America's national interest was anomalous and wrong. More importantly, the ability to correct that regime's brutalities is well beyond any power the United States might ever be able to bring to bear.
To be certain, at different times throughout the book, the Kagans make these and similar points. However, in the end, they never make the connection between their contention that America must be a global policeman because it has the power to do so, and that in so doing, America will be drawn into places where its interests are not at stake, and therefore will needlessly fritter away its power. In short, the Kagans conflate the idea that because a nation has the power to do a thing, it must do that thing. They choose the model of a global policeman, rather than the less utopian and more practical model of the balance of power.
For all of that, the Kagans deserve much credit for reminding Americans that an effective foreign policy is inseparable from a strong and modern military. In the global arena, in the final analysis, it is not just 'the economy, stupid.' Unfortunately, they neglect to go beyond that point, and the result is a book that is really nothing more than a pitch, however necessary, for a bigger defense budget. That is important, but it is ironic. In the end, the Kagans, shrewd and insightful historians though they are, have decided that Kofi Anan has more meaningful things to say about America's foreign policy than Theodore Roosevelt.
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Title: On the Origins of War : And the Preservation of Peace by Donald Kagan ISBN: 0385423756 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order by Robert Kagan ISBN: 1400040930 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan ISBN: 0670032115 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 08 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy by Robert Kagan, William Kristol ISBN: 1893554163 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror by David Frum, Richard Perle ISBN: 1400061946 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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