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 Lessons on how NOT to run a foreign policy July 17, 2008
This book covers a lot of ground in explaining various (mis)steps of the the foreign policy of George W Bush in a relatively short space. The book combines an approach of going over actions and events along with the ideas (the "daydreams" of the title) that motivated these actions. The book doesn't just focus on the Middle East, but more broadly on the foreign policy of the admininstration, beginning with its goal of pushing a missle defense system (which Kaplan points out has been thought about and found wanting for decades).
The book definitely has a point of view - namely Bush administration has been steered by an unrealistic ideology that has produced a foreign policy with dire results. The book has an edge in its presentation (Kaplan writes for Slate) but seemed to be well documented, giving lots of quotes and citations. I will leave it to others to fact check, but after reading this book, it really is very hard to believe that the neoconservative view of foreign policy and the actors/actresses that brought it into action have done the country well.
The real question raised by a book like this is whether there are lessons to be learned of how NOT to conduct foreign policy that will inform future administrations. Time will tell.
It is a good read that does not bog down in deatils. Four Stars.
well written but the (interesting) thesis is just too weak June 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fred Kaplan is a historian / journalist, a columnist for 'Slate' and author of an excellent guide to cold war nuclear strategy. This new book is history that reads like good journalism. Kaplan's premise is actually best explained in the dust jacket. The disasters of recent American policy stem not from incompetence but from two grave misconceptions. First the belief that the world changed after 9/11, it hasn't. Second the belief that after America won the Cold War it emerged stronger than before, when it hadn't. Kaplan reminds us that the same processes and conflicts continue to drive history as before, and the end of the Cold War, by removing the need for American `leadership', has freed allies and rivals to pursue their own interests. The cold war may not have been a pyrrhic victory, but the chaotic aftermath may have made America weaker even as it's leaders had become more assertive. These are subtle and seductive arguments. Why use a explanatory chain saw when a scalpel will do the job as well?
Kaplan's individual chapters each explore a different fallacy. There's "the mirage of instant victory". The new guided weapons gave America a misplaced sense of superiority. This is Kaplan's strongest argument. Johnny Cash got it right in an old country song. He called the handgun, "the devil's right hand." Kaplan suggests a new candidate. As Cash sang, "..they can't get you into trouble, but they can't get you out."
In "the fog of moral clarity" explores the "no negotiations" line applied to North Korea (and again to Iran). In terms of deterring nuclear proliferation this righteous approach just hasn't worked. Clinton bargained and got better results. It's righteousness without results. If as Bush claims (against the advice of the intelligence community) that Tehran is pursuing the bomb, he seems on course to a repeat failure. McCain, at least if you are inclined to take presidential candidates at their word, wants a repeat failure too. Kaplan doesn't mention it but the "no talk" policy to Hesbollah and Hamas would seem another, if bipartisan, example.
"Silver bullets" looks at anti-missile technology and provides an excellent life history of Star Wars and sons. This is both Kaplan's strongest and weakest chapter. Historically the most interesting, it allows Kaplan's specialty to come to the fore. Still I'm just not convinced that these programs have seriously weakened America. Compared to the cost of the Iraq campaign these are a drop in the bucket. Their critics maintain the cost to aggressors of developing counter-counter measures is the Achilles Heel of these systems. But we still don't know yet. When Eisenhower commissioned the first spy satellites, the idea of space surveillance seemed absurd. Ike persisted and the investment eventually paid off. "Corona" prevented costly missile races and probably did more to prevent World War 3 than the UN. Reagan's missile shield may be a fantasy, but Kaplan does not prove that a more limited program to counter the more primitive efforts of neophyte missile powers is unattainable. Missile defense may be a boondoggle but it doesn't belong in the same category as the others.
All told it is a well written book, educational but I think it fails. Kaplan's core thesis, the postwar false assumptions did not just lead Bush astray. Presumably the Democrats who gave Bush a blank check shared the same thinking. Clinton's interventions in Yugoslavia, something Kaplan supports, were also driven by the same assumptions. Kosovo wasn't democracy delivered by smart bombs, but it did have multiculturalism in the bomb bay. Kosovo, a tactical `success', has not delivered multi-ethnic peace. Now it's Nato's clients who do the cleansing. Kaplan's thesis is undermined by unnecessary partisanship. You get the feeling that the only thing wrong with post-Cold War policy was that Bush, not Gore, became president. Considering Clinton's Iraq Liberation Act, my guess is that, after 9-11, it is a better than fifty-fifty bet, that Gore would have invaded Iraq sooner or later too. Had Kaplan merely limited his book explicitly to the Bush years he may have avoided this hook.
More importantly the thesis is really just too weak. America has suffered serious decline under Bush. When polls show that the majority of Australians, a country that has close ties with America, see China as a more responsible than the US, something is very wrong. And the Bush administration is to blame for this. Kaplan's expose of false assumptions that have eroded American power is true but insufficient. Bush has taken a car coasting downhill and hit the accelerator. What alienates the world, and perhaps now the American electorate, has been arrogant hypocrisy. All major powers engaged in counter-insurgencies use torture, yet the Americans have harmed their own cause and weakened the ideas which should be their strongest weapon in the war on terror. America's likely defeat is an own goal. The cavalcade of lies on Iraq has been spectacular. No serious student of international affairs, or even presidents, really expects them to tell the truth, however at least some pretence to a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind" can, at least, win America the benefit of the doubt. They lie, we know they lie and they don't care that we know. Bush pays foreigners no respect and the world returns the compliment.
Kaplan's book is too partisan to prove his thesis, and his thesis is too weak to explain Bush. Andrew Bacevich, who covers much the same ground, does a better job.
"Daydream Believers" by Fred Kaplan does not derive its name from the song made popular by the Monkees. The title is derived from Lawrence's "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom."
"...Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible."
Kaplan's title is really a misquote. Lawrence of Arabia's dangerous men turn dreams into reality. Kaplan's dangerous men just flounder in the sand.
"this was a new era" June 20, 2008
An interesting book, and one whose accuracy I am probably not qualified to judge. Instinctively, Kaplan's arguments feel right given what I know about the values of the current administration and post-9/11 political history. I would be the first to admit, however, that what I know is reasonably small compared to what there is to know. I also recognize that sometimes a book that confirms your own preconceptions can feel instinctively right.
That said, I enjoyed the book. I was reminded of the Clausewitz line that "the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst." The story of a group of misinformed idealists who so confidently expected to be proved right that they disregarded advice and caution is a compelling narrative.
The structure was a little messy, and it felt from time to time a touch unorganized. Still, I followed the argument and did not really lose interest. Interesting, if you are interested.
A Good Account of Bush's Failed Foriegn Policy June 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In "Daydream Believers," Fred Kaplan has authored an easy-to-read account of George Bush's failed foreign policy and how he and the neo-cons who surrounded him have destroyed America's standing in the world and have dug us into a deep hole in Iraq.
In the very beginning of the book Kaplan points out that Bush and company labor under a misconception, that since the United States won the Cold War, it can do as it pleases in the world. After 9/11, the United States had all the sympathy and admiration in the world. Kaplan's book very succinctly points out that Bush and people in his cabinet like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney used 9/11 as a reason to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. Today the U.S. is stuck in a quagmire, with thousands of U.S. troops, and hundreds of thousand of Iraqi people, dead and trillions of dollars wasted. Additionally, world opinion of the U.S. is probably the lowest it has ever been.
A good read, and an important book, in helping to understand how Bush and his cabinet have destroyed the reputation of the United States and made a very unstable part of the world even more unstable.
 Well-Written Future History Book June 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The main thrust of this book is by now familiar and well-documented; that the Bush Administration rushed to war in Iraq without a clear goal, without an exit strategy, and totally unconcerned about the collateral effects. These facts have been brought out in numerous books and articles and are essentially beyond dispute by now.
What makes Kaplan's book such a valuable addition to the "piling on" is his extremely-readable style, his dispassionate tone, and the way he organizes the material. Told not chronologically but rather logically, Kaplan explains where the flawed doctrines originated, who sold them to the White House, and how such spectacularly-bad advice was accepted eagerly by the team of ill-prepared ideologues.
He charts how failed advisers, going back to the Nixon, Reagan and the first Bush administrations -- whose advice had been discarded back then by wiser policy-makers -- banded together into the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Project for a New American Century (PNAC) during the Clinton years. There they fomented their plans for global reshaping based on their own religious and political misunderstandings. When the events of 9/11 presented our ill-prepared President with the need to "do something fast," they were ready with a laundry list of very bad suggestions.
Perhaps the key sentence appears on page 137: "If the Saudis were to hold elections the way President Bush seemed to desire, [Saudi Prince] Faisal said, the winners would be the most radical Islamists." This single sentence sums up the near-total misunderstanding of the world that led this band of self-appointed meddlers to attempt to export democracy around the world, with no understanding of the repercussions that such a foolhardy undertaking would have had -- an exponentially greater disaster than the mess they did create by utterly failing in their goal. As Kaplan points out, the relatively benign collapse (at first) of the Soviet Union depended on a highly-educated populace, a diverse economic base, and open information flow. The Middle East, with a highly UNeducated populace, limited economic base, censored press, religious extremism on the rise and long-standing internal animosities, is the very worst place to try to install self-government. Generations of policy-makers before this Administration -- including the President's own father -- understood this.
I have two caveats about the book. First, the author speaks of George W. Bush as if he was involved in high-level policy-making, when by all indications he was not. Second, the author indicates that Bush read the first 2/3rds of a book by Natal (Anatoly) Sharansky which encouraged him to move ahead with the PNAC agenda. I think it's clear "books are more Laura's thing," as Bush himself has put it.
Kaplan's book will be used by future generations to understand how such monumental and devastating policy blunders could have been made, leading to a generation of worldwide violence unmatched in modern history. It is sobering to realize that our generation has left this legacy.
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