.DR Book Club: The Bushies, All Too Typical
The Bush administration made some pretty lousy decisions over the past eight years -- going to war in Iraq, repeatedly ignoring military advice, telling Americans to shop, instead of sacrifice, after 9/11. But does that make the Bush White House any difference from earlier administration? Not really, argues Andrew Bacevich, noted history professor and retired Army colonel. In his new book, "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism," Bacevich says the sins of the past White House are depressingly reminiscent of earlier Presidents' transgressions.
Bacevich focuses primarily on the Carter through G.W. Bush administrations to make two main points. First, that the success of presidential administrations depended on their attention on pleasing the American public's desire for goods and cheap energy. He notes that Ronald Reagan understood that Americans "wanted self-gratification, not self-denial," and that's why Jimmy Carter didn't get his second term. This is a pretty heady thing to absorb at first, but he has a point here. At first, I didn't accept Bacevich's assertion that the public demand for goods was something that drove national strategy, but Paul Krugman seems to agree with the trend, at least, that Americans have grown used to living beyond their means.
His second point is that the excesses of G.W. Bush's administration really aren't that different in concept from the past administrations. He compares the secretive discussions of the Bush administration to John F. Kennedy's behavior after the Bay of Pigs incident in that Kennedy, feeling betrayed by a lack of backing by the military, fell back on an internal group of "Wise Men" to advise him. This behavior has been repeated by presidents ever since. The Congress has ceded its authority on national security issues to the executive branch. Bacevich goes so far as to suggest that the two parties actually collaborate to maintain a theater of sorts "where self-promotion and self-preservation take precedence over serious engagement with serious issues."
Bacevich spares no one in his withering analysis, deriding the "power elite" that Duncan Black and other liberal bloggers have called "the Villagers." National security institutions such as the CIA and Joint Chiefs of Staff are marginalized and avoided by those in power, since the White House's decisions often are not supported by the data and recommendations identified by those agencies. None of these views are to suggest that the Bush administration is innocent of malfeasance other than to follow the practices of the past. Bacevich believes that Paul Wolfowitz, in particular, went against decades of reliance on National Security Council directive 68 in advocating a policy of "anticipatory self-defense" that led to an invasion of Iraq in 2003. But still, as long as Americans could go shopping without worrying about sacrifice, few argued against the Bush administration's actions.
Bacevich is concerned that we've learned the wrong lessons from the Iraq war - that people believe we need to reconfigure the military to fight "small wars," empower generals over civilian defense officials, and reconnect soldiering to citizenship through a draft. He believes that instead, the United States needs to focus on a nonimperial foreign policy that doesn't rely on military operations to enforce it; that our general and flag officers are not better than civilian leadership (and in some cases, downright uninspiring); and that a draft is absolutely the wrong course of action (we can't afford it, and Congress and the public would never support it).
This is a good, if somewhat emotional, book that outlines a particular thesis that some will inherently resist. But there is a strong line of logic here. My main criticism is that Bacevich tends to make brief statements that, while footnoted, are very selective and not supported by further details. He hits and moves, pulling the reader forward into his discussion. He used this particular style in his first book as well - you will find yourself thinking, "okay, that's an interesting point of view, but is it accurate? Is it defendable?" Bacevich has no time for in-depth discussions, and that's not a bad thing, but it leaves one not fully convinced that this book is anything but a particular point of view. Mind you, it's a very strong point of view that is compelling.
As one quick example, within the last ten pages of the book, Bacevich unloads with this statement: "Nuclear weapons are unusable." In two pages, he tries to make a point that nuclear weapons do not play a legitimate role in international politics. I understand what he means, but he hardly makes a case here other than to suggest that we do need a new nuclear strategy (and certainly that is true). I'm just not sure he leads us to a sound conclusion. But the overall message of this book is clear. Our branches of government are all intertwined in a dance that is hardly efficient and is in fact dangerous in its execution of national security, and this flawed process will continue. And as long as the American people are focused more on buying iPhones and worrying about filling up their Hummers than on national security issues, it isn't going to get better.
Wired
Bacevich focuses primarily on the Carter through G.W. Bush administrations to make two main points. First, that the success of presidential administrations depended on their attention on pleasing the American public's desire for goods and cheap energy. He notes that Ronald Reagan understood that Americans "wanted self-gratification, not self-denial," and that's why Jimmy Carter didn't get his second term. This is a pretty heady thing to absorb at first, but he has a point here. At first, I didn't accept Bacevich's assertion that the public demand for goods was something that drove national strategy, but Paul Krugman seems to agree with the trend, at least, that Americans have grown used to living beyond their means.
His second point is that the excesses of G.W. Bush's administration really aren't that different in concept from the past administrations. He compares the secretive discussions of the Bush administration to John F. Kennedy's behavior after the Bay of Pigs incident in that Kennedy, feeling betrayed by a lack of backing by the military, fell back on an internal group of "Wise Men" to advise him. This behavior has been repeated by presidents ever since. The Congress has ceded its authority on national security issues to the executive branch. Bacevich goes so far as to suggest that the two parties actually collaborate to maintain a theater of sorts "where self-promotion and self-preservation take precedence over serious engagement with serious issues."
Bacevich spares no one in his withering analysis, deriding the "power elite" that Duncan Black and other liberal bloggers have called "the Villagers." National security institutions such as the CIA and Joint Chiefs of Staff are marginalized and avoided by those in power, since the White House's decisions often are not supported by the data and recommendations identified by those agencies. None of these views are to suggest that the Bush administration is innocent of malfeasance other than to follow the practices of the past. Bacevich believes that Paul Wolfowitz, in particular, went against decades of reliance on National Security Council directive 68 in advocating a policy of "anticipatory self-defense" that led to an invasion of Iraq in 2003. But still, as long as Americans could go shopping without worrying about sacrifice, few argued against the Bush administration's actions.
Bacevich is concerned that we've learned the wrong lessons from the Iraq war - that people believe we need to reconfigure the military to fight "small wars," empower generals over civilian defense officials, and reconnect soldiering to citizenship through a draft. He believes that instead, the United States needs to focus on a nonimperial foreign policy that doesn't rely on military operations to enforce it; that our general and flag officers are not better than civilian leadership (and in some cases, downright uninspiring); and that a draft is absolutely the wrong course of action (we can't afford it, and Congress and the public would never support it).
This is a good, if somewhat emotional, book that outlines a particular thesis that some will inherently resist. But there is a strong line of logic here. My main criticism is that Bacevich tends to make brief statements that, while footnoted, are very selective and not supported by further details. He hits and moves, pulling the reader forward into his discussion. He used this particular style in his first book as well - you will find yourself thinking, "okay, that's an interesting point of view, but is it accurate? Is it defendable?" Bacevich has no time for in-depth discussions, and that's not a bad thing, but it leaves one not fully convinced that this book is anything but a particular point of view. Mind you, it's a very strong point of view that is compelling.
As one quick example, within the last ten pages of the book, Bacevich unloads with this statement: "Nuclear weapons are unusable." In two pages, he tries to make a point that nuclear weapons do not play a legitimate role in international politics. I understand what he means, but he hardly makes a case here other than to suggest that we do need a new nuclear strategy (and certainly that is true). I'm just not sure he leads us to a sound conclusion. But the overall message of this book is clear. Our branches of government are all intertwined in a dance that is hardly efficient and is in fact dangerous in its execution of national security, and this flawed process will continue. And as long as the American people are focused more on buying iPhones and worrying about filling up their Hummers than on national security issues, it isn't going to get better.
Wired
posted by madtom at 6:06 PM
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