Customer Reviews

Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The point of this book is illustrated by a handful of quotations at the outset. From T. E. Lawrence (Of Arabia): "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." And a couple quotations from author Fred Kaplan. Page 1: "Nearly all of America's blunders in war and peace these past few years stem from a single grand misconception: that the world changed after September 11, when in fact it didn't." And (Pages 1-2): "But in fact, the end of the Cold War made America weaker, less capable of exerting its will on others. And its leaders' failure to recognize this, their inclination to devise policies based on the premise of omnipotence, made America weaker still."

This is a pretty well-written book. Its impact is diminished to some extent because others have raised many of the same points. The blindness to what would happen after the Iraqi invasion by American troops and their allies by Rumsfeld and others has been dissected many times and in many other books.

The discussion of the history of trying to develop an anti-ballistic missile system, quite fairly, traces the idea back to its early beginnings under President Eisenhower (I must confess that I am getting numbed by many books that focus just on the Bush II Administration, whether positively or negatively, without considering historical context). The theme raised by the author is that experts from start to now have noted that the system is not likely to work; there are too many ways that an aggressor can confound the system. The author also notes that military officials tend to "cook" results by structuring tests so as to increase odds of success. Kaplan laments the national treasure that has gone into the research and deployment of experiments/systems.

While Kaplan does not want a return to the cold-blooded (in his eyes) Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, he also decries the idealist vision of foreign policy of President Bush and the neocons. He wants a return to a more modest realism (small r as opposed to large R realism of Kissinger).

He ends by intentionally ironically quoting George W. Bush in a televised debate with Al Gore back in 2000. Bush said (Page 200): "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. . .If we're a humble nation but strong, they'll welcome us." With that ironic twist from the author's pen, the book closes.

For those who have read a lot about these issues, the book won't illuminate much in addition to what one already knows. Opponents of Bush are apt to seize on the book as further ammunition; proponents of the President are likely to take the opposite tack.

From my reading, this is another piece that adds to the discussion of the events of the past several years. It is well written and one can read it quickly. Not much that hasn't been said before, in terms of events. The conclusion advocating a return to "sensible realism" makes a certain sense, but the argument has been made with much greater depth and sophistication by a number of analysts (e.g., see Charles Kupchan's "The End of the American Era" or Joseph Nye's "The Paradox of American Power"). So, a book that will get you thinking about the issues one way or another if you haven't already made up your mind.

The author is kinder to the protagonists than they merit.

I give the author high marks for making the case early on in the book that the world did NOT change after 9-11, and that what really happened was that the coincidence of neo-conservative back-stabbing and Bush's well-intentioned evangelical village idiot view of freedom and democracy.

The author does a fine job of reviewing how after 9-11 we were faced with two choices, the first, going for empire ("we make our own reality") or revitalizing alliances. The neocons in their ignorance called for regime changes, but the author fails us here by not understanding that both political parties love 42 of the 44 dictators, those that "our" dictators.

The author has many gifted turns of phrase. One talks about how their "vision" turned into a "dream" that then met "reality" and was instantly converted into a "nightmare."

The author adds to our knowledge of how Rumsfeld empowered Andy Marshall, and how the inner circle quickly grew enamored of the delusion that they could achieve total situational awareness with total accuracy in a system of systems no intelligent person would ever believe in.

The author highlights two major intelligence failures that contributed to the policy bubble:

1. Soviet Union was way behind the US during the Cold War, not ahead.
2. Soviet economy was vastly worse and more vulnerable that CIA ever understood.

The author helps us understand that the 1989 collapse of the Berlin War created a furor over the "peace dividend" and the "end of history" that were mistaken, but sufficient to bury with noise any concerns about Bin Laden and Saudi Arabian spread of virulent anti-Shi'ite Wahabibism from 1988 onwards.

By 1997 Marshall and Andy Krepinevich were staking everything on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), high speed communications and computing (still not real today), and precision munitions.

The author provides a super discussion of Col John Warden's "five rings" in priority order: 1) leadership and C4I; 2) infrastructure; 3) transportation; 4) population (again, war crimes); and finally, 5) the enemy. The author is brutal in scoring the campaign designed by Col Warden a complete failure. It...did...not...work (in Gulf I).

I cannot summarize everything, so a few highlights:

+ Taliban quickly learned how to defeat US overhead (satellite) surveillance--remember, we do not do "no-notice" air breather imagery any more, except for easily detected UAVs, with mud as well as cover and concealment. .

+ Excellent account of the influence on Rumsfeld of George Tenet's failure to satisfy him during a missile defense review. It became obvious to all that the U.S. Intelligence Community a) no longer had a very high level of technical mastery on the topic; and b) was so fragmented as to make the varied analytic elements deaf, dumb, and blind--not sharing with each other, using contradictory data sets, the list goes on.

Page 187 is the page to read if you are just browsing in the bookstore:

Summarizing 2007: "Not so much a return to realism as a retreat to randomness." Also: "Grand vision was shattered by reality. Policies were devised piecemeal; actions were scattershot, aimless." And: "put forth ideas without strategies; policies without process; wishes without means." Devastating.

So many other notes. Here are a tiny handful:

+ Speechwriter Michael Gersen connected with Bush on an evangelical level, wrote major speeches, in the case of a foreign policy speech, without actually consulting any adult practitioners.

+ Joseph Korbel was both Madeline Albright's father and Condi Rice's educational mentor--talk about a non-partisan losing streak!

+ American Enterprise Institute and Richard Perl used Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky to impress Cheney and subvert Bush by reframing the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians as the first 21st Century war between terrorism (the hapless Palestinians) and democracy (the Israeli's).

+ He credits Eliot Abrams with devising the unique linkage between American Jews whose numbers and influence have been declining, and the Evangelical Christians whose influence peaked with Bush-Cheney.

+ He slams General Tommy Franks for providing assurances and making promises he could not keep with respect to settling and stabilizing the towns by-passed or over-run by the US Army.

+ The author is misleading in his account of the Saudi-Powell discussions on how an election would lead to radical Islamics in charge (as opposed to despotic, perverted spendthrifts).

+ Rumsfeld Lite going into Iraq meant that a quarter million tons of ordnance was looted by insurgents, which is what cost us four years time. General Shinseki is vindicated.

+ For the first time I learn of a planned Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

+ The author introduces Ahmed Chalabi but does not fully understand this man's crimes as well as his special relationship with Iran. Iran used him to get the USA to depose the Taliban and Sadaam Hussein, , and to lure the entire US military into a quagmire.

+ Department of State, Mr. White in particular, got it right every time.

+ Legitimacy and stability must come before elections.

+ Hezbollah win in Lebanon dealt a crushing blow to the Bush delusions.

+ Bush refused to deal with Syria and Iran throughout. I am reminded of how Civil Affairs was told in the first five years of the war to blow off the tribal leaders and imams, and only now are they being allowed to get it right.

+ Useful account of three failed Public Diplomacy tenures (Charlotte Beers, Margaret Tutwiler, Karen Hughes (who waited six months so her son could leave for college--so much for the importance of that job....)

+ USA sent $230 million in aid to Lebanon, while Iran poured in $1 billion via Hezbollah (meanwhile, the Chinese do the same everywhere else).

Page 191 is glorious: Bush's strategies were "based on fantasies, faith, and a willful indifference toward those affected by their consequences."

Page 192: the real divide is "between the realists and the fantasists."

The author quite properly slams the Democrats for not having an original idea, plan, program, bill, budget, or moral thought.

He ends by suggesting that multinational consensus is still the true litmus test for the sensibility and sustainability of any endeavor.

On this note, I conclude that five stars are right where this book should be. Incomplete, but original and provocative. Bravo.

Other recommendations:
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
DVD Why We Fight
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The Price of Loyalty : George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy

Kaplan has written a dispassionate, persuasive book about the complete, total, absolute, across the board and without exception failure of George Bush's foreign policy. Moreover the learning curve of this Administration has been nearly flat on the axis of zero.

Kaplan explains that Bush came to power at the head of a group of transformation theorists who set out to remedy the failings of past Presidents with a policy of confronting America's enemies with military muscle. Kaplan takes up back to the 1950s to explain the currents of military philosphy leading up to Bush. Drawing on the development of neo-conservative philosophy, Bush and the neo-cons wanted to throw out the dirty bath water of co-existence with obnoxious regimes such as Iraq, North Korea, and Iran.

Unfortunately, it didn't work and Kaplan details the reasons. The principal one is that the United States did not get stronger as a result of the end of the Cold War, but rather weaker -- more dependent on other countries in a multi-polar world and less able to go it alone with a policy that most countries found obnoxious or downright evil. The end of the Cold War, Kaplan states, didn't leave America in control of the world, it left most of the world out of control of anyone.

We seem some glimmerings of hope in Kaplan's book. Condaleeza Rice occasionally shows cognizance of reality. And after six years of Bush we seem to have worked our way back to where the Clinton Administration had progressed in eliminating the nuclear threat of North Korea. Kaplan's conclusion is that you have to deal with the world as it is -- not as how you want it to be. The U.S. has influence, but it can't abandon "statecraft" and diplomacy in favor of bullying and preaching.

Smallchief

Reading this book reminded me of how little analysis one gets from the major news outlets. I learned quite a bit from this book all of which unsettles me.

I was aware of the extent of the nuclear threats in the world as a general problem from having read Douglas Mattern's Looking for Square Two: Moving from War and Organized Violence to Global Community. But that book, although alarming in itself, didn't give me the "day by day" sense of how such threats may have seemed to our and other nations political and military leadership. That anti-ballistic efforts seemed highly unlikely to be feasible doesn't seem surprising: what does seem surprising was that so much was spent to confirm that. Perhaps it is understandable in light of the lack of alternatives.

I hadn't been aware of the technological advances in the accuracy and cost of bombs that made the U.S. plans for invading Iraq seem plausible. It is appalling, however, to read (as one can see) just how unprepared the administration was for the days after "Mission Accomplished". That Germany, Japan and allies were enabled to rebuild after World War II yet the U.S. is still bogged down in "little" Iraq and spending so much seems unfathomable evidence of plans gone badly awry: this book gives good background and hypotheses as to why.

Bush appears sharper (but not sharp enough) and more engaged in decision-making than I would have expected. Unfortunately more rigid. How could he not realize that elections might be won by one's enemies, including those who would eliminate future elections if at all possible? Does he himself really believe what he spouts about freedom and democracy while all the while the U.S. has needed (and financed) the support of countries lacking in such?

After reading this book, the Bush effort to have the U.S. singlehandedly "right" the world might seem laughable if it will not be so painful for all Americans, as it already has been both painful and deadly for some. But the dangers present in the current world that any President will face comes through clearly. This is not anti-Bush propaganda but somber evidence and insights into just how challenging the world situation is at this time. Scares me to death. If anti-ballistic missiles don't offer a feasible solution and if the U.S. can't even control one other country, what possibility is there other than statesmanship? I recommend Mattern's Looking for Square Two: Moving from War and Organized Violence to Global Community because, although idealistic, it seems like its orientation toward world citizenship, however unlikely to succeed, offers more promising failures than the current approaches do.

Whatever opinions I might have crumble quickly in the light of the fast-changing and complex world scenarios that Kaplan brings to life. Not a time for the uninformed or the naive. It can't be easy President or any adviser to one. But let's hope someone can do it much better...somehow having the good judgment and values to know what that "much better" is.
As to values, this book, with its emphasis on power, doesn't focus on that. For a good progressive presentation of values, I recommend Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win as well as the world citizen concerns that Mattern presents.

The Bush team planned the first phase of the Iraq war, and it went about as nearly according to plan as anyone could reasonably expect, but the second phase didn't go at all according to plan.

Why not?

Because there wasn't any plan beyond the first phase. The Bush term saw no need for a plan beyond capturing Baghdad and toppling Saddam Hussain. Everything else was supposed to fall into place. With the completion of the first phase, order was supposed to establish itself.

It didn't.

Before the war started, Professor Kanan Makiya of Brandeis University had tried to warn the President of the vital importance of keeping in check the tensions between the Shiites and the Sunnis while a democratic government was established, but Bush obviously hadn't done his homework (he saw no need to) and had no idea of what Makiya was talking about. The existence of religious factions in Iraq didn't fit within Bush's framing of the situation, and as Dr. George Lakoff (Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think; . . Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea; . . Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision) has pointed out, when the facts don't fit the frame, the frame stays and the facts are ignored.

For many, perhaps most, of the Bush team, the neocon frame has become so dominant that their reality-checking has become all or nearly all internal, with disastrous results. They are living in a daydream, and don't realize it. And they have apparently convinced themselves that as keepers of the neocon flame they are justified in any action they wish to take (see How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok by Glenn Greenwald)

Every American should read this book, so that we can understand what is going on around us.

watziznaym@gmail.com

Too often, today's political issues are couched in terms of Republican vs. Democrat, conservative vs. liberal or right vs. left. It may be more practical to set aside these terms and focus on a different conflict: idealists vs. realists. No matter what belief they represent, idealists in their purest form are apt to be dangerous. That's not to say that ideals are bad things - they're actually necessary - but seeing issues in black-and-white can be quite risky.

Although Fred Kaplan's book Daydream Believers is critical of George W. Bush and his administration, the criticism has less to do with Bush's ideals than his often uncompromising idealism, in particular with issues of foreign policy, even more particularly with the Middle East and North Korea. Kaplan lays out how Bush's refusal to accept pragmatic solutions has led to multiple problems including a quagmire in Iraq and a decline in America's standing in the world.

Kaplan's book describes several failings of Bush and his administration. For example, ideology - especially the idea of being morally pure - led Bush to shun diplomacy with North Korea when he could have still contained its nuclear ambitions; only when the genie was out of the bottle did Bush start to pursue diplomatic solutions. Similarly, while Bush's heart may have been in the right place with trying to create anti-ballistic missiles (even at the price of breaking treaties to do so), his pursuit of this goal risked souring international relations and defied the many studies that showed that missile shields were technically infeasible.

If there's a villain in this book, it's not Bush but rather Donald Rumsfeld (and his loyal followers), who Kaplan describes as the architect of the problems in Iraq due to his (intentionally?) poor planning and his willingness to even do end-runs around Bush to pursue his own goals. Overall, however, Kaplan is not looking for villains or heroes. In fact, as much as is possible in a book like this, he tries to remain objective. As stated before, Kaplan is not so much critical of Bush as the results of Bush's actions.

The title Daydream Believers is completely fitting: only in daydreams can one be completely idealistic. When reality sets in, more pragmatic approaches are needed. Sticking to idealism will not succeed and often makes the idealist look foolish and hypocritical (after all, it can be hard for people to buy that Bush is acting from a moral high ground if he is believed to advocate torture, the suspension of civil rights and outright deceit).

Although I am hardly a Bush fan myself, I was ready to not like Daydream Believers, thinking that it would just be another preaching-to-the-choir rant. Instead, I was pleased to find that Kaplan has written a solid demonstration as to why America has gone in a wrong direction militarily and that the actions of Bush's administration have actually only provided the illusion of security while in fact have made us less secure.

If someone had asked me fifteen -- or even eight -- years ago as to what position the United States would occupy today within the game of international politics, I would not have predicted what indeed has happened. I thought that the end of the so-called "Cold War" might, just might, bring about a world situation where rationality would finally triumph and the world's nations could get on with the business of bringing both sociopolitical stability and economic prosperity to the entire planet. Stupid me! Live and learn, I guess.

Fred Kaplan, in his book "Daydream Believers," now brings to the table his analysis of why America's "grand scheme" of global change has and is failing, and why we are in the international mess we are undoubtedly in. I have read maybe six or seven books in the past few years dealing with essentially the same topic and Kaplan's book is probably as astute and convincing as any of them, although I think one or two provided a more in-depth and detailed look at the current situation. Nevertheless, Kaplan's analysis is worth reading.

The only real criticism I might have is that Kaplan puts his primary emphasis on the Bush administration and its errors, while I would argue that the prior Clinton era of foreign policy was also a disaster, not to mention the malfeasance of the first Bush administration in regard to foreign affairs. In other words, no president since 1990 has, in my judgment, performed very well in the arena of international affairs. But I could, of course, go further back than that. For instance, Woodrow Wilson's policy of "making the world safe for democracy" was steeped in self-deception and grandiosity. America's current adventure (or, to be truthful, "misadventure") in Iraq is what has spawned the spate of books about Bush's failings. And that includes Kaplan's work.

What is important here is to try to understand how the United States got so far off track when it comes to dealing with matters of foreign policy. I suspect, and Kaplan seems to suggest this as well, that it is our unrealistic and illusionary "vision" of states of affairs and how to confront them that results in policies that do not, indeed cannot, work when dealing with nations around the world whose cultural, religious, social, and political diversity is so imposing.

A brief diversion: When I was working toward my degree in political science way back in the 1950s, the anti-colonial movement in the Eastern hemisphere, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, was in its heyday. I argued, in a class in international relations I was taking at the time, that if the colonial regimes were forced to leave their colonies prematurely, the colonized nations would devolve into tribal warfare and the people would suffer for many years. Most of my classmates disagreed with me and accused me of being "antidemocratic" and opposed to "self-determination." So, what happened? The Europeans left their former colonies and -- surprise! -- we are still witnessing tribal warfare -- and genocide -- in many of those former colonies fifty years later.

My point is this, and also why I think books like Kaplan's "Daydream Believers" are really important: If genuine social and political change is to come about in this very messy world of ours, it is vital that the "optics" we use to view the world actually reflect the situation as it truly is; the "ideals" we propose must somehow match the "possibilities" achievable; the "terms" we use for discussion and analysis must have meaning in the real world and not in our own constructions of reality; and the "consequences" of any actions must be carefully analyzed and acknowledged, paying particular attention to any "unintended" consequences which may result.

As Kaplan correctly points out, America's power is in decline and our foreign policy is adrift. We are now, in my opinion at least, caught in an international "Catch-22" where it seems there is no dignified or acceptable way out of the labyrinth we, ourselves, have created. Before beginning his excursions into "regime change" and reshaping the world in his own image, George Bush should have been advised to read Herodotus and Thucydides (and maybe a little of Edward Gibbon). Moreover, before unnecessarily invading Iraq and bringing chaos to that country, Donald Rumsfeld should have read Sun Tzu and Karl von Clausewitz. At least the last mentioned author would have informed the secretary of defense about how to conduct a war and win it.

Whether one agrees or not with everything Kaplan says, "Daydream Believers" is worth reading if for no other reason than it will force the reader to confront some issues that are vital to the future of the United States. I do have to agree with Kaplan's assessment that the Bush administration was full of people who thought they were visionaries but they only had visions, and they unfortunately believed in their daydreams. Hard reality always has the last say in this life; daydreams are nice to have and enjoy, but they are not a substitute for the way things really are.

Kaplan, not to be confused with another interesting writer about the world stage, Robert Kaplan, is, in a way, a modern Thucydides, gravely documenting the follies of his time. He's a little less restrained and formal than Thucydides and his English is much easier to make sense of than Thucydides' Greek, but the parallel remains.
Kaplan's book details how the odd post-modern approach ("reality is a construct") to foreign policy of the Bush administration created horrible results in Iraq (uncounted gazillions of dollars squandered, thousands of US soldiers, an unknown number of mercenaries, and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, many times those numbers wounded), in our dealings with North Korea, in the foolish attempt to revive the Reagan-era "Star Wars" missile defense, in enfranchising mobs in the name of democracy, and in spinning the sorry results of the above policies into Orwellian news releases.
Kaplan has access to sources deep within the military and civilian structures of government and has gathered and presented his information well.
All of that said, some may say that this book is like the Library of Alexandria after the Muslim conquest: redundant to those who already believe and heretical to those who don't, thus useless in either event. I disagree. The big story of our time has been the shameful abdication of the news media of their role in presenting an adequately objective and skeptical examination of what government has been doing. Kaplan's book, showing the sheer foolishness of the planning for the Iraq war, of the approach to negotiations with North Korea, of the "moral clarity" of supporting "democracy" that led to the Hamas victory in Palestine, is a step toward reporting what should have been in the newsmedia for the past seven years. The discussion of the sorry progress of anti-missile weapons from their baseless origin through the phony tests designed to "prove" their effectiveness is an eye-opener as well.
Kaplan also documents the effects of these simple-minded approaches to policy on how the rest of the world perceives America. Not a pleasant tale.
Some may argue that the situation in Iraq is better now in the post-Surge world and that North Korea appears to be returning to the de-nuclearization that it was allegedly heading toward in the Clinton administration. We don't yet know what the long-term effects of the new policy in Iraq will be. Our presence there still remains a tremendous recruiting incentive for those willing to kill and die for their vision of Islam and may have revived the al Qaeda brand after the devastation of the organism in the wake of our intervention in Afghanistan. What North Korea is actually up to will be revealed only with time. Meanwhile, our standing with the rest of the world is at an all-time low.
This book is a powerful indictment of ignorance and arrogance. It will doubtless be read and studies carefully when future generations look back on our times and wonder what the people in this country were thinking.

At the risk of sounding overly pithy, I don't have much to add beyond the title of my review. Fred Kaplan has collected some fascinating material about the flexing of American muscle from the latter half of the 20th century to the present, but the presentation makes the end result less compelling than it should be. Though Kaplan claims that the book was not assembled from his work as a columnist, the style of the writing makes each chapter feel like either an overly long column or a sprawling amalgam of several shorter ones. In the end, the strength of the underlying subject matter wins out but a more focused presentation would have benefited all involved, especially the reader.

Daydream Believers is an excellent overview of recent events in history which have lead up to the United States' current administration's decisions in regards to foreign policy and military build up. It puts into perspective the personalities and beliefs of the advisers who are recommending policy. Using little known documentation from both governmental and public sources, the author shows how the personal agendas of politicians and public officials have directly impacted the decisions that have led to the current problems in both foreign and domestic arenas. By detailing the histories of the people in current positions of power, he does a good job of helping the reader understand just where things have gone wrong. Unfortunately, there is not going to be a simple solution and Mr. Kaplan does not even explore any possibilities in this regard. Regardless, this is an excellent book for anyone who would like to understand the political situation since the end of the Cold War.