Every so often as I read this book, I would stop and gaze thoughtfully at the cover. You can see what it looks like here, with the six principal characters of the book drawn in a political cartoon style. That's not what I was looking at after awhile, though. I kept fixing my gaze on the picture hanging on the wall behind Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice. Since the six are sitting in some official looking Washington, D.C. type conference room, I assume the portrait on the wall must be a depiction of the American president. But which one? If you look closely, you will see the man in the picture has no face. Is it George W. Bush, the current chief executive? Or is it one of the other presidents-Nixon, Ford, or Bush the Elder-which several of these people worked for at various times in their lengthy public service careers? Perhaps the leader without a face is a subtle jab on the part of the author, a jab directed squarely at the men who sit in the Oval Office. After all, the six people examined in this book wield enormous power over American foreign policy, and have for nearly thirty years. Perhaps the president is merely a faceless, transient apparition when compared to such powerful personalities.
"Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet" is a history of America's new foreign policy as formulated by the above named individuals. James Mann emphasizes from the start that presidents play a small role in his book. Presidents come and go, but the six individuals in the book have played roles both major and minor in nearly every administration dating back to Nixon. Donald Rumsfeld worked for the Nixon White House as a staff advisor and in the Ford administration as Secretary of Defense. Paul Wolfowitz was a major policy wonk in Middle East and Asian affairs at the Pentagon. Richard Armitage and Colin Powell served their country in the Vietnam conflict before assuming greater and greater responsibilities in America's defense bureaucracies. Richard Cheney, the current vice-president, worked closely with Rumsfeld before his own stint as Bush the Elder's Defense Secretary. Condoleeza Rice became the current president's National Security Advisor after a career that carried her from Stanford University through several Pentagon assignments. If there's a recognizable theme in these short descriptions, it's no mistake. As Mann points out, all of these people rose to prominence through the Pentagon.
The Vulcans (as these figures came to be known when Bush the Younger ran for president) worked together for years-though often at odds with one another on certain issues-to reformulate American foreign policy. In the 1960s and 1970s, Mann argues, the United States subscribed to Henry Kissinger's realpolitik as a means of dealing with the Soviet Union and other enemies. The foreign policy wonks believed that power, and the exercise of power, defined relationships between countries. America's disastrous experience in Vietnam convinced Kissinger and men like him that the United States had lost power and thus could not deal with enemies on an equal footing. The result was détente, or the idea that negotiation and compromise with America's foes was the prudent path in dealing with foreign powers. The Vulcans, first through Wolfowitz and eventually through others, rejected these ideas. They believed that America was a great country, a strong nation of boundless energy that could use its military power to cow any opposition. If the United States developed new weapons systems and spent vast sums on defense, no other country could ever hope to defeat-let alone match-our supremacy. The collapse of the Soviet Union only served to underscore this mode of thought.
American might isn't the whole story, according to Mann. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the rest believed that the United States should, and could, use its military might to bring about democratic change in the world. The belief that an invasion of Iraq could not only overthrow a dictator and install a democratic government, but also serve as a means of changing the entire Middle East, was a belief articulated by the Vulcans long ago. Moreover, the Vulcans believe that we should conduct these types of operations unilaterally, as alliances tend to weaken American resolve. Not all of the six necessarily support these views. Colin Powell, for example, shares many of the core values of the other five figures, but believes that following these ideas to their logical conclusion will result in quagmires similar to Vietnam because such beliefs lead to open-ended conflicts with no exit strategies. Mann says that Powell's opposition to many of the Vulcan policies have led to significant discord within the Bush White House.
The problems with such an aggressive foreign policy should be clear. Only an out of touch bureaucrat would think that a top down democracy, installed at the point of a bayonet, could succeed anywhere in the world. What happens if the Iraqis vote a tyrant into office in the forthcoming elections? Hey, that's democracy in action, isn't it? Something tells me that wouldn't satisfy the American government. I guess it is democracy as long as it is a certain type of democracy rubber stamped by Washington. At the same time, the left offers no adequate solutions to foreign policy, either. Turn over all our power to the United Nations and coalitions? No way. Taking that path will only lead to further quagmires. Mann's book offers no significant alternatives to the Vulcan worldview, but it does offer a fascinating read on a topic more relevant as the election nears. "Rise of the Vulcans" is an immensely readable book that's hard to put down, a mix of history, biography, and journalism that will entertain even as it informs.
