Customer Reviews

Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition

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The book was for the author a labor of agitation. The book raises provocative and troubling questions. There are many hazards in the world today and additional hazards in how our country is dealing with these hazards. When we need less saber rattling, we now have more saber rattling. I think it can be argued that our leadership is not up to the task at hand. I think it also be argued that our under-educated electorate is not up to the task at hand of putting our best citizens into roles of leadership. Based upon the facts and analysis in this excellent book we may have no choice but to be pessimistic as we continue to put our heads in the sand.

Anyone who fashions oneself a student of politics, political theory, history and foreign policy should read this book. For those of us who have neglected generations of great thinkers whose ideas guide practical uses for political science and theory, this is also an accessible refresher.

Robert Merry shows respect to his readers by never underestimating our intelligence. That said, he never overestimates the information we have to use it. That makes "Sands of Empire" both stimulating and enlightening.

He has crafted a circumspect and understandable, description of recent American foreign policy with perspectives that analyze the evolution of society, role of culture, forces of history, and the demands of political expediency. Here, also, is the previously missing coherent and accessible explanation of the crisis in the Balkans, the Somalian catastrophe, the post 9/11 era, and the diplomatic history of the 20th Century and the responses to it that helps put those events in perspective. He invokes the lesser known but important political philosophers and the self-proclaimed intellectual giants of our time. Along side are the truly important contributers and the narcissistic intellegencia and the self important - overall, a veritable who's who of thinkers and players on the international and American diplomatic and political scene.

Merry makes us pay attention, but there's good reason to all of this. Understanding foreign policy, like studying Kafka, is neither simple nor constant. (I once read a Kafka scholar who insisted that only he understood Kafka. In that light, who really has the monopoly on foreign policy expertise?) But Merry has done exhaustive research which pays off in a very coherent and informative text. His work makes the tools to analyze policy and events accessible. His insight brings readers relevant history along side the ideas and commentary of important thinkers. Whether one believes in the Idea of Progress or any of a variety of competing theories, we can complete Sands of Empire much better prepared to think about the future. I suspect that a decade or two from now readers will wonder why it wasn't so obvious.

Glenn Koocher
Cambridge, MA

"Sands of Empire" is book about ideas, specifically about two fundamental ideas that alternately drive American geopolitics: one is the idea of progress and the other is the cyclical theory of history, which holds that civilizations rise and fall, but cultures remain constant. This paradigm, according to journalist Robert Merry, will show us where we've gone wrong and how to rectify our course. This book is very well written and very well researched, but some of the conclusions he reaches are problematic.

The idea of progress was a product of the Enlightenment. The main thesis is that humanity is progressing inexorably from backwardness and ignorance to higher stages of enlightenment, and that the process would go on indefinitely into the future. Exponents of the Englightenment believed their values to be universal. The most recent intellectual manifestation of this idea was expounded by Francis Fukuyama in "The End of History," written shortly after the demise of the Soviet Union. He believed that liberal democracy and capitalism were the ends to which all civlizations strived and that the goal had been reached. There would be no more conflicts between major powers or as Thomas Friedman said in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," no two countries with McDonalds would ever go to war with each other.

This illusion came quickly to an end with the conflicts in the Balkans and with 9/11. The cultural view of history tells us that not only does history not end, but that it had come back with a vengeance. Samuel Huntington, a champion of this view, tells us in "The Clash of Civilizations" that the world is made up of different cultures, values, and traditions, none of which is superior to the others and none of which encompasses universal values.

Merry is a conservative and an endorser of the cultural view of history, and he has some harsh things to say about liberals as well as the Bush Administration. He believes that the Clinton Administration's military intervention in the Balkans to save Muslims was a big mistake since it did not directly affect our national interests. The Bush Administration's military intervention in Iraq to transplant democracy was even worse. According to Merry, Muslims have no traditon of democracy and to force it upon them will only encourage them to hate us more.

Merry does not believe that there is a war within Islamic civilization between moderates and extremists, and that the West should be assisting the so-called moderates. Instead, we should be supporting dictatorial regimes that are suppressing Islamic fundamentalists. Presumably this would have included Saddam Hussein. According to the cultural theory of history, there are certain unalterables in Islamic civilization that the West has no business trying to change. Islam should be fenced off and we should be supporting the oppressors.

A refutation of Merry's view can be illustrated by the example of Japan. Prior to World War II, the Japanese were illiberal and isolated from the West; they wanted Western technology, but they didn't want to be contaminated by Western culture. However, since then, they have quite seemlessly absorbed many Western cultural values while at the same time retaining their own traditional culture. Inspite of Merry's very learned argument, I think he came down on the wrong side of the debate. Indeed the example of Japan shows the insufficiency of the progress/culture paradigm itself. Reality is always more complex than the paradigm that tries to understand it; it has led Merry to some very dangerous conclusions. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book for the insights it gives as to why countries choose to go to war.

This excellent book makes clear that American democracy is not right for every country specifically because every country is unique. As president and Publisher of Congressional Quarterly and a former Wall Street Journal reporter, Robert Merry is closely acquainted with government trappings.

Even European democracies have cultural nuances from the American model. Attempting to require conformity to 'our' way of doing things only engenders suspicion, distrust, and then hatred. We should then not be surprised when the nations rebel against 'Colonial Democracy' or why. Our desire to control other countries earns us the moniker of 'bully'.

Those people only want the right to have their own nation run by their own cultural values, a standard which had ironically founded America. Our 'missteps' in the middle east actually provide further justification for the anti-American sentiment; we are then living up to what their culture previously had said about American democracy and Americans.

Reading this book I thought about the 1960's cold war. We were then-attempting to convince 'third world' nations that embracing American democracy was the right move for security and prosperity. We became locked into the Vietnam War because our then-government did not want Southeast Asia to have a communist form of government. We were also condescending to those nations because we earnestly had believed that America knew what was best for everybody else in the world.

Sadly, I must concede that the current administration (including a PhD Secretary of State) has not absorbed those lessons--or read this book. Merry explicitly writes about the current fiasco in Iraq and the Middle East, but he invokes American and world histories to demonstrate the ultimate timelessness of his thesis.

It's hard to think that people would argue too much with this book's prescription for a thoughtful and cautious American foreign policy, based on continued strength and the sustenance of the Republic, not empire or even political conversion of the globe. Merry is a batten-down-the-hatches conservative, somewhat in tune with Patrick Buchanan, although even less of an isolationist and without the cultural and moral absolutism.

Key to his thesis is that this good thing that we have, this Western civilization, is in something of a decline when we look at the big picture. It is paramount that we nurture it carefully, and try to see it last as long as possible. That seems to be a good idea, even if he's wrong about the decline. He has nothing but disdain for American multiculturalism. We ARE the best. But he thinks in terms of civilizations, not just political states, cultures or races. The dangers of interventionism (in Balkans, Africa, Middle East) are respective of our standing amongst the other civilizations especially.

The conclusion is that, although the Bush administration, guided by a convenient alliance of "defend-America-by-spreading-democracy", Neocon gadfly intellectuals and the more traditional hawks, along with Liberal Interventionist thinkers has made exactly the wrong choices after 9-11, it is certainly not too late for the right changes to come into effect. My summary of his prescription:

1. Unify and re-strengthen Western Civilization by befriending "old" Europe all over again.
2. Support Russia and China as balancing interests against Islam. Don't play tricky political games with China. They may be the next hegemon, but at least they have not openly expressed the desire to destroy the West.
3. Continue to launch military attacks if necessary, but only in response to terrorism against us, or against states that are truly nurturing Islamic terrorists. Death from above, maybe. But no more occupations! Islamic civilization is the enemy, not terrorism.
4. Encourage the growth and strength of pivotal Islamic core states, like Turkey and Iran. Since states with organized government, not necessarily democratic ones, are the key to slowing down the Islamic revolution. We need states that will be naturally restraining of Islam. The clock is probably ticking on the Saudis (although we've been thinking that for a while!)
5. Globalization isn't going to do it all. The markets aren't everything. The world may modernize, but it won't westernize. Culture is hugely important. Especially Islamic culture.
6. Limit Muslim immigration to the west.

Anyone who has read such books as "The Rise of the Vulcans", "The Pentagon's New Map", Bernard Lewis' "What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East", and "Where The Right Went Wrong" by Patrick Buchanan will find Merry's "Sands of Empire" a thoughtful synthesis of some of the issues raised by the above books and the Francis Fukuyama Samual Huntington debate.

A CSPAN interview with Merry peaked my interest and this fast read did not disappoint. A must read!

Anyone who fashions oneself a student of politics, political theory, history and foreign policy should read this book.

Robert Merry shows respect to his readers by never underestimating our intelligence. That said, he never overestimates the information we have to use it. That makes Sands of Empire both stimulating and enlightening.

He has crafted a circumspect and understandable, but not necessarily definitive, description of recent American foreign policy in the context of the evolution of society, role of culture, forces of history, and the demands of political expediency. Here, also, is the previously missing coherent explanation of the crisis in the Balkans, the Somalian catastrophe, the post 9/11 era, and the diplomatic history of the 20th Century and the responses to it that helps put those events in perspective. He invokes the lesser known but important political philosophers and the self-proclaimed intellectual giants of our time. Along side are the truly important contributers and the narcissistic intellegencia and the self important - overall, a veritable who's who of thinkers and players on the international and American diplomatic and political scene.

Merry makes us pay attention, but there's good reason to all of this. Understanding foreign policy, like studying Kafka, is neither simple nor constant. (I once read a Kafka scholar who insisted that only he understood Kafka. In that light, who really has the monopoly on foreign policy expertise?) But Merry has done exhaustive research which pays off in a very coherent and informative text. His work makes the tools to analyze policy and events accessible. His insight brings readers relevant history along side the ideas and commentary of important thinkers.

Glenn Koocher
Cambridge, MA

Merry's primary point is that President Bush's emphasis on "Missionary Democracy" is both naive (a recent Russian poll found 53% opposed Democracy, with only 22% supporting) and likely also counterproductive.

Most of the book covers various theories of history in an effort to build a foundation for analysis of Iraq. However, the book could have instead simply focused on an overall history of Iraq - a "nation" made up of people more loyal to their historic tribes than any overall nationalistic spirit. Thus, Sunni's are likely to relinquish centuries-long control, and the Shia's will not give up their dream of a government dominated by higher clergy. Merry believes that the Bush team failed to think about the likely outcome of deposing Hussein - fragmentation, and should have first listened to experts before proceeding. The result was that the U.S. was surprised to not be greeted as liberators, but instead as occupiers.

Finally, Merry concludes that the U.S. in a cultural "war with Islam." Few others refer to it as such; however, our non-stop insensitive actions (eg. establishing a large, permanent base in Saudi Arabia, support/bias for Israel, prisoner abuses, invading Iraq) that antagonize countless passionate Islamic followers seem to steadily make the situation worse.

The idea that America can go everywhere, and do anything, in a quest to reshape the world into a likeness of our own Western free-market society is one that has been embraced by both the left and right in U.S. history, as Merry explains, so this book isn't at all partisan, which makes it refreshing. It is essentially a plea, supported by a historical outline, that Americans realize a couple of essential facts: That we are in a civilizational war with Islam -- and not "a few angry fanatics" -- and that our idealistic impulses, like trying to turn Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc., into democracies, only deepen the dangers we face. Whether you buy all, or any, of this, it is important that it be said, and Merry says it in a concise, interesting, and forceful manner. Idealists in foreign policy from Wilson to G.W. Bush have led us into peril, Merry argues, and it is time for some old-fashioned realpolitik, balance-of-power diplomacy. Essential reading for the thinking segment of America that neither hates Bush nor loves him blindly.

Just stick with the book through the boring first half and a gem of understanding about our current situation in the Middle East will be presented that puts the war in an historical context. It also helped me understand more deeply than the tv sound bites some of the forces that have shaped and continue to change this important area of the world.