Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World [Hardcover]

Richard Nixon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1992

The former president defines the future challenges facing America as the Cold War ends, Communism collapses, and new opportunities open up in the world of international politics.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In another cogent analysis of U.S. foreign policy (see his 1999: Victory Without War , LJ 6/1/88), Nixon argues that the end of the Cold War doesn't justify a renewed U.S. isolationism. He counsels the "world's lone superpower" to seize the opportunity to insure its vital interests by distinguishing between its critical and peripheral interests, then matching its capabilities and national will to its identified needs. While debunking the view that the U.S. has peaked as a world power, Nixon is critical of "fight every foe" idealism and "woolly-headed" overexpectations of the United Nations in an economically interdependent 21st century world. Viewing human rights as a priority (critical but not strategic) and warning of the continued need for military power and strategic arms control, Nixon brings his substantial experience, travels, and conversations with world leaders to bear in chapters on the Soviet Union, Europe, the Pacific Triangle, the Muslim world, and the Southern Hemisphere (Asia, Africa, and Latin America). Highly recommended.
- Frank Kessler, Missouri Western State Coll., St. Joseph
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Liberal (with a capital L) doses of realpolitik from an elder statesman whose shrewd and unsentimental approach to foreign affairs remains well worth heeding. Accepting the premise that nations have no friends, only interests, Nixon suggests a wealth of policy initiatives the US could take to ensure that the 21st century brings such millennial blessings as peace, freedom, and progress. If the former President misses few chances to remind readers of his wide acquaintanceship among world leaders past and present, he nonetheless offers an activist agenda whose broad guidelines are informed by idealism as well as down-to-earth pragmatism. In blueprinting the role America might play in what remains of the USSR, for example, the author warns against aid to centrists (like Gorbachev) ``who carry the baggage of the Communist past.'' Instead, he argues, Washington should help erstwhile Soviet republics and satellites establish the institutions needed to make free markets work. Asserting that arms control (not disarmament) still ranks among the Global Village's most urgent priorities, Nixon next turns his attention to Europe. He characterizes the industrialized members of the EC as closet protectionists while cautioning that the Continent, historically, has proved appreciably less stable than the Middle East. Covered as well are the Southern Hemisphere, the widening Muslim world, and the Pacific Basin. While Nixon harbors few illusions (noting, for example, that ``Democracy is not a potted plant that can be transplanted into any soil''), he subscribes to the beguiling notion that Japan and the US share any number of democratic and economic values. Back on a tougher-minded track, the author closes with a wide-ranging series of proposals for home-front renewal, designed to guarantee that America maintains and exercises superpower influence on its own account as well as for the greater good. A geopolitical catechism that's worldly wise and thought- provoking. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (January 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671743430
• ISBN-13: 978-0671743437
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars World's view of a respectable politian, December 2, 2000

By 

Wing C. Lau (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World (Hardcover)

I think the previous review is a little bit unfair. Nixon was certainly an old man when he wrote the book but his mind was clear. Remember he had been there and he knew that it is not pretty in the international arena. Someone said he was a paranoid, but remember that these paranoids exist so that the normal people can be watching their mindless TV and buying their new cars. We don't want to believe that terrible things exist in this world when you are surrounded by the media. Actually it is everyone duty to fight against the "evils (many liberals nowadays considered that as a matter of opionions)." So, please give me a break when you have done nothing for your country but critized a respectable political view from a less-than-perfect politian (should be considered as flawless when compared to Mr. Clinton).

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book, April 16, 2007

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World (Hardcover)

Richard Milhous Nixon (1913-94) is well remembered for the Watergate scandal, but he is also remembered as one of the greatest foreign policy strategists that the United States ever had. Seize the Moment was President Nixon's next-to-last book, and was published in 1992. This was after the successful end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War, when talking-heads were talking about the "end of history," and/or that America was a declining power that needed to withdraw from world leadership.

In this book, President Nixon argues against these myths, and outlines the course that the United States must take in dealing with the rest of the world. Included are chapters on the former Soviet Union, Europe, the Pacific Triangle, the Muslim world, and the southern hemisphere. However, the best chapter is the final one - The Renewal of America - in which he discusses what needs to be done to renew the United States, and prepare it for the challenges of the future.

Overall, I found this to be a great book, one that really shows off President Nixon's abilities. Indeed, while reading this book I couldn't help but wish that Presidents Clinton and Bush the Younger had read it. This is a very interesting book, one that I highly recommend to anyone who wants to consider where the county is going from here.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't let the Author Turn you away, January 18, 2009

By 

Paul M. Murphy "cigarroomofbooks" (Cincinnati) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World (Hardcover)

This book is a recipe for any current president as we look to establish peace not only around the world, but starting with the Middle East.

I got this book some time ago largely to just put on my bookshelf. After years sitting there, I read it because I have read a lot about Richard Nixon, but never anything by him. So sum up the book, it provides a prescription with statistical and analytical supporting argument for the way forward in world politics as the one remaining superpower. I did not realize what I was going to read about until I started reading and now must place it right next to Kissinger's book on the same subject. While both men are despised by many from the political left, I believe their worldviews are required reading to formulate balanced views. When I contrast both books I find Nixon focused on the world of finance and business and Kissenger focused on politics and power. Both have a common denominator, which is national security.

Nixon begins his worldviews much like Kissenger with Europe. But Nixon brings Russia into the mix much more prominently. In doing so he provides a lot of data to support his argument that Gorbechov was a half-wit when measured up for the job he undertook. He paints a picture with numeric data on economics to demonstrate Gorbechov's basic misunderstanding of fundamental economics. With regard to the oppressive measures he imposed upon his people and his neighbors while at the same time promoting glastnost, and prestroika shows the conflicted side of Gorbechov. Gorbechov's policy and actions are painted as a contradiction in terms on both economic and human liberties fronts. After reading the chapter on Russia, I came away with yet another example of the Nobel Peace prize being a Swedish lark.

Nixon saw the rest of Europe with a few minor concerns. He shares a fear of Empire Europe and a Eastern Block that would be subject to civil war. His fear of an EU albeit muted seems to have come to fruition just as he visualized. In my opinion, today's EU has many national conflicts that leave the idea of Fortress Europe unlikely and at the same time an EU, lead by the power hungry French and Germans, that is prone to tell the United States to go home. That is until some civil conflict requires us to return and help resolve the conflict militarily, as in Yugoslavia. Keep in mind the French and Germans have yet to prove themselves as a prime mover to mediate an international dispute to a peaceful end.

As Nixon moves to Asia, he leads with Japan. Here you discover his propensity to lead the world through economic policy and sound business practice. As opposed to the impression he left in his role of the inherited Viet Nam fiasco. He recognizes Japan's entanglement of government and business, but is clearly critical of those in the united States who seek protectionism. In moving to China you get a glimpse of Nixon's 1968 vision on China......please see the rest of my review including the Middle East by doing a keyword search using cigarroomofbooks.blog. Your comments and discussion are encouraged.