Customer Reviews

Six Nightmares: Real Threats in a Dangerous World and How America Can Meet Them

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Anthony Lake's book outlines six potential threats to our nation's national security. Unfortunately the reality of ambigious warfare (chapter 3) has already reared its ugly head...Anthony Lake has unfortunately made himself into somewhat of a prophet. The other chapters are incredibly pertinent also.

As someone who participated in and helped craft major U.S. foreign policy initiatives and decisions, Lake is able to share anecdotal snipets which really bring his subject into focus. I especially enjoyed the chapters on peacekeeping and Washington politics and the experiences Lake was able to share to illustrate his points.

The only negative aspect of the book is that sometimes he can delve into examples where it seems as if he is more interested in vindicating himself than staying focused on the topic. I truly however feel and it is evident in the book that Lake was able (and desired) to remain non-political while writing the book and when he was the National Security Advisor. As he suggests in the book, national security is one issue in which politics and ideology should have the least influence.

Ok so the title I used for this review was a bit harsh in relation to this book. This review could be titled the tail of two books. The book that was advertised in the title and dust jacket is a review by a Clinton Administration National Security Advisor of what he thinks are six negative situations that could face the United States and the responses we should take. Similar to the old Nixon book Six Crises. Unfortunately for Mr. Lake, unlike his name he takes a rather shallow approach to his writing. The situations he chooses are interesting and with merit, it is just that all he gives the reader is a rather light, fat free, skim the top version. It really read almost like a magazine article and if you pulled this section out of the book it would probably be no more the 80 pages. This was disappointing, because the book dust jacket lead me to believe the reader was going to get a detailed book full of insight from an inside guy.

The second book was a split between what the Clinton Administration did in relation to similar issues to the six highlighted by the author and a sudo memoir that is a good outline, but not much else. Again, the author just did not develop either of these two directions. I kept finish sections and chapters saying to myself . . . and then what. The Clinton Administration had some interesting foreign affairs issues, Ireland, the Middle East, Bosnia, Haiti, Terrorism, China etc, how this author and inside player managed to miss half of the detail is beyond me. And while I am on a role, there was the authors overriding and unending positive verse. This guy needs to write self-help books, because even though I was disappointed in the substance, the writing had an almost pick me up vibe to it. The author is a very positive guy.

I do not want to be all negative about this book. He did touch on some threats to the US. He gave a brief overview of what would need to take place if any of the crises came to pass, and the items I found most interesting were his comments on terrorism. With all that is going on today with the 9-11 commission and the election, it was interesting to her his thoughts on the terrorism threat. Although I did not come across any smoking guns, I get the feeling that if this book had come out after 9-11, the section on terrorism and the efforts of the Clinton Administration would have been beefed up some. Overall the book is a light, easy to read overview of some Clinton Administration foreign affairs issues. If you are looking for a quick read on a weekend it will serve the purpose.

Anthony Lake's Six Nightmares is an exciting and important treatment of the most pressing threats to U.S. national security. The book portrays six potential threats to our way of life ranging from terrorism employing weapons of mass destruction and information warfare to partisan politics dividing our government from the people and against itself. Each chapter begins with an actual nightmare, a short fictional premise that unfolds events that many would consider unthinkable but which Lake, who served as President Clinton's National Security Advisor from 1993 to 1996 and now teaches at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, is in a position to know are possible. Reflections on Lake's own extensive government service round out this rousing cautionary work that prescribes urgent change to safeguard the United States. While making complex issues accessible to most readers, Six Nightmares also draws the attention of the national security policy community in Washington to issues that Lake believes are not being addressed. A useful as an intriguing primer or refresher, or as a textbook supporting serious study, Six Nightmares is well worth reading.

6 Nightmares was actually only one or two nightmares. Anthony Lake begins discussing the global dangers facing our nation today, but eventually digresses and gives us his autobiography instead. He also dedicates quite a bit of space towards how Bill Clinton really wasn't as bad as he seemed to be and how we are all victims of the vast right-wing conspiracy.
There were plenty of interesting insider tidbits, but I think an article in TIME might have been more appropriate than dedicating a whole book to Anthony Lake.

More than 2,000 years ago in The Art of War, Sun Tsu suggests that every battle is won or lost before it is fought. Hence the importance of anticipation and (especially) preparation. As indicated in The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz is among those who advocate that anticipation and preparation are even more important now than ever before. Recent and tragic events offer neither the first nor the last evidence of that. But first there must be recognition of plausible possibilities and then an understanding of what the probable implications and consequences of what each possibility may be.

In this book, Lake examines six different "nightmares." No doubt there are several others he also could have included. He introduces each of the six within a fictional context but, make no mistake about it, any one of them could well become a reality at any moment. It would be unfair to the current administration to suggest that it is unaware or indifferent to the potential dangers which Lake identifies. (Presumably many of the senior-level members of that administration have either read or will soon read Lake's book.) The greatest value of his book, in my opinion, is that he helps readers such as I to think about -- and think more clearly and knowledgeably about -- the unthinkable. There really are no acceptable alternatives to doing so as we proceed into an uncertain and, indeed, a perilous future.

Apropos of this day, I decided on this book written by a former national security advisor to President Clinton (who apparently was too engrossed in his personal problems that he failed to take these possibilities seriously). Not only were his predictions ignored, he compared the barren 'low-tech' White House Situation room as symbolic of America's position in addressing threats to our nation's security.

"We are embarking on a new century with the mental furnishings of the century past," he wrote five years prior to 9-11. During the Clinton administration, they were more concerned with chemical or biological terrorism, preceding the Atlanta Olympics scare. Mr. Lake challenged the procedures on dealing with a nationwide basis and there were no answers, only silence.

He was in a position to see firsthand that our military and diplomatic strategy had not kept pace with our hardware. Today, in Iraq, it is not the military who are losing their heads but innocent people who look American and are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've lost count of the number of be-headings there (it's got to be a 'given' thing and our government has done nothing to help our civilian casualties in the God-forsaken war.)

In this book, written before Bush 'bushwacked' the electoral college four years ago and took the office of President away from the victor of that election, he predicts that threats to America's security are based on 'globalization' and 'to meet them we must anticipate, help to shape, a world of change.'

As events have played out, his advice was ignored as if he were talking to the wind. Of course, he was from the wrong political party (a year later) and I doubt that his reports were ever read by the new administration. If they had been, we'd have been prepared as he clearly states how the Internet could be used by terrorists to hatch their plans and hide their tracks. Which they did! But, I'd like to know how they got into this country unobserved to perpetrate their dastardly deeds.

He blames globalization on America's downfall. It eroded our government's ability to act on behalf of the people as they sought to placate other countries. He calls it the 'devil's work.' The neutral reaction to seek refuge within the familiar and not be aware of the enemies' abilities to infiltrate is dangerous. "The natural reaction is not always the smartest," he writes.

He lists his six concerns of what would culminate in an actual nightmare. We are living that nightmare now. How can America survive if this atrocity is allowed to continue? Partisan politics and complacency (plus abuse by the press) has allowed this to happen -- and to continue.

He gives some background of the Marshall Plan, United Nations, and NATO as created by America's great post-war leaders in the 1940s -- Truman, Acheson, Cordell Hull, Vandenberg and others. They worked to lay the foundation for half a century of peace and prosperity. At the start of the 21st century, we were reaping the returns of their farsighted vision.

We need to strive to get that vision back. His worries about chemical and biological weapons haven't become the worst nightmare you've ever had, but it's just around the corner. He reiterates something from the book, WHY ENGLAND SLEPT, about Churchill's description of the 1930s as the 'years the locusts have eaten.' They've had another turn!

Decades after Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy planted seeds of a nuclear test-ban treaty, President Bill Clinton was the first world leader to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, which was supposed to be a historic milestone toward reducing nuclear threat and building a better safer world. That treaty wasn't worth the paper on which it was printed. It's one thing to sign a bill or 'treaty' and another to act on it. Partisanship got in the way.

McCarthyism was more evil than the pre 9-11 days but it was part of a debate about an issue of great consequence -- how to pursue a Cold War in which our very existence was at stake. Politics has become an end in itself. Now, the only test of victory is whether an adversary's moral standing is thoroughly shredded and destroyed -- mostly on the national level.

Knoxville's mayoral race was exactly the opposite with courtesy and kindness exemplary action by the winner over an unprepared, but 'nice', female opponent who didn't know what hit her. She can't say she wasn't warned, as I told her plainly that it is not the time for a woman Mayor. It was a learning experience.

Our politics have become absurd almost beyond the point of parody, a form of show business. There is a communications gap between politicians and the public, leading to damaging consequences. He mentions global warming as an increasing possible 'nightmare' when the ice cap melts.

The greatest nightmare of all, according to Mr. Lake, is further erosion of the 'democratic' compact which brought us through past crises but is sadly lacking today. He said, "Washington must go back to governing, rather than letting the political games of 'gotcha' consume its energies." Else, we will have further 'nightmares' and pay a terrible price down the road. That, we are doing in Iraq, which may consume this country internally.

Anthony Lake, who was a professor at Georgetown University when he penned this prophetic memoir, has written and edited other books including THE 'TAR BABY' OPTION, OUR OWN WORST ENEMY, and THIRD WORLD RADICAL REGIMES. His warnings went unheeded by father and son presidents, to our detriment. We'll have more nightmares. I'm already having a few of my own.