The Return of History and the End of Dreams [Hardcover]

Robert Kagan (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 29, 2008

Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities: Great powers are once again competing for honor and influence. Nation-states remain as strong as ever, as do the old, explosive forces of ambitious nationalism. The world remains “unipolar,” but international competition among the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raise new threats of regional conflict. Communism is dead, but a new contest between western liberalism and the great eastern autocracies of Russia and China has reinjected ideology into geopolitics. Finally, radical Islamists are waging a violent struggle against the modern secular cultures and powers that, in their view, have dominated, penetrated, and polluted their Islamic world. The grand expectation that after the Cold War the world would enter an era of international geopolitical convergence has proven wrong.

For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. Now, in The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the most important questions facing the liberal democratic countries, challenging them to choose whether they want to shape history or let others shape it for them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Advance Praise for The Return of History and the End of Dreams


“In this important, timely, and superbly-written book, Robert Kagan shows that the ‘end of history’ was an illusion. Today’s global challenges pose a stern test for the world’s democracies. This book is a wake-up call and should be read by policymakers, politicians, pundits and all who want a guide to the dangerous waters of 21st century geopolitics.”
—Senator John McCain

“Robert Kagan has once again written a provocative, thoughtful, and vitally important book that will reshape the way we think about the world, the special purpose that America must play in it, and the principles that must guide us. The Return of History and the End of Dreams is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of American foreign policy–and a reminder of why Robert Kagan is one of our nation’s most indispensable strategists.”
—Senator Joseph Lieberman

“An eloquent, powerful, disturbing, but ultimately hopeful view of the emerging balance of power in the world–and America’s proper role in it. Kagan’s views will be an essential part of the debate that will shape our next president’s foreign policy.”
—Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

“Robert Kagan gives us a picture of the world today in all its complexity and its simplicity. This is a world where America is dominant but cannot dominate, where the struggle for power and prestige goes on as it always has. Power is at the service of ideas, but the key ideas are also ideas about power: democracy and autocracy. All this in a hundred pages, with style, energy and panache.”
—Robert Cooper, Director-General for External and Politico-Military Affairs at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union

From the Publisher

Narrator Information: Holter Graham has recorded numerous audiobooks, and is a stage, television, and screen actor. Some film credits include Fly Away Home, Maximum Overdrive, and Hairspray, and on TV he has appeared on Law and Order and New York Undercover. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030726923X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307269232
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #671,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

117 of 128 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Back To The Future" May 2, 2008

By Stanley H. Nemeth

Format:Hardcover

Robert Kagan's "The Return of History And The End Of Dreams" is a sobering, trenchantly written analysis of contemporary international affairs. In it, Kagan takes aim at the largely unwarranted optimism widespread in western democracies following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many at that time thought the world had arrived at "the end of history," that the future would be confined to one inevitable shape (liberal democracy), that nations in the wake of a new geo-economics and globalization would now just peacefully engage in commerce, with nationalism and geo-political confrontation things of the past.

Kagan looks at the current scene without such blinkers, reminding his readers of the competitive nature of human beings and of the "stubborn traditions" now once again clearly resurgent in many nation states. Far from presenting a world in which the triumph of liberal democracy is inevitable, he draws attention to the resurgence of its increasingly powerful rivals, autocracy (in Russia and China principally) and to a lesser degree Islamist radicalism (in the Middle East). In short, Kagan reveals the allegedly post-modern world to be a place where power politics still obtains and war is not out of court. The post-Cold War world, then, should be understood as one containing a large measure of "backward-looking" geo-political competition, and that the great conflict now taking shape within it, if one has the courage to see, is the one between democracy and autocracy.

Following his demolition of the simple faith in a new international liberal order presumably automatic upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kagan goes on to call the western democracies to a new vigilance.... As he puts it, "the future international order will be shaped by those who have the power and the collective will to shape it. The question is whether the world's democracies will again rise to that challenge." Read more ›

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Malignity of Multipolarity July 18, 2008

By Pieter Uys HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

This is a perceptive and far-sighted examination on the state of global politics as the decade approaches its end, in the form of an extended essay. A new axis of evil is rising in opposition to the West, one not guided by a shared ideology except in so far as hostility to the rule of law and democracy might be considered ideological. Kagan predicts that the future will see the return of nationalism, growing tensions and confrontation between the forces of democracy and autocracy. What matters is a nation's nature of government, he observes, not its culture, religion or geographic location; and this will determine its international alignment. While not dismissing the terrorist threat, he does not consider it a primary menace as history proves that modernity has never lost against the traditionalism represented by the Islamists. True, but terrorism might have unintended consequences in the formation of alliances and the development of state structures.

It is interesting to compare Kagan's analysis with Margaret Thatcher's Statecraft, published in 2002, in which she assessed the state of the world and possible future trajectories. In chapters 3 and 4 of her book Thatcher looks at Russia and the Asian Giants China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) and India. Rogue states, religion and terrorism are discussed in chapter 6, with particular reference to North Korea, Islam, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Iran. Another must-read: The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West by Edward Lucas, already confirms Kagan's view.... Russia is pursuing policies that threaten its own citizens, neighboring states and the world at large. Lucas takes a hard look at the ruling elite which emerged almost entirely from the ranks of the old KGB. This dominant class harbors resentment against the West as a whole in an interesting parallel to the hostility of the Brussels Eurocracy towards the USA and Israel. The Russian government now openly competes with the West on the economic and political fronts.

Freedom of expression and the rule of law exist in name only; the state controls all the economic activity, political institutions and media that matter. Putin's term "managed" or "sovereign" democracy really means a malignant form of Czarism. Despite Russia's demographic implosion, pervasive corruption and widespread lawlessness, a new cold war is being waged. Not only has the country displayed thuggish behavior against Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia, Georgia and the UK in the Litvinenko case, it is supplying arms to rogue states Iran and Syria and their terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Anna Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia exposes the mentality and incompetence of the ruling class.

The geopolitical implications are staggering, as the Putin gang eagerly befriends all enemies of the West. Evidence is accumulating that Russia seeks an alliance with the Islamic world and a partial restoration of the Soviet Empire through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) of which China is a member. The Kremlin ignores the long-term threat from China despite the particularly drastic demographic and infrastructural implosion in Russia's Far East. Whatever other evils follow from Russia's abandonment of Western values, it is sure to become a more barbaric society for its citizens and a considerably more dangerous international player. One may confidently expect it to supply Iran with nuclear weapons technology and to support every loathsome thugocracy that defiles the planet.

Russia is pursuing an energy policy aimed at strangling the liberal democracies by e.g. establishing a gas cartel. An expanded SCO that includes Iran, other Middle Eastern and African states like Libya and Sudan, plus Venezuela is a real possibility. Kagan correctly identifies it as a revived Warsaw Pact. The SCO will lock the Turkic speaking states of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (plus Persian Tajikistan) firmly in the bear's embrace. The future role of Turkey will be crucial; it remains to be seen how its current pro-religious government will adapt its foreign policy as reaction to the country's certain exclusion from the European inner core. Economic ties to Europe are of course assured but the country might significantly upgrade relations with the Central Asian states and the SCO.

Kagan foresees closer future ties between the USA, India and Japan, rather than a larger role for NATO. Echoing the idea expressed in The UN and Beyond: United Democratic Nations (edited by Anne Bayefsky), Kagan proposes the same type of international organization consisting of democratic states co-coordinating their policies. Perhaps he underestimates the ambition of the Brussels Eurocracy and its resentment of the US. The likelihood of all 27 states uniting is slim, but prospects for closer union of a core group including Germany, France, the Benelux countries, Italy, Spain and a few others are bright. Such a restructuring could be triggered by many factors like the refusal of current member states to relinquish further sovereignty, economic problems or security concerns. While retaining nominal autonomy, the other countries of Europe will undoubtedly accept the Superstate's foreign policy. The loss of the UK will diminish the Anglosphere whilst an alliance with India and Japan might formidably enhance its influence and assure its strategic advantage of continued dominance over three of the world's oceans.

One fact is certain: the USA follows the siren calls of isolationism at its great peril. And the paranoids that tried to demonize the "Hyperpower" will look back on the period of American "hegemony" with affection and nostalgia once the dynamics of the new multipolar world become clear. What distinguishes Kagan's conclusions from the discredited popular notions of the 90s - Fukuyama's fatuous futurology and Huntington's culturally based theory - is that elements of it have already begun to unfold. How comfortable the decade of the Clintons now seems in comparison to contemporary trends. Kagan's book is alarming and unsettling but a much needed tonic for identifying, and preparing for, the coming challenges. Read more ›

51 of 58 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Liberal Democracy vs Autocracy May 15, 2008

By Izaak VanGaalen

Format:Hardcover

During the 1990s, after the fall of communism, it appeared that democratic capitalism had triumphed with no serious ideological challengers on the horizon. It was famously designated by Francis Fukuyama as "the end of history." Enlightenment had reached its final stage, there was no longer any beyond toward which progress marched. Most of the pundit class believed that China and Russia were well on their way to becoming liberal democracies. The theory was that once their respective middle classes reached a certain level of wealth they would be demanding the legal and political rights that are required of constitutional liberalism.

Robert Kagan does not believe this will happen. Autocracies such as China and Russia will not make the transition to liberal democracy on their own, nor will they change if they are safely embedded in the international liberal order. Kagan argues that the Chinese and the Russians do not view democracy as competitive elections, rather elections are something that asserts the popular will, which becomes the will of the ruling class. The ruling classes are not so much concerned with human rights as they are with satisfying public needs. In both countries a relatively small ruling class controls all the levers of power. Even though they line their own pockets, they have served their populations rather well, compared to the kleptocrats of smaller autocracies. The majorities of their populations actually seem content with this "style" of democracy.

Fareed Zakaria has argued in The Post-American World that autocracies do not hold beliefs other than becoming part of the global economy.... They are simply pragmatists who will eventually become stakeholders in the system. Kagan begs to differ: He writes that autocrats believe in autocracy and will continue to reject the demands of meddlesome Western governments and NGOs. The higher cause they believe in is that they are providing economic success for their people and by extension getting international respect.

Autocracies seek to make the world safe for other autocracies as well. Their so-called respect for other nations' sovereignty and policy of noninterference sits well with lesser dictatorships such as Myanmar and North Korea. Autocrats prefer to do business with each other. After the successes of democracy in the 1990s, Russia and China would like to roll back those advances by promoting thier own successes. Kagan thinks that only dreamers would believe that China and Russia could become part of the liberal international order.

Interestingly enough, one of the most provocative and consequential foreign policy statements made by John McCain was in Kagan's neoconservative mold. McCain proposed that international organizations should only allow democracies as its members, as in a league of democracies, setting themselves against such countries as China and Russia. This would be the end of dreams and possibly the beginning of a nightmare. Although Kagan's point is well argued, I am more inclined the agree with Zakaria in that greater efforts should be made to make these important players part of the system rather than enemies of the system. The ideology of autocracy is inherently weak because power is too concentrated. Better to weaken it from within. Read more ›