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The Triumph: A Novel of Modern Diplomacy

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If you're a sensitive reader who gets sick at heart over the deaths of 3,000 soldiers and Marines (not to mention tens of thousands of Iraqis) in a needless war in Iraq which Washington has no idea how to end -- then you shouldn't read this novel. Your remaining faith in America will be extinguished by the book's picture of a foreign policy system out of touch with reality and directed by men with big egos, narrow agendas, and outmoded worldviews.

However, readers with a Kubrickian appreciation of the follies and crimes of "great men" might enjoy it. Written in the 1960s by ex-Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Triumph" is a satire about Washington's inept and myopic response to a progressive revolution in a small Central American country. Less of a novel than a series of biting observations of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, Galbraith dramatized brilliantly how the fear of being seen as not tough on communism paralyzed rational thinking about foreign policy during the Cold War.

Although the Cold War is over, foreign policy idiocy still rides high in the so-called Global War on Terror. Our current ambition to "transform" obnoxious countries all over the world is just as rich in arrogance and fantasy as any strategy to protect the "free world" against "Red conspiracies" in the 1960s. As someone with 18 years of service in the foreign policy bureaucracy, I can assure readers that Galbraith's satirical notes on the language, culture, and perverse incentive structure of Washington remain as true today as they were forty years ago.

If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. And repeat it and repeat it! In this novel, John Kenneth Galbraith allows us to relive our all-too recurring nightmare with delightful irony. Always timely: DO read this book!