Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (Hardcover)

by Leslie H. Gelb (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Gelb, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, sets out guidelines for stewarding American power through the 21st century in this thoughtful, comprehensive and engaging examination. Drawing on Machiavelli's The Prince, the author addresses current leaders and their real-world choices, aiming his critiques at the soft and hard powerites, America's premature gravediggers, the world-is-flat globalization crowd, and the usually triumphant schemers who make up the typical U.S. foreign policy roundtable. Gelb writes that America remains the world's most powerful single nation, but this does not mean that the U.S. has absolute or even dominant global hegemony. Along with other major nations, it must accept the principle of mutual indispensability, and work toward global objectives with the full cooperation of Russia, China and other emerging powers. Gelb's bulleted rules and clear advice to President Obama distill his moderate strategic thinking on the future of America: a poised, posed, and credible sword, wrapped in diplomacy and economic power. It is a vision of a pragmatic but responsible global U.S. presence that eschews partisan politics and should find favor in the coming political clime. (Apr.)
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Review
Les Gelb, one of America's most distinguished practitioner-observers of foreign policy, brilliantly explains how a series of administrations weakened our nation's security, and shows how we can reverse this trend. . . . Power Rules is an indispensable book for the new era. --Richard Holbrooke

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (March 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061714542
• ISBN-13: 978-0061714542
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,196 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars War can't be postponed but to the advantage of the enemy?, April 7, 2009

By	Wayne Lusvardi "Wayne Lusvardi" (Pasadena, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Leslie Gelb's new book "Power Rules" is a modern update to Niccolo Machiavelli's 15th century classic book written to the new ruler of the City-State of Florence, Italy; only Gelb's book is specifically written for new U.S. President Barack Obama. Machiavelli once wrote:

"There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless."

Whether *Power Rules* falls into the first or the second of Machiavelli's three types of intelligence is the question to be answered in this book review.

Gelb relates what he understands for himself as a political moderate about U.S. foreign policy based on decades of working for Presidents on both sides of the political spectrum.

Using Gelb's favorite concept about U.S. foreign policy, - *mutual indispensability,* this book is "indispendable" and should get a wide reading across the political spectrum. He disabuses just about every camp of foreign policy -- hard-dumb, soft-smart, and globalist-economic -- of their preconceived notions about foreign affairs. Instead he opts for what he calls a common sense approach. But unlike Machiavelli who wrote that "men never do anything well except through necessity," Gelb's approach is based on non-necessity or non-imperatives (i.e., choice). Contrary to Machiavelli, Gelb says war is rarely necessary, as necessity is prone to being invented. Gelb is thus a postmodernist Machiavellian, however otherwise realistic and commensensical he is.

Despite that I couldn't put this well-written book down I am sorry to say that it is a disappointment not by what he wrote but what he didn't. For in singling out the invasion of Iraq by President George W. Bush II for special criticism Gelb never answers the elusive question of our time: if Bush's invasion of Iraq and his policy of pre-emptive warfare was such an obvious failure why did Machiavelli write "There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others"? Gelb loves to invoke Machiavelli to legitimate his book but unfortunately for us only selectively so. He sidestepped this issue.

Gelb offers six excellent chapters of rules for exercising power. However, while Gelb is certainly aware in his book of how foreign states (Saudi, Jordan, Iran) harbor, fund, and arm shadow terrorist networks both within and outside their countries, he frustratingly doesn't offer any guidelines of how to deal with them. Gelb puts so much emphasis on abandoning "unilateralism" for cooperation with other allies or even rival nations that he fails to answer what we do when such nations are also our ally-enemies? Using Gelb's terminology, what kind of "leverage doors" can you open with a nation that threatens to develop nukes but is willing to starve its own people (North Korea)? What kind of leverage can you exert over friendly Arab states that continue to want to back stab us and keep us bogged down fighting their wars?

Gelb isn't a naive liberal. He just fails to address such paradoxes although he criticizes conservative foreign policy thinkers as simplistic and unable to handle complexity. Oddly, Machiavelli is mostly embraced by conservatives, not liberals.

Machiavelli wrote in Book II, Chapter 9 of his Discourses the following: "this method of starting war has always been common among the powerful and among those who still have respect for both their own word and that of others. For if I wish to wage war upon a prince with whom I have long-respected treaties, I can attack one of his friends with more justification and excuse than I can attack the prince, knowing for a certainty that if I attack his friend he will either resent it (and I shall fulfill my intention of waging war upon him) or not resent it, in which case he will reveal his weakness or lack of faith by not defending one of his dependents. Either one of these two alternatives suffices to lessen his reputation and to facilitate my plans."

In other words, is the Iraq War an indirect war waged to gain leverage against both neighboring Iran and Saudi Arabia? Gelb doesn't say. But if it is an indirect war then the reasons why Bush failed at devising a public justification for the war become more apparent (e.g., WMD's, removing a tyrant, democracy building, etc). Gelb's approach may be commensensical, non-ideological, and aversive of what he calls "demons," but perhaps it isn't too deep.

I got the feeling from reading the book that Gelb is ingratiating himself with the new Obama Presidential administration, not for a job (like Machiavelli did with the Lorenzo de Medici), but to disabuse the Obama team of their notions of soft power and that all you have to do in foreign policy is negotiate. If so, Gelb has his own double Machiavellian motivation to slip some medicine into the dog food while playing doctor and criticizing his last patient (Bush) for not taking his medicine (i.e., Bush negotiated behind the scenes and through clandestine intermediaries rather than publicly).

It is plausible that a faction within Saudi Arabia wanted the U.S. to fight their war for them against Iraq. We have known for a long time that the Saudis view the U.S. military as a mercenary force at their command due to their control of oil prices. We know that 19 of the 21 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi. Wasn't it the ancient Chinese war strategist Sun Tzu who wrote to get others to fight your wars for you? If this was the case, Gelb offers no understanding of how the U.S. should deal or gain leverage over such a situation. Should it have negotiated, gone to war with Saudi Arabia and cut its economic lifeline of oil risking an economic depression, or what? We don't know because Gelb is stuck on answers that are obvious and full of common sense rather than asking those questions that everyone seems to want to avoid like some sort of dark family secret.

The book jacket is filled with endorsements mainly by liberal foreign policy critics who have embraced Gelb's book as some sort of vindication of their criticisms of Bush's actions and policies by the dean of foreign policy. Gelb, however, is above the fray, but almost to a fault. That is because he leaves some of the most tantalizing and prescient propositions of Machiavelli about the Iraq War unanswered. Instead he has opted to write a book that casts a pox on everyone's houses -- which is greatly needed.

In the end, however, I am afraid that I have to put Gelb's book in the second category of Machiavelli's as that which "appreciates what others can understand" more than it casts light or depth on what we don't understand. Nonetheless, don't miss reading this excellent book. It is a *necessity,* even if it is your choice.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Will Moderates Save The Day?, May 14, 2009

By	Brian Kodi - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Two prominent political figures profoundly influenced U.S. foreign policy since the late 1700s to early 1800s: Alexander Hamilton, George Washington's treasury secretary, and Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the U.S. For two centuries since these two, U.S. foreign policy has shifted back and forth like a pendulum between the Hamiltonian ideology of conservatives/neoconservatives, and the Jeffersonian liberal followers. Mr. Hamilton viewed a strong national economy and military as a necessity to protect U.S. interests, while Mr. Jefferson advocated promoting the American ideals of freedom and democracy abroad (p. 45 of hardcover).

According to Mr. Gelb, the power to lead derives from the power to solve problems, and for 50 years, no U.S. administration has correctly used this indispensible power that is currently on the decline. If this downward trend continues, the U.S. will be nothing more than just another great power; essentially where China is now. Mr. Gelb views this prospect as a travesty for all countries, because in such a scenario the world would be "without a leader to sustain world order and help solve international problems." (p. 278)

Mr. Gelb has an optimistic view of reversing America's diminishing power stemming from the misunderstanding and misuse of U.S. power in foreign affairs, as well as the weakening of domestic fundamentals such as the economy, infrastructure, public schools and political system. The saving grace, according to Mr. Gelb is the rise of moderates to positions of power to counter the destructive influence of "demons" on the far right and left. These moderates, of whom Mr. Gelb is a member of, have failed to strut their stuff for the past 50 years. What would compel them to fight as hard as the extremists on either ends of the political spectrum to get their voices heard? Mind you, they'd have to stay in power consistently for decades to clean up the mess Mr. Gelb asserts the "demons" have created. In a "Meet the Press" interview with the late Tim Russert, Karl Rove correctly asserted the fight for power has always been between conservatives and liberals. Everyone else just goes along for the ride. Mr. Gelb even admits that extremists drown out the voice of moderates, and fight with uncanny resolve. The reason why Muslim extremists were backed by Pakistan in Afghanistan is precisely because they fought harder than moderate Afghani commanders such as Ahmad Shah Massoud. Pakistan needed these extremists to fight their proxy war in India.

So how is Mr. Gelb's optimistic view of a moderate takeover reconciled with a history that doesn't support it? What chance does the U.S. have for retaining its long run indispensable superiority in the face of these bleak prospects? The massive government debt alone may be enough to knock us out of contention as the world leader.

Mr. Gelb correctly postulates that if the U.S. dominant power is to be restored and retained, extremists have to be marginalized. Just how this can be accomplished and the likelihood of its success remains to be seen.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Voice for Candor, Clarity and Common Sense, April 15, 2009

By	Peter Fred "Robert" (Miami, Florida) - See all my reviews

Leslie Gelb's distillation of a lifetime of experience both as an astute (and at times ascerbic) observer (writing the foreign affairs column for the New York Times) and involved participant (in the Johnson Defense Department and Carter State Department) shine thru in this remarkable book. Written with unusual candor and clarity, Gelb's arguments--that the world is not flat, and that America's foreign policy must center on the principle of "mutual indispensability" are compelling. His frequent use of historical references, and especially his rivoting personal experiences give the book a powerful educational flavor and a fascinating immediacy. I couldn't put it down. Richard Helfant,MD.