American Power and Liberal Order: A Conservative Internationalist Grand Strategy

Audible Sample

Playing...

Paused

American Power and Liberal Order: A Conservative Internationalist Grand Strategy Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Paul D. Miller (Author), Maxwell Zener (Narrator), University Press Audiobooks (Publisher)

3 ratings

See all 5 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$19.93

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

$21.95

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$60.99

$50.62

$41.00

Paperback

"Please retry"

$32.95

$24.90

$26.17

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan convinced many policymakers and scholars that the United States should pull back in international affairs and that restraint should guide grand strategy. Paul D. Miller offers a tough-minded critique of this trending body of thought, arguing that US security in fact depends on active, sustained support of the international liberal order.

Miller blends academic rigor with his experiences as former Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan on the National Security Council to offer conservative internationalist prescriptions for US grand strategy. Dismissing claims of overextended US resources and perceived safety, Miller argues that nuclear autocracies, armed non-state actors, failed states, and the transnational jihadist movement still pose immense threats to American security and the international system. His analysis offers policy options for balancing against the nuclear autocracies, championing liberalism to maintain the balance of power in its favor, targeting militant non-state actors, investing in governance in weak and failed states, and strengthening homeland security. As Miller shows, these necessary steps will fortify the international liberal order that forms the outer perimeter of American security - and aid US efforts to craft a more just peace among nations.

Save 46% on Audible

For a limited time, get your first 4 months of Audible membership for just $7.95/month. Get this deal

American Power and Liberal Order: A Conservative Internationalist Grand Strategy

Paul D. Miller (Author), Maxwell Zener (Narrator), University Press Audiobooks (Publisher)

Get this audiobook free.
$14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime

Get 1 free Audible book + 2 Originals

1 free audiobook + 2 free Audible Originals to get you started.
After trial, get 1 audiobook and 2 Audible Originals each month.
Audible is $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel online anytime and keep all your audiobooks.

Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items when the Enter key is pressed. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Christopher M. Hemmer

1

Audible Audiobook
$0.00 Free with Audible trial
Henry Kissinger

323

Audible Audiobook
$0.00 Free with Audible trial
John Lewis Gaddis

132

Audible Audiobook
$0.00 Free with Audible trial
T. R. Fehrenbach

580

Audible Audiobook
$0.00 Free with Audible trial
Sean McFate

66

Audible Audiobook
$0.00 Free with Audible trial
Robert Kagan

50

Audible Audiobook
$0.00 Free with Audible trial

Product details

Listening Length	15 hours 11 minutes
Author	Paul D. Miller
Narrator	Maxwell Zener
Audible.com Release Date	April 07, 2017
Publisher	University Press Audiobooks
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B06Y263W4H
Best Sellers Rank	#263,695 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #313 in National & International Security (Audible Books & Originals) #693 in International Relations (Books) #1,192 in Public Policy (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

5 star		61%
4 star		39%
3 star 0% (0%)		0%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

3 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Amazon Customer

EYE OPENING!

October 9, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I had not viewed America’s grand stratagem in terms of liberalism or realism in the past. This authors take on the subject has helped to broaden my overall perception.

Helpful

Comment

Don't Read Much Fiction

Engaging in theory and perfectly practical; best grand strategy book of the decade

March 20, 2017

Format: Hardcover

I may not have rushed this book to the top of my reading list and instead been content to absorb the author's ideas from an IWP (Institute for World Politics) podcast I happened upon... were it not for an off-handed, yet revealing comment the author made on his own IR (International Relations) theory.

Every country not only needs but already has a grand strategy. What is not written down in doctrine is still exercised every day through the behavior of a country's leaders, influenced by its culture and perceptions. A grand strategy simply takes what already exists and organizes the behavior for maximum effect (pg. xiii). Liberal order is not only socially healthy but security smart, "... liberal order is the outer perimeter of American security (pg. 13)." So how does one influence, to maximum effect, a culture of liberal norms?

Paul Miller's grand strategy of promoting liberal values borrows heavily from but does not rest completely on Reinhold Niebuhr. The Christian realism of Niebuhr warns that we are all tempted to the same injustice that we seek to eradicate; we are all allured to the same destructive pride we condemn in our foes. Even if liberalism is the best option the world has to promote freedom and create a space for peace (Dean Curry, "World Without Tyranny"), ideas do not flourish simply by virtue of being correct.

Paul Miller has just enough IR theory to bolster his grand strategy but not too much to drown out the practical application of his thesis. Perhaps this keeps in step with Miller's own perception of classical, structural and neo variants of realism. While correct on the pride of human nature and the importance of power, IR realism might be too academic for cultural realities. Miller walks the reader through the strengths and weakness of realism, liberal internationalism, Christian realism and conservative internationalism (Henry Nau) settling on a hybrid theory related to the alluring "off-handed" comment never actually stated in the book's pages; a cousin to constructivism.

Just as Alexander Wendt took to task realism's finest philosophers, Paul Miller takes every opportunity to challenge the academic assumptions of Stephen Walt and Kenneth Waltz and their limited ability to connect with cultural and social shifts.

America's grand strategy, Miller argues, should begin by quantifying power, resources and identifying the biggest threats to liberal norms. Autocratic nuclear capable regimes pose the greatest threat to liberal norms. And they happen to be located in the highest potential development regions for U.S. trade and prosperity. East Asia (and Europe) by the numbers should be America's biggest investment locations, followed by South Asia, Middle East and finally Africa and South America. Miller's state-centric analysis locates Russia, China (hypothetical threat), North Korea, Iran and depending on the winds, Pakistan as liberalism's greatest foes.

On par with Europe, NATO is considered the world's most important global organization, easily above the IMF, World Bank and the UN. South Asia is not only the home of UNSC hopeful India, and the world's largest democracy, but South Asia is also the real center of global Jihadism, according to Paul Miller.

The Gulf States will quickly lose relevance as their oil (and perhaps even water) reserves disappear. Israel is a key ally, but the Middle East "peace process", Miller holds, is a shiny, foolish errand of American diplomatic efforts. As if to endorse Paul Miller's East Asian preference the Saudi throne just completed a tour of East Asia's most promising investment locations, to include Indonesia and Japan (March 2017). Even Saudi Arabia knows that its strategic relevance, outside of being Islam's center of history and Hajj, requires an economic diversity that East Asia offers.

It is fitting how Miller's indifference towards the United Nations (whose Security Council he argues, must evolve to reflect contemporary power centers) bestows on it the task of engaging the world's least important region: Africa. Miller supports funding UN peacekeeping missions, like the United States does for two-thirds of the DRC's $1.3-1.5 billion budget. Except according to Miller, places like the DRC and Somalia may be a lost cause; or as Afro-pessimists like to say, doomed to an endless cycle of violence.

UN missions not only endorse Kofi Annan's R2P (Responsibility to Protect) but through sincere contributions, by preventing global disasters, might sway illiberal spaces to the generosity of liberal values. Another favorite of Paul Miller's is the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). MCC funds are grants that target specific infrastructure projects for countries that meet a quality-of-governance threshold. Miller hints, however, that MCC should shift its multi-million dollar programs to other than Africa, where places like stable Senegal, Ghana and Tanzania ($600M compact) have all greatly benefited.

Failed states, such as the DRC, are not hopeless for the same reason. Paul Miller explains that maps of red and orange hues that warn would-be investors and incite military knee jerk reactions, are not able to explain the vastly different sources of cultural, social and religious dynamics.

Those cultural, social, linguistic and religious dynamics, by the way, are exactly what Miller argues a more robust and educated Foreign Service corps must understand to implement grand strategy. The compass of diplomacy must be on guard against, "exaggerating the importance of peripheral regions and provoking the formation of an anti-American alliance (pg 240)." Grand strategy must also be on guard against considering the military as the only tool of foreign policy. Grand strategies die where poor implementation begins.

But the military still has a necessary presence in diplomacy. Paul Miller argues for military power where kinetic operations are a last resort but military presence engages the diplomatic front-line. In other words, the military is a sort of "insurance against uncertainty (pg. 264)." If the Foreign Service corps requires more people and skills to better partner with the regions in which it interacts, the military needs a different structure as well.

General Purpose Forces should all be trained in Unconventional Warfare (perhaps Miller meant "Irregular Warfare") to address the change in global threat; not too lean, but more flexible. My experience with the United States Air Force Special Operations School tells me that this is an example of a seemingly simple sentence of strategy that requires a complete overhaul in military education doctrine and time management. I am all for it!

Paul Miller's grand strategy is of course, Americentric. However, aside from America's specific level of power and access to resources, the general principles in a constructivist theory provide practical applications for any power size. Miller's analysis is not only brilliant for its practical application but also its intelligent understanding of culture and linguistics at all levels of political influence.

Perhaps the biggest element missing in Miller's grand strategy is what America should expect to happen to countries outside of its sphere of influence. Is Miller content with Somalia and Syria being Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE's state-building project? Can the U.S. afford to neglect the oh-so-promising continent of Africa as long as Mali is under the eye of France, Morocco and Algeria; DRC, South Africa and Angola in the investment care of China. How exactly is Israel's bitter brand of democracy intended to endear its stubborn neighbors? What should the U.S. expect of its liberal and liberalizing allies?

Additionally, while Miller's analysis of Islamist thought and violence is fair and balance it perhaps underestimates the minority Islamist core that threatens to infect far beyond South Asia. Indonesia is one of those promising, East Asia investment targets. Its challenges to liberalism come not from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. Islamic orthodoxy knows the pitfalls of liberalism that Niebuhr warned against. For many Muslims, they are keeping the option open to support a liberalism that does not as easily pollute the moral integrity of its society. A little insight from Shadi Hamid would serve Miller well.

The emphasis on endorsing a culture of liberal order through complex social interactions, using a more robust diplomatic corps deeply educated in the culture and religion of their posts along with foreign language capabilities is a solid strategy. As a practitioner of these very methods I have found that sincere interaction not only proves one's dedication to partner and ally but corrects dangerous misconceptions, on all sides, in the process. Grand strategy should have both a top down control center and a bottom up enabler. I think Paul Miller is on to something.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Another tour-de-force from Paul Miller

August 4, 2017

Format: Hardcover

Miller here makes the case that there is such a thing as a 'grand strategy' for a nation to pursue, and that America since its inception has actually had a fairly consistent one, though implemented variously at various times: to "defend the homeland from attack, maintain a favorable balance of power among the great powers, champion liberalism, punish nonstate actors, and invest in good governance and allied capabilities abroad" (17-18).

Moreover, Miller believes this, on the whole, to be a good grand strategy, and attributes our foreign policy missteps of recent years chiefly to "failures of management, oversight, and implementation" (4). As such, Miller is no isolationist, mere 'realist,' or 'advocate of restraint,' as those things currently go: there can be no neat separation between American national security and national interest, on the one hand, and the 'liberal order' in the world, on the other.

What characterizes that 'liberal order'? Liberal norms do – and Miller (unfortunately) says virtually nothing about what exactly those are (I thought I recalled one sentence, but I cannot now find it – and surely it merited more than that, given the liberal order's centrality to his book!), but he does argue that they normalize "self-government, civil liberties, free trade, the rule of law, and collective security" (23). Miller asserts that this liberal order encompasses much of the globe at present - but he does not investigate internal challenges to liberal norms, or whether both the US and European states indeed are agreed on them in sufficient detail to be safely categorized together for all of this book's wide-ranging purposes; nor does he lay out the grand strategy of any other particular nation to illustrate whether it is identical, compatible, or incompatible with that of the US. Even brief investigations of these concerns could have improved an already impressive and potent text.

As an overall approach, Miller seeks (rightly, I think) to chart a middle-way 'normative framework' between 'realism' and 'liberal interventionism.' He finds this largely in the 'conservative internationalism' propounded by Henry Nau, but modifies it on several points and leavens it with just-war theory and Niebuhr's 'Christian Realism.' Miller argues that "the United States should seek to increase the proportion of global power under democratic control," that efforts should be focused at points where democratization is most feasible (though he dissents from Nau's geographic parameters as a chief criterion), accepts American public opinion as primary in "determining the course of US foreign policy," and so forth.

The end result is sophisticated and well-articulated; the only point at which I would object is that, in my view, it leaves too little space to humanitarian intervention for purely humanitarian grounds, as opposed to grounding it in the liberal order as such.

Throughout the book, as Miller offers an up-to-date examination of world affairs, assessing the risks posed to liberal order and/or (more directly to) American security interests in various world stages, one can't charge him with failing to be thorough. Every place, and every element of foreign policy and national security, he's given heavy thought. I would, on occasion, disagree with Miller: I'm not persuaded that his proposed shift away from Middle Eastern involvement is a good one (though he does make some exceptions for Syria and Afghanistan - he's an expert in the latter and has a very relevant book forthcoming); I'm not entirely convinced by his approach to the NSA; and so forth.

Nevertheless, Miller has countless recommendations, and his reasoning behind each one is made expressly clear. Almost nowhere, so far as I can see, does Miller shirk away from engagement with alternative approaches. Agree or disagree with the position he takes, Miller will do you a profound intellectual service in these pages.

In today's environment, one might be especially curious as to his approach to "the transnational jihadist movement," which he treats in its own right in the conclusion: he sees this as part and parcel of the very US grand strategy he's propounded in the book, and specifies these goals: "first, to thwart attacks by jihadist groups; second, to defeat central nodes, such as al-Qaida, that tie the disparate networks together or aspire to global operational reach; third, to prevent any jihadist group from seizing additional state power; fourth, to counter Iran's and Pakistan's efforts to use jihadist groups to expand their influence; fifth, to empower local security forces across the world to defeat local jihadist chapters; and sixth, where possible, to roll back the size and influence of jihadist groups and ideology" (280). Between this cogent statement and his earlier attentiveness to jihadist ideology as such, Miller seems to be right on target.

A truly good review of this book would extend for pages more, to do it justice. But I am, of course, not a foreign policy expert; not even a dilettante. I'm the pastor of a small country church; and why exactly I read Miller's book, I doubt I could clearly state. So if I've misunderstood him at several points, or failed to see what he aimed to accomplish, well, I wouldn't be surprised. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it highly thought-provoking and challenging. For anyone with any interest whatsoever in foreign policy, any interest in national security, any interest in world affairs, any interest in strategy as such – this book is one nobody you know should let you get away with not reading.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy

Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account	Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Handpicked Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources

Amazon Rapids Fun stories for kids on the go	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services	Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics

CreateSpace Indie Print Publishing Made Easy	DPReview Digital Photography	East Dane Designer Men's Fashion	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities

IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital Publishing Made Easy	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing

Ring Smart Home Security Systems	eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Subscribe with Amazon Discover & try subscription services	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Second Chance Pass it on, trade it in, give it a second life

American Power and Liberal Order: A Conservative Internationalist Grand Strategy Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Free with Audible trial $0.00

Buy with 1-Click $24.95

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Customers who bought this item also bought

Product details

Customer reviews

3 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Free with Audible trial

$0.00

Buy with 1-Click

$24.95