Wow, this is a great book. Chalmers Johnson has written a major foreign policy critique that is well documented, well reasoned, and well written. The book deserves more than 5 stars. The next President of the United States, be he/she a Republican or Democrat, would be well advised to read this book.
When I read, I underline unique and insightful observations by the author. In this book, over 85% of the book was underlined when I finished the last page.
I would like to give you just a few of the points that Johnson offers in the book:
Johnson believes that our recent foreign policy has been handled poorly and that in fact our policies are stimulating our enemies around the globe to organize against us. Johnson produces considerable amounts of evidence and analysis to indicate that our foreign policy has come to be dominated by our Department of Defense and the CIA at the expense of the State Department. Though Johnson never brings us the subject, it reminded me of the argument presented in Margaret Tuchman's Guns of August that this happened in World War I, where military actions were taken unilaterally with little diplomacy prior to the war. The generals out-maneuvered the diplomats and was was the result.
Johnson shows careful documentation and analysis to indicate that this faulty foreign policy is a holdover from the Cold War, which the Soviets lost 15 years ago, but which the United States may lose in the future because of our clinging to Cold War military, foreign, and economic policies. This is the actual core of the book and Johnson offers tremedous documentation of how this is true with examples regarding our relationships with Japan, South Korea, North Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Phillipines, Singapore, Malysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Cambodia. The chapters on Japan, the two Koreas, and China demonstrated some of the most unique and thoughtful and documented analysis that is currently being offered to the general American public.
Blowback is a CIA term for unintended consequences of foreign, military, or clandestine policies. Johnson warns us that unless we awaken to the effects our policies have on the other nations that we will continue to invite contempt and terrorist solutions against us. He further points out that we are in a Blowback period, a post Cold War period, in which we have not yet recovered from Cold War thinking. The power of the US Military is one example. Johnson would even argue that the US Military is barely under the control of the Congress and the President, threatening to dictate national relationships and dynamics independent of the State Department.
An example of fully realized Blowback is when the CIA overthrew Iran's prime minister in 1953 and set up Shan Pahlavi, only to have the Shah eventually overthrown by his people in favor of a Moslem fundamentalistic theocracy. We are still experiencing Blowback from that series of events.
A second example of Blowback that is very recent is the US efforts to train and support Islamic fundamentalists in Afhanistan during the Carter,Reagan, and Bush administrations so as to assist them as they fought the Soviets, only to see these same strategies and weapons turned against us in the 9-11 crisis. He quotes from Brezezinski: What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire?" A good argument prior to 9-11, but now increasingly seen that we traded one form of Communist resistance against our Empire for another form of resistance from the world of Islam. Johnson would argue that we have not yet received the blowback for our involvment in Afghanistan where there have now been 1.8 million Afghan casulaties, 2.6 milion refugees,and 10 million unexploded landmines between the Soviet invasion and the 9-11 aftermath that overthrew the Taliban.
In the first edition of the book, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Albright and Secretary of Defense Cohen are repeatedly identified for disasterous policies. However, in the second edition, Chalmers Johnson added an updated introduction, where he clearly reveals that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, NSC Advisor Rice, Defense Secretary Rumsfield, and Assistant Defense Secretary Wolfowitz are just as calamitous if not more so than the previous administration. His critiques go beyond partisan issues and focus on the current schizophernic policies we maintain where we act as one nation trying to live in a happy neighborhood with our other nation neighbors when in fact our policies are the policies of empire. Gore Vidal has long argued that there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the policies of American Empire building and maintenance, and Chalmers Johnson certainly reveals the evidence and the analysis to support this argument.
In the new Introduction of the book, Johnson points out that the Saudi Royal family is in danger of losing control of their country as part of the pattern of Blwback against US policy that supports this corrupt monarchy so long as they keep the oil pumping for our SUVs. Johnson conducts an analysis of terrorism based on its strategic objectives which usually has a goal of overturning the structures that are viewed as most unjust by converting them to unstable revolutionary situations. However a goal of terrorism is to provoke ruling entities to over-react, the more military the overreaction is in nature, the more potential it has of alienating the masses.
The chapter on Okinawa, an island virtually owned by the US Military, reveals the degree of business advantage we will give the Japanese in order to keep this massive military island. Japan has grown to the be second largest economy in the world through strategic alliance with the USA. Our industrial infrastructure has virtually disappeared while Japan has taken advantage of every trade agreement to keep US products out of Japan. We sacrificed Ford, GM, US Steel, and Republic Steel for Japan's alliance and continued support for our bases on Okinawa.
Our partnership with a corrupt South Korea and our continued misunderstanding of the concerns and dynamics of North Korea has led us to prop up corrupt military puppets in one nation and miss multiple opportunities for dialogue with the North. I was amazed at how the press has collaborated with our military elites to create an image of North Korea that does not account for the concerns and potentials for interaction of the North.
The chapters on China were some of the most fresh analysis of the evolution of the revolution. China has learned lessons from the fall of the Soviet Union and we should expect the markets developing there to be Chinese in nature, not weak copies of US capitalism.
Our relationship with Japan is extremely complex and Johnson certainly does a great job of unraveling this complexity so that the reader sees the high cost of winning the Cold War for the US. The Soviet Union may have lost Poland, but we lost Detroit. Japan was the real winner of the Cold War.
Military power does not constitute Leadership of the World. our poor un-informed American Public continues to think of our nation as benevolent. Yet the simple fact that 70% of our foreign aide goes to Israel for purchase of weapons, while we give 10% to Jordan and 10% to Egypt for not attacking Israel. The final leftover 10% goes to the continuing crises in the Carribean, African, Asia, and Latin America.
We rely on military power and economic manipulation rather than diplomacy, true economic aid, and use of multilateral institutions to exert our leadership.
We won the Cold War, so lets move on, change our militaristic strategies before our military budget sinks our entire nation the way the Soviet military expenditures sunk their empire.
China learned from Gorbachev, don't expect them to go down the same road as the Soviet Union. By 2020 they will have by-passed the United States as the world's largest economy. We are not ready, our head is in the sand, and we have no idea how to deal with the future that is fast rushing toward us. Johnson offers thoughtful strategies but they requrie rethinking our military empire and more willingness to accept monitary policies and interpretations of state managed captialism that our supply-side economists have yet to comprehend.
I can't wait to read another book by Johnson.
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