Customer Rating: 
Summary: A watered-down wakeup call
Comment: Bacevich uses history from primarily the last half-century to point out the flaws with the way our country has been operating.
I applaud the effort, and understand these short books are more of a motivational device for readers. As such, I feel the book serves its purpose. I wish, however, that Mr Bacevich would have chosen to dig beneath the veneer of events as presented by the mainstream media.
On one hand, he questions the handling of many popular events, but never the reporting of said event. It left me with the same bad taste the 7:00 news would. I guess my only point is that if you can't trust the leadership to accurately inform you of their decisions after an event, how can you trust them to accurately report on the event itself?
With the exception of a brief discussion of fact manipulation prior to the invasion of Iraq, Bacevich has left most of the truths "in the closet" - perhaps to not be labelled as a conspiracy theorist? Anyway, the book is still a good wakup call attempt, focusing more on military actions as opposed to something like The Revolution: A Manifesto which focuses more on the political side.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The decline of America has been predicted many times before.
Comment: First it was communism and Sputnik. Remember? America was never going to be a great power again. Then it was Korea and Viet Nam. And America was never going to be a great power again. Remember? Then it was the Japanese industrial revolution and we could not make anything anymore, and, of course, America was never going to be a great power again. *sigh* It get's kind of old does it not?
Reality: At the dawn of the 21st century, there are no genuine competitors to the title of "super power." France, hardly a true ally, even calls the United States a "Hyper Power," (to their great dismay). Most nations have dismantled their militaries with the exception of Great Britain. Canada is a laughing stock. France and Germany can barely meet their UN peacekeeping duties. All of Europe together could not solve the unrest in the Balkan wars, and needed American assitance.
Economy? We have the highest per capita production of any nation (Opps...someone forgot to tell you that). Our GDP is greater than all of Europe combined. We are far and away the wealthies nation on earth. Even in Iraq, the tide has turned in our favor (you know that because you don't see it on the news anymore. What happened to the nightly coverage?)
Sadly, there are always ready and anxious readers who slather at the possibility of America's downfall. Remember the book "The Decline and Fall of Great Powers?" About 20 years ago, and the author, John Kennedy (no relation to any political figure), had a great following! Surely America was done for! Many slathered and hoped, but it was not to be. One has to sense the disappointment. What a shame!
And here we go again. *yawn* What these anti-Americans never get right is that America is the most adaptable country in the world. We re-invent ourselves routinely because we are free to do so. As long as America is free, our people (not the government) will adapt to new realities faster than any other country in the world.
PS: Someone should tell all the immigrants from all over the world that we are near collapse. They still seem to be under the delusion that America is the last best hope.
Joseph M. Vottis
Customer Rating:
Summary: Limits of Power - PVM Review
Comment: As a Historian and expert of International Relations, I found Andy Bacevich's book, The Limits of Power, to be very much on target with informative and insightful perspectives on current political and military policies, and how Presidential administrations have more liberally interpreted our Constitution to satisfy and justify their assertive foreign policy agendas to promote the U.S. agenda.
Also, the author's views of how the U.S. has shifted from a nation of producers to one of conspicuous consumption, which has been a major contributing factor in our current economic demise, were quite interesting.
Overall, this is an excellent book, easy read, and written in a very unbiased manner. I highly recommend it regardless of your views.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A book every American should read--just like Bacevich's other books
Comment: Although he always describes himself as a conservative, and his authorial voice is tempered, even gentle, over the last decade Andrew Bacevich has emerged as one of the most forceful critics of American foreign policy. This isn't entirely surprising. There are many American traditions--hostility to standing armies and foreign entanglements, for starters--that should make conservatives recoil from the ceaseless drumbeat to increase the Pentagon's budget and identify more 'rogue states' whose existence allegedly threatens all Americans' freedom (of course, among those who monopolize the debate in the traditional media and the political world, conservatives tend to be even more gung ho about war than liberals). Bacevich's point--that, although the Bush administration undoubtedly made things worse, American foreign policy has been on the wrong track for decades, shaped by elite habits of thought and practice and tacit approval by the larger population--is one that those on the left can basically agree with. Bacevich, however, makes his case without the self-righteousness and pedantry that often make the most prominent left voices tiresome and self-ghettoizing.
Although The Limits of Power is his briefest book (only 182 pages)he makes a number of important points. Bacevich roots today's debacles in the Middle East in the failure of Americans to accept Jimmy Carter's critique of the direction of the country in his speech of July 1979 (the 'malaise' speech). Rather than taking to heart the message that the US should learn to live within its means, regarding energy, the US instead demanded that a way be found to continue on without sacrifices. And so Carter was forced to reverse himself and declare that the Persian Gulf was vital to US interests, and this has been the context in which everything since has unfolded. In the second chapter, Bacevich discusses the ideology of national security, and its four main convictions: that history is an epic struggle between right and wrong, that the United States embodies freedom, that the US ensures freedom's ultimate triumph, and finally, (and I think most significantly) "for the American way of life to endure, freedom must prevail everywhere". These convictions undergird all public debate and the actions of presidents. They also define the huge bureaucracies that have grown up around the cause of 'national security' (the Pentagon, the State Department, CIA, etc). He portrays these bureaucracies as addled and ineffectual at guiding presidents; but the handful of loyalists they often rely on as an alternative prove no better. Various groupings of 'Wise Men' over the last fifty years have constantly overestimated the threats arrayed against the US and the need for military action. The military--at least its top officers--fair no better in Bacevich's handling. Although commanders like Schwartkopf, Clark, Franks, and most recently Petraus are often deified as exemplars of public service and super-competent, in Bacevich's view they are short sited, unable to grasp that the consequences of military action range far beyond the battlefied. Hence, 'trusting the generals' is NOT one of the lessons to be drawn from the Iraq debacle. Bacevich also deflates two other false lessons--that the US must now focus on how to win 'small wars' (why not change the policies that lead to such wars?) and that a return to the draft might reduce the possibility of rushing into an ill-advised adventure such as the Iraq invasion(dream on, the draft is not going to be reinstated). Bacevich instead offers four different lessons: war is unpredictable, the uses of military force are limited, the folly of preventive war, and stop mistaking ideology for strategy. "America doesn't need a bigger army. It needs a smaller... foreign policy... Modesty implies giving up on the illusions of grandeur to which the end of the Cold war and then 9/11 gave rise. It also means reining in the imperial presidents who expect the army to make good on those illusions." As alternatives, Bacevich recommends better energy policies, containment of radical Islam and the abolition of nuclear weapons.
The key to the importance of Bacevich lies in his ability to forcefully confront reigning cliches about the virtues and magnitude of American power (cliches one is as likely to find in the works of liberal Samantha Power as in those of neoconservative Max Boot) without employing the self-isolating language of the far left. His work does have limits. One is the morality play around energy consumption, which becomes a stand-in for the ways America lives beyond its means. But that tendency has lately manifested itself most vividly in the crisis of debt. Just after the declaration of the Carter doctrine, the US became a debtor nation, jettisoned most of its industries to far away lands in favor of imports, and has never looked back, although in the next five years, it may have to. One might look a little closer at this pattern, and what classes have benefited from it, and how it relates to the trajectory of American power. It might also be useful to look at the shifting world terrain the US is operating on--most notably, Europe and East Asia have progressively gotten stronger economically, while the US has turned more and more to military force--to shed light on US power and its limits. Still, I suppose keeping a book short and readable means focusing on some things and not others. I hope (as does Bacevich, judging from writings since the publication of this book) that the 'change' Obama seeks to bring about includes developing a foreign policy based on a much more realistic appraisal of the US' position in the world and its actual capacities. But I wouldn't count on it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Make it a requirement
Comment: Please read this book before it is too late. It is our duty to educate ourselves, don't miss this one.
Summary: A watered-down wakeup call
Comment: Bacevich uses history from primarily the last half-century to point out the flaws with the way our country has been operating.
I applaud the effort, and understand these short books are more of a motivational device for readers. As such, I feel the book serves its purpose. I wish, however, that Mr Bacevich would have chosen to dig beneath the veneer of events as presented by the mainstream media.
On one hand, he questions the handling of many popular events, but never the reporting of said event. It left me with the same bad taste the 7:00 news would. I guess my only point is that if you can't trust the leadership to accurately inform you of their decisions after an event, how can you trust them to accurately report on the event itself?
With the exception of a brief discussion of fact manipulation prior to the invasion of Iraq, Bacevich has left most of the truths "in the closet" - perhaps to not be labelled as a conspiracy theorist? Anyway, the book is still a good wakup call attempt, focusing more on military actions as opposed to something like The Revolution: A Manifesto which focuses more on the political side.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The decline of America has been predicted many times before.
Comment: First it was communism and Sputnik. Remember? America was never going to be a great power again. Then it was Korea and Viet Nam. And America was never going to be a great power again. Remember? Then it was the Japanese industrial revolution and we could not make anything anymore, and, of course, America was never going to be a great power again. *sigh* It get's kind of old does it not?
Reality: At the dawn of the 21st century, there are no genuine competitors to the title of "super power." France, hardly a true ally, even calls the United States a "Hyper Power," (to their great dismay). Most nations have dismantled their militaries with the exception of Great Britain. Canada is a laughing stock. France and Germany can barely meet their UN peacekeeping duties. All of Europe together could not solve the unrest in the Balkan wars, and needed American assitance.
Economy? We have the highest per capita production of any nation (Opps...someone forgot to tell you that). Our GDP is greater than all of Europe combined. We are far and away the wealthies nation on earth. Even in Iraq, the tide has turned in our favor (you know that because you don't see it on the news anymore. What happened to the nightly coverage?)
Sadly, there are always ready and anxious readers who slather at the possibility of America's downfall. Remember the book "The Decline and Fall of Great Powers?" About 20 years ago, and the author, John Kennedy (no relation to any political figure), had a great following! Surely America was done for! Many slathered and hoped, but it was not to be. One has to sense the disappointment. What a shame!
And here we go again. *yawn* What these anti-Americans never get right is that America is the most adaptable country in the world. We re-invent ourselves routinely because we are free to do so. As long as America is free, our people (not the government) will adapt to new realities faster than any other country in the world.
PS: Someone should tell all the immigrants from all over the world that we are near collapse. They still seem to be under the delusion that America is the last best hope.
Joseph M. Vottis
Customer Rating:
Summary: Limits of Power - PVM Review
Comment: As a Historian and expert of International Relations, I found Andy Bacevich's book, The Limits of Power, to be very much on target with informative and insightful perspectives on current political and military policies, and how Presidential administrations have more liberally interpreted our Constitution to satisfy and justify their assertive foreign policy agendas to promote the U.S. agenda.
Also, the author's views of how the U.S. has shifted from a nation of producers to one of conspicuous consumption, which has been a major contributing factor in our current economic demise, were quite interesting.
Overall, this is an excellent book, easy read, and written in a very unbiased manner. I highly recommend it regardless of your views.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A book every American should read--just like Bacevich's other books
Comment: Although he always describes himself as a conservative, and his authorial voice is tempered, even gentle, over the last decade Andrew Bacevich has emerged as one of the most forceful critics of American foreign policy. This isn't entirely surprising. There are many American traditions--hostility to standing armies and foreign entanglements, for starters--that should make conservatives recoil from the ceaseless drumbeat to increase the Pentagon's budget and identify more 'rogue states' whose existence allegedly threatens all Americans' freedom (of course, among those who monopolize the debate in the traditional media and the political world, conservatives tend to be even more gung ho about war than liberals). Bacevich's point--that, although the Bush administration undoubtedly made things worse, American foreign policy has been on the wrong track for decades, shaped by elite habits of thought and practice and tacit approval by the larger population--is one that those on the left can basically agree with. Bacevich, however, makes his case without the self-righteousness and pedantry that often make the most prominent left voices tiresome and self-ghettoizing.
Although The Limits of Power is his briefest book (only 182 pages)he makes a number of important points. Bacevich roots today's debacles in the Middle East in the failure of Americans to accept Jimmy Carter's critique of the direction of the country in his speech of July 1979 (the 'malaise' speech). Rather than taking to heart the message that the US should learn to live within its means, regarding energy, the US instead demanded that a way be found to continue on without sacrifices. And so Carter was forced to reverse himself and declare that the Persian Gulf was vital to US interests, and this has been the context in which everything since has unfolded. In the second chapter, Bacevich discusses the ideology of national security, and its four main convictions: that history is an epic struggle between right and wrong, that the United States embodies freedom, that the US ensures freedom's ultimate triumph, and finally, (and I think most significantly) "for the American way of life to endure, freedom must prevail everywhere". These convictions undergird all public debate and the actions of presidents. They also define the huge bureaucracies that have grown up around the cause of 'national security' (the Pentagon, the State Department, CIA, etc). He portrays these bureaucracies as addled and ineffectual at guiding presidents; but the handful of loyalists they often rely on as an alternative prove no better. Various groupings of 'Wise Men' over the last fifty years have constantly overestimated the threats arrayed against the US and the need for military action. The military--at least its top officers--fair no better in Bacevich's handling. Although commanders like Schwartkopf, Clark, Franks, and most recently Petraus are often deified as exemplars of public service and super-competent, in Bacevich's view they are short sited, unable to grasp that the consequences of military action range far beyond the battlefied. Hence, 'trusting the generals' is NOT one of the lessons to be drawn from the Iraq debacle. Bacevich also deflates two other false lessons--that the US must now focus on how to win 'small wars' (why not change the policies that lead to such wars?) and that a return to the draft might reduce the possibility of rushing into an ill-advised adventure such as the Iraq invasion(dream on, the draft is not going to be reinstated). Bacevich instead offers four different lessons: war is unpredictable, the uses of military force are limited, the folly of preventive war, and stop mistaking ideology for strategy. "America doesn't need a bigger army. It needs a smaller... foreign policy... Modesty implies giving up on the illusions of grandeur to which the end of the Cold war and then 9/11 gave rise. It also means reining in the imperial presidents who expect the army to make good on those illusions." As alternatives, Bacevich recommends better energy policies, containment of radical Islam and the abolition of nuclear weapons.
The key to the importance of Bacevich lies in his ability to forcefully confront reigning cliches about the virtues and magnitude of American power (cliches one is as likely to find in the works of liberal Samantha Power as in those of neoconservative Max Boot) without employing the self-isolating language of the far left. His work does have limits. One is the morality play around energy consumption, which becomes a stand-in for the ways America lives beyond its means. But that tendency has lately manifested itself most vividly in the crisis of debt. Just after the declaration of the Carter doctrine, the US became a debtor nation, jettisoned most of its industries to far away lands in favor of imports, and has never looked back, although in the next five years, it may have to. One might look a little closer at this pattern, and what classes have benefited from it, and how it relates to the trajectory of American power. It might also be useful to look at the shifting world terrain the US is operating on--most notably, Europe and East Asia have progressively gotten stronger economically, while the US has turned more and more to military force--to shed light on US power and its limits. Still, I suppose keeping a book short and readable means focusing on some things and not others. I hope (as does Bacevich, judging from writings since the publication of this book) that the 'change' Obama seeks to bring about includes developing a foreign policy based on a much more realistic appraisal of the US' position in the world and its actual capacities. But I wouldn't count on it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Make it a requirement
Comment: Please read this book before it is too late. It is our duty to educate ourselves, don't miss this one.