Another Century of War?

• Author: Hayes, Michael T.
• Position: Brief Article - Book Review

Another Century of War?

By Gabriel Kolko New York: New Press, 2002. Pp. x, 165. $15.95 paperback.

Gabriel Kolko's Another Century of War? is a sequel to his Century of War: Politics, Conflicts, and Society Since 1914 (New York: New Press, 1994). Kolko's answer to the question posed in the book's title is both pessimistic and compelling: despite the collapse of communism, the world is riskier than ever before, primarily because of "America's capacity and readiness to intervene virtually anywhere" (p. ix).

Kolko advocates a noninterventionist foreign policy, calling on the United States to close its bases overseas, pull back its fleets, and let the rest of the world find its own way (p. 150). With the events of 9/11, asymmetrical war has now come to America's own shores, making recognition of the adverse consequences of chronic U.S. interventionism imperative. Kolko is pessimistic, however, predicting that the United States will prove unable to renounce what he sees as its "vainglorious and irrational ambition to run the world" (p. 150).

Kolko criticizes Americans' faith in the capacity of their military and technological superiority to solve what are really political problems requiring political solutions. Workable political solutions "require another mentality and much more wisdom, including a readiness to compromise and, above all, to stay out of the affairs of other nations. Otherwise, they will not succeed" (p. 140).

In Kolko's view, policymakers have consistently defined U.S. interests and priorities too broadly, failing to set clear priorities or to recognize any limits on U.S. power. For example, the "war on terrorism" represents an open-ended commitment to defeat a phenomenon of the modern age rather than a clearly defined enemy. Unfortunately, the George W. Bush administration is only the most recent one to intervene abroad on behalf of ill-defined U.S. interests. Over the years, our vital interests have been defined to include the maintenance of political and economic "stability" in countries where we have military bases or corporate investments, the prevention of "power vacuums," and the preservation of "credibility" with other nations, leading to a long series of wars and to covert actions in every part of the globe.

Kolko also points to the defense establishment's need for a clear and compelling foreign threat to justify large military outlays. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a desperate search began for a new enemy...