America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy.

• Author: Bullington, J.R.

Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy, Basic Books, 2008, pp 291, $27.50

Bitter, partisan rancor has characterized most discussion of foreign policy in America in recent years. This is a long tradition that has waxed and waned in intensity, depending on the perceived success or lack thereof of the country's involvement in international affairs, since the founding of the Republic. When this rancor runs high, it encourages our enemies, confuses our friends, and makes difficult the formulation and execution of any coherent U.S. foreign policy.

But there is another tradition as well, involving agreement on broad principles--the Monroe Doctrine, the containment policy of the Cold War--as well as restraint in name-calling and judging motivations--dissent is not termed un-American and intelligence mistakes are not called lies--combined with a vigorous bipartisanship that actively seeks consensus. When this tradition is ascendant, as it was, for example, in the 1940s, American foreign policy tends to be more successful than when it is not, for example, in the Vietnam era and since 2003.

This book, as defined in its introduction, is "an experiment to see if a prominent Democrat and a prominent Republican--speaking only for themselves and not for or against either party--could find common ground for a new start in foreign policy." The experiment succeeded, and it produced what its dust jacket blurb correctly calls "a deeply informed and provocative book that defines the center of responsible opinion on American foreign policy."

The book consists of a series of discussions during the spring of 2008 between Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter, and Brent Scowcroft, who held the same position under Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, moderated by David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist and former Executive Editor of the International Herald Tribune.

Brzezinski and Scowcroft might be considered foreign policy realists, in that they tend to begin with consideration of the national interest. But they both resist categorization as realists or idealists, agreeing that U.S. policy must strike a balance between the extremes of either school, combining power with principle, acknowledging limitations, and recognizing that everything can't be done at once.

They agree that the next president should stress bipartisanship in his foreign policy.

Here are some...