Hal Brands, Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post‐Cold War Order (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016 ). 362 pp. $29.95 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781501702723. Jeffrey A. Engel, When the World Seemed New: George Bush and the End of the Cold War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017 ). 484 pp. $35.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 9780547423067

• Published date: 01 July 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12962
• Date: 01 July 2018

652 Public Administration Review • July | A ugus t 201 8

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 4, pp. 652–655. © 2018 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12962.

Can statecraft be managed? Or are nations

simply at the mercy of world events in

faraway places? That is the essential question

of two new books exploring the post–World War II

bi-polar period of the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet

Union, and the rise of the United States as the single

hegemonic power in a unipolar world.

Statecraft, as addressed in these books, can be

construed as those sets of strategies, policies, and

actions taken in foreign affairs to achieve results

favorable to the state. This definition implies an active

component in the practice of statecraft, employing

some or all of a full range of diplomatic, economic,

social, and military activities. Thatcher (2002)

distinguishes between statecraft and statesmanship:

“Statecraft and statesmanship are, according to the

dictionary definition interchangeable. But the former

has a more practical ring to it, emphasizing activity

rather than rhetoric, strategy not just diplomacy.

All too often, statesmanship turns out simply to be

political action of which we politicians approve—

frequently our own” (xvii). Both Brands and Engel

seem persuaded by this definition—that the foreign

affairs of the United States during the Cold War

were actively managed to achieve foreign policy goals

advantageous to the United States. Though, as we

shall learn, often in response to world events, not

without limitations and certainly with countervailing

pressures from other nations. As statecraft is again an

important consideration for American policy makers,

it is instructive to look again at the crucial Cold War

period of active American statecraft.

Both books are about the statecraft of the United

States, focus most directly on the demise of the Soviet

Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the ultimate

role of President George H. W. Bush (“Bush-41”)

in shaping the post–Cold War era. To one of his

biographers, the personal historical irony is irresistible:

“The Cold War was taking shape in Bush’s New

Haven years but he declined to be drawn into contests

or contentions other than those on the baseball

diamond. […] ‘I wasn’t politically involved. Most of

the other veterans felt the same’” (Greene 2000, 73).

The Cold War period can be defined generally as

that time from somewhere around the Potsdam

Conference in August, 1945 or perhaps mid-1946

with Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech, to the fall of

the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, or perhaps

the end of the Soviet Union in December, 1991.

Statecraft, during this period was defined largely by

the bi-polar competition between two seemingly peer

competitors: United States and the Soviet Union. This

competition was diplomatic, military, and economic

as each sought strategic spheres of influence around

the globe. Military alliances, the North Atlantic Treaty

Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact, emerged;

diplomatic divisions characterized the United Nations;

proxy wars were fought; and competition between

capitalist and socialist economic systems prevailed.

The end of the Cold War was celebrated by many

as a victory for the West and the triumph of liberal

democracy. Fukuyama (1989, 1) famously argued

“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of

the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of

postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is,

the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and

the universalization of Western liberal democracy as

the final form of human government.” And so it must

have appeared then.

The immediate post–Cold War period, can similarly

be delineated from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the

beginnings of the first Gulf War in 1990. Throughout

this period American statecraft by the administration

Reviewed by: Douglas A. Brook

Duke University

Hal Brands, Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and

the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University

Press, 2016 ). 362 pp. $29.95 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781501702723.

Jeffrey A. Engel, When the World Seemed New: George Bush and the

End of the Cold War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017 ).

484 pp. $35.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 9780547423067

Douglas A. Brook is visiting professor

in the Sanford School of Public Policy at

Duke University and emeritus professor

of public policy at the Naval Postgraduate

School.

E-mail: doug.brook@duke.edu