A Revisionist View of U.S. National Security Policy.

AuthorCotter, Michael W.
PositionBook review

Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Rules: America's Path To Permanent War, N.Y, N.Y.: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-9141-0 2010. 250pp., $25.00

Many students of international relations, this reviewer included, held high hopes in 1990 that the end of the Cold War offered a real opportunity to reset the global political picture and to re-evaluate the role of the United States in the process. Those hopes were frustrated, first by the so-called "peace dividend," which forced President Clinton to reduce significantly the U.S. diplomatic establishment as well as the armed forces; and then by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which thrust the country back onto a war footing.

Now the death of Osama bin Laden has encouraged some commentators to suggest that the war on terror should no longer be the primary driver of U.S. national security policy. Andrew Bacevich's outstanding analysis of the origins and current state of those policies, almost a year old by now, would provide an outstanding basis on which to begin a renewed dialogue on changing the direction of U.S. policy.

Bacevich is well qualified to initiate such a dialogue. The retired U.S. Army officer is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University who has written previous books on U.S. military power and its limits. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has written for the major newspapers and international relations journals.

Don't be confused by the title. Washington Rules means the rules by which U.S. national security policy has developed since 1945. After World War II, Bacevich argues, a consensus was formed that has directed that policy ever since. He identifies four elements of that consensus: 1) "that the world must be organized (or shaped) ..." lest chaos reign; 2) "that only the U.S. has the capacity to prescribe and enforce such a global order;" 3) that "America's writ includes the charge of articulating the principles that should define the international order" and 4) that everyone except for a few "rogues and recalcitrant[s]" accepts this reality. He goes on to explain how this consensus has permeated the foreign policy and defense establishments, the Congress, and the public perceptions over succeeding decades, and how it has led to the rise of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about.

That consensus has defined how Washington has chosen to deal with successive challenges to its dominance ever...

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