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| U.S. National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics
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U.S. National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics U.S. National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics
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 Basic, and with conceptual errors
As fair disclosure, I've only read the first two chapters, although based on that, I wouldn't recommend anyone read anymore. The book seems to be a mix of pabulum and conceptual errors.
For example, in the first paragraph we are told that "the world is characterized by turmoil...." Well, when hasn't it been? We might argue that the rate of change has accelerated in the 20th century or since WWII/the end of the Cold War/Sept 11th, but the world has always been in some turmoil. More importantly, I would argue that the world, or parts of it, are marked by an extraordinary stability--and by "stability" I don't mean a value-laden "peace and prosperity" stability but rather stability in the sense of a physicist or engineer, in that a body returns to equilibrium despite external destabilizing impulses. Take, for example, the Korean peninsula, which has seen the eviction of Japanese imperialists, a superpower proxy war, the emergence of a nuclear China, the ROK economic tiger, Japan rising from the ashes to again become a world power, famine, the death of Kim Il Song--all of that, and yet, the DPRK shows no signs of going anywhere, in every sense of the phrase. There are other sclerotic regimes around the world about which we may gnash our teeth but remain inconveniently, intractably stable--and, happily, there are some stable successes as well--but my point is that to label the world as "in turmoil" tells us less than nothing; it tells us something that is sometimes just wrong.
Later in the chapter, the authors use a graph to depict the range of US policy options as arrayed against national interests. "National interests" themselves are broken down into ill defined categories of "first order/core," "second order/contiguous," and "third order/outer areas" (that is defined as "issues that do not critically affect first and second order interests yet cast some shadow over such interests.") According to the graph, the "scope of strategic options" is most restricted for first order interests and broadest for third order interests. Huh? If first order is "protection of the homeland and areas and issues directly affecting this interest" then isn't the scope of options quite broad? The full range of our military, diplomatic, and soft power? Isn't every option--including nukes--on the table? Conversely, for those third order issues--say, a humanitarian mission to Somalia in the early 1990s--isn't the scope of our options really quite narrow? We were clearly willing to commit only a fraction of our military power (and "commit" is probably far too strong a word). What diplomatic or economic levers did we have over Somalia? What could we expect--or extract--from our allies? Almost nothing, I would argue--it's precisely those third order, non-vital interests where our options are most restricted, if only because our resources are finite.
As another head scratcher, we are told that foreign policy is "the policy of a nation that encompasses all official relations with other countries." Well, what about non-state actors, such as the UN, the IAEA, the International Red Cross, Hamas, or Al Qa'ida? Isn't that foreign policy?
I will, however, wholeheartedly agree with half of the other reviewer's comment: it is a book used to teach intermediate grade US Air Force officers at the Air Command and Staff College.
Fecha: 2006-10-31
 U.S. National Security
A bit dry, this book is used to teach intermediate level officers at the USAF Air Command and Staff College the "big picture" regarding U.S. National Security. It is informative, timely, and gives a very good picture of how U.S. National Security is developed and applied.
Fecha: 2001-01-14
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