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America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order

Name: America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order
Author: Stefan Halper
ISBN: 9780521674607

by Stefan Halper, Jonathan Clarke

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Overview

This book explores how George W. Bush's election, and the fear and confusion of September 11, 2001, combined to allow a small group of radical intellectuals to seize the reins of U.S. national security policy. It shows how, at this "inflection point" in U.S. history, an inexperienced president was persuaded to abandon his campaign pledges and the successful consensus-driven, bipartisan diplomacy that managed the lethal Soviet threat over the past half-century and adopt a neo-conservative foreign policy emphasizing military confrontation and "nation building." To date, the costs - in blood, money and credibility - have been great and the benefits few. Traditional conservatives deplore this approach. This book outlines the costs in terms of economic damage, distortion of priorities, rising anti-Americanism, and reduced security. Then it sets out an alternative approach emphasizing the traditional conservative principles of containing risk, consensus diplomacy, and balance of power.

Synopsis

Examines the neo-conservative movement in the U.S. and discovers cautions against it.

The Washington Post - Stanley I. Kutler

America Alone levels a broad indictment against the Bush administration, which in the name of the war on terror has launched the Iraq war, mounted an assault on personal liberties at home, engaged in a purposeful deceit of the media and the public (both of which suspended any critical judgment) and, above all, has inflicted terrible damage on U.S. moral authority and international legitimacy. The chief culprits for the authors are the neocons, who are depicted as conspirators who hijacked American foreign policy.

About the Author, Stefan Halper

Stefan Halper is a Fellow of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, and a Senior Fellow of the Centre of International Studies, where he directs the Donner Atlantic Studies Programme. He holds a B.A. from Stanford and doctorates from Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He was a White House and State Department official during the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations. For twelve years he was executive editor and host of the weekly radio program This Week from Washington and then was executive editor and host of WorldWise, a weekly television program on foreign affairs. He has made contributions to numerous print media including the American Spectator, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News, The International Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, National Interest, National Review, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Weekly Standard. Dr Halper is senior editor at the Cambridge Review of International Affairs and a Contributing Editor at the American Spectator. He is the co-editor of Latin America: The Dynamics of Social Change.

Jonathan Clarke is a Foreign Affairs Scholar at the CATO Institute in Washington, D.C. He received a B.A. and an M.A. from Oxford University and has also been a Counselor, British Diplomatic Service, with assignments in Germany, Zimbabwe and the United States. He is the author of After the Crusade: American Foreign Policy for the Post-Superpower Age and has made numerous contributions to various forms of print media, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Los Angeles Times, National Interest, Orbis, and the Washington Post.