Recommended Reading: Magic and Mayhem

The Delusions of American Foreign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan gets released today.  Get it on Amazon.

Derek is a friend and mentor to both Russ and I.  We took his seminar "The Price of U.S. Global Engagement" during undergrad which focused on foreign policy from the Cold War to the present.  Magic and Mayhem showcases the enduring illusions that have beset U.S. foreign policy since the beginning of the Cold War. 

The basic theme of the book is that far too often U.S. foreign policymakers are prone to what Leebaert calls "magical thinking."  He calls it "magical" because "shrewd, levelheaded people are so frequently bewitched into substituting passion, sloganeering, and haste for reflection, homework, and reasonable objectives."  At its core, the book seeks to answer how and why, time and again, the U.S. "stumbles" in foreign policy - Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and countless other dark corners of the globe.  Why does the U.S. continually act on these "vexing compulsions" that generally turn sour?

In the introduction, Leebaert highlights "six compelling illusions that typically are in play when the country lunges in dangerous directions that it never intended to go."  

1. "A sensation of urgency and 'crisis' that accompanies the belief that most any resolute action is superior to restraint."

2. "The faith that American-style business management... can fix any global problem given enough time, resources, and appropriately 'can-do,' businesslike zeal."

3. "A distinctively American desire to fall in behind celebrities, stars, and peddlers of some newly distilled expertise who, in foreign affairs especially, seem to glow with wizardry - and whom we turn to for guidance while believing, for a fatefully long moment, that they only have to wave their wands for success to fall from the sky."

4. "An expectation of wondrous returns on investment, even when this is based on intellectual shortcuts."

5. "Conjuring powerful, but simplified, images from the depths of 'history' to rationalize huge and amorphously expanding objectives"

6. "The repeated belief that America can shape the destiny of other countries overnight and that the hearts and minds of distant people are throbbing to be transformed into something akin to the way we see ourselves."

Leebaert's class and his previous books, "The Fifty-Year Wound" and "To Dare and To Conquer," are highly influential for the Insurgent Consciousness team.  Magic and Mayhem will not disappoint.

- Andrew

Comments

[Alex @ I-Con]

Looks excellent, I'll have to pick it up soon. Number 4 is interesting, especially if you use the terms investment and return loosely. The Gulf War can be characterized this way- compared to the Iraq War, it was a wonderful return on investments in every sense, but our expectation for more of the same was based on a major intellectual shortcut. The Iraq War has different goals, and must take into account counterinsurgency and increased destabilization in the region.

Alternative energy and increased regional and cultural awareness (InfAc Superiority) also come to mind.