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Title: Another Century of War? by Gabriel Kolko ISBN: 1-56584-758-X Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Intelligent writing, reasonable analysis
Comment: Kolko gives us a useful perspective on the way the world currently works. Read it and think.
Rating: 5
Summary: " . . . neither realistic nor ethical . . . "
Comment: It's easy to dismiss this book as a "military history." That view is too limited in scope. What Kolko describes is the American propensity use military thinking in the development of that nation's foreign policies. In a tightly written analysis, he shows how the United States is confronting a vast arc - reaching from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia. The inhabitants of that extensive area have been watching the world's sole superpower stumbling about ineptly. He declares American foreign policies in this critical area confused and self-contradictory, based on superficial morality and military adventurism. The roots of their thinking, he contends, is the uneradicable notion held by the American military that technology reduces the duration of wars. No amount of practical experience has been able to dispel that faith.
In Kolko's view, the worst event in American foreign policy history was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the elimination of communism. No matter how badly the United States dealt with the misconceived idea that Moscow dominated the politics of discontent, it was at least a point of focus. With the Cold War over, America is floundering about seeking ways to assert its unilateral power over the same group of nations. After spending enormous sums to shore up Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union, America launched a war to demolish its government. Right next door, Pakistan's resentment of American restoration of the Afghan Alliance and warlord governments is palpable, leaving the current government teetering.
Nor is Pakistan the only internally threatened state in the "arc." Thousands of American troops reside in Saudi Arabia. That nation's internal "containment" policy led it to send hordes of disaffected young men to Afghanistan and funded the Al Queda movement. Now, many of those young men, militarily experienced, have returned or are secluded and training others. Kolko argues this situation has rendered Saudi Arabia vulnerable to an Islamic uprising. Such an event would spread to many places, leaving American military forces isolated and surrounded.
America's interventions in foreign countries, ranging from supplying and training police forces to outright occupations, have been based on the belief that military solutions are quick and final. Kolko demonstrates that fifty years of adventurism have shown they are neither. The wars, such as Viet Nam and Kosovo, have shown them to be neither. The human costs are simply ignored or dismissed by American policy makers. The result is that now the United States has been directly assaulted and will remain a combat zone for years. Clearly, his purpose in writing this book is to alert Americans to their danger. Even if the American voting public forces administrations to abstain from ad hoc interventions in other nations, the time it will take for foreign resentments to subside will be a duration of generations.
However, the start must be made, and made now. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating: 5
Summary: A Much Needed Book
Comment: In these days of flag-waving incoherence and jingoism, it's nice to see a new book from Kolko, especially one written in a succinct style highly-accessible to all. Mr. Quinn's review really covers the work well so I don't have a lot of additional information to add. Kolko's seminal CENTURY OF WAR will offer a great deal of background information, and anyone who thinks Kolko is out of his mind with the assertions he makes in this book should check it out, along with his finest work, POLITICS OF WAR. The latter is by far the best work I have ever read on the formation of postwar U.S. foreign policy, all the more so due to its almost total reliance on primary documents instead of secondary sources, which were practically non-existent at the time (mid 1960's). What's refreshing about ANOTHER CENTURY OF WAR? is its reluctance to pull any punches in the face of 9-11, its refusal to perhaps go a little easy on the architects of U.S. foreign policy and recite the childish idiotic sentiment that those responsible for the tragedy are just "jealous" of the United States. Instead, Kolko pinpoints the active role of the post-WWII West in fostering an atmosphere of instability in the Middle East and its justifications for doing so, not all of which are oil related. The examples are plentiful and the research meticulous. After reading his work, it's a mystery to me why Kolko isn't better known in this country, even among the Left. Perhaps it's because he keeps a relatively low profile and focuses mainly upon war and its impact upon social dynamics.
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Title: Century of War: Politics, Conflicts, and Society Since 1914 by Gabriel Kolko ISBN: 1565841921 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Empire of Capital by Ellen Meiksins Wood ISBN: 1859845029 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World by Immanuel Wallerstein ISBN: 1565847997 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Incoherent Empire by Michael Mann ISBN: 1859845827 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Sorrows of Empire : Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [The American Empire Project ] by Chalmers Johnson ISBN: 0805070044 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 13 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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