Urquhart, Brian - What You Can Learn From Reinhold Niebuhr

07/10/2009

The New York Review of Books, March 26, 2009

This is a book review of three books, one reprint from Niebuhr 'The Irony of American History', and one from Andrew Bacevich 'The Limits of Power', and finally from James Traub 'The Freedom Agenda'. The reviews are fairly straightforward and largely summarize the main theses. Many of the points are put into the context of being vindicated by the post-Iraq GW Bush presidency.

1. Niebuhr 'The Irony of American History'
This review of a book written in 1952 talks about the US dream of 'managing history' and succumbing to the temptation of applying our socio-polictical concepts across the globe. Niebuhr also talked about the lack of stability of the US economic system and of the 'pretensions of virtue' that blind a nation like the US into seeing world affairs as black-and-white, good-vs-evil. An overarching theme here is the inscrutable nature of world political events and the pathos of such a powerful nation (the US) to attempt to control and mold such events.

2. Bacevich 'Limits of Power'
Bacevich's book carries much of Niebuhr's theme, talking specifically about the grand delusions that the Bush administration had about the military capabilities in Iraq. The review also contains a shortened version of Bacevich's analysis of the decline of US power since the 1950s. In the economic analysis, the US went into importing of much of its needed oil and going from being a creditor to being a debtor. Also since then the US has taken the position that it is in a permanent crisis-- or on the brink of it-- of national security. This has created the strong presidency to ascend over the congress and the permanent militarization of the US. The conclusion? The US doesn't need a bigger army, but a more modest foreign policy.

3. Traub 'The Freedom Agenda'
The review of this book casts it as a practical tome dedicated to posing and working on the tough questions of the US's foreign policy. Again Niebuhr is echoed in the discussion of the failure of Bush's 'Freedom Agenda' of bringing democratic regimes to other lands. The book is full of analysis and critiques of such attempts, e.g. Somalia and Bosnia, and unintended consequences like Hamas' election in the Gaza strip.