Rating: 
Summary: The Second Best and a Few Footcandles Short of Brightest
Review: In his definitive exploration of U.S. foreign policy during the Vietnam War in "The Best and the Brightest" thirty years ago, David Halberstam meticulously crafted an "inside-out" journalistic analysis of why things went so wrong. By focusing on the personae first, he wove a picture of well-meaning and idealistic characters flawed by arrogance, political expediency, deception and sometimes timidity. Mix with this some serious miscalculations, and the result was a disasterous foreign policy in Vietnam.Halberstam applies the same formula in "War in a Time of Peace." But the question is not so much "Where did we go wrong?" but "What the [heck] are we trying to do?" Halberstam covers the tail end of the Bush I administration and the eight-year Clinton administration, trying to discern a coherent post-Cold War foreign policy. What he finds is a policy of no policy, severe approach-avoidance dilemmas, and an apparent desire for neo-isolationism. But our globalized small world has a funny way of intruding with not just big wars but every little Sadam, Slobo and Aidid dispute. During the period covered by Halberstam, after Kuwait, came Haiti and Somalia and Bosnia and Kosovo. With the same "inside-out" perspective, Halberstam gives us knowlegeable vignettes of the main players, only this time he does not find idealists, instead he finds wafflers. The politicians, driven by polls showing little public appetite for battles, seek ways to sound tough but in fact to back away. The military, fearful of another Vietnam-like war of half-measures, trade commitments for high-tech and hand's-off warfare. Those who advocated deeper commitments (such as Albright, who had a personal affinity with the Balkans, and Lake) were either left out of the inner circle or came up short in the endless turf battles. In the end Halberstam does not answer the question. Perhaps there is none. Foreign policy after the Cold War appears to be one of ambivalence, possibly a quintessential foreign policy for the "Me Generation." Like the Vietnam War, the U.S. response these minor post-Cold War flare-ups was driven as much by political expediency as by policy, resulting in limited commitments and rapid disengagements... When is the last time you thought about Haiti? But, as we found out on September 11, disengagement and timidity has its consequences. For better or worse, the U.S. now appears to be formulating a post-Cold War foreign policy... I hope that Halberstam will be around to chronicle it in as erudite a fashion as he has so far. Time will only improve this book, as I suspect that we are only now reaping the consequences of our inability to answer the post-Cold War foreign policy question of "What the [heck] are we trying to do?" It will be worth reviewing again and again.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Journalism So So History
Review: Halberstam's first book on political history in some time reads more like an extended piece from the Washington Post than a serious work of history. The book is essentially a chronicle of American Foreign Policy in the 90's beginning with the Gulf War and culminating in the Kosovo campaign. Halberstam's great strentgh is his remarkable ability, through extensive interviews, to bring to life, individuals who the public largely knows through dry news stories, if at all. Thus, we learn all we are ever likely to about such figures as Richard Holbrooke, Anthony Lake, Madeline Albright, James Baker and many others. What this book is really a history of is not American foreign policy in the 90's but the American foreign policy (and defense) establishment in the 90's. We learn how the personalities of the two presidents, Bush and Clinton and the men and women with whom they surrounded themselves, shaped American policy. What is clear is that Halberstam has an outsiders contempt for the Clinton people in particular. What I liked about the book is its readability and its newsworthiness. Halberstam is great at imparting little known facts. What the book lacks is any real broader perspective or conclusion. What does Halberstam think are the consequences of the Clinton timidity? What alternatives does he favor? What do the Clinton successes and failures say about the nature of power and politics in the 90's? These are some of the questions which are never answered and ultimately this book left me hungering for more. By comparison, with an historian like Paul Johnson (Modern Times), you may not agree with him but no one would ever say he lacks a grand perspective.
Rating:
Summary: U.S. foreign policy (or the lack thereof) after the Cold War
Review: "War in a Time of Peace" is an excellent, detailed, "bottom-up" account of U.S. foreign policy (or, more frequently, the absence of one) since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. As the Pulitzer-prize-winning author, David Halberstam, depicts in his latest book, the end of the 40+ year Cold War led not to a new commitment to internationalism, to responsibility as the sole world superpower still standing, to enlightened engagement with the rest of the world, but instead to quasi-isolationism (the standard American instinct at the end of just about every war it has ever fought), a shirking of responsibility, and a lack of coherent foreign policy vision, both under the first President Bush as well as under President Clinton. The combination of a general cluelessness and lack of concern by most Americans about foreign events, an obsession with domestic trivialities and distractions (i.e., OJ Simpson, Monica Lewinsky) the rise of TV "news" (using the term extremely loosely), and the steep decline in coverage of foreign events, except in the rare case when the pictures were so dramatic they just had to be shown, ultimately resulted in tragic consequences -- for the Somalis, the Bosnians, the Rwandans, the Afghans, and (as the events of 9/11 may indicate) even the United States itself. As military historian Robert Kagan said, "if you are the president of the United States, you do not find trouble, trouble finds you." "War in a Time of Peace" is largely the story of how trouble has found every occupant of the Oval Office during the 1990s (and now the 2000s), and also how sticking your head in the sand accomplishes nothing but leaving a certain part of your anatomy exposed (and vulnerable). Given the lack of an overarching foreign policy paradigm to replace the Cold War, Halberstam focuses heavily on how personalities and domestic political considerations played the most important role in US involvement (or lack thereof) overseas during the 1990s. Halberstam continually emphasizes the importance of personalty, character, experience, and ability over the "forces of history" or even ideology. By Halberstam's standards, Richard Holbrooke comes off well, Madeleine Albright pretty badly, and Bill Clinton as a huge disappointment in the end. The first President Bush comes off as an extremely capable, decent man, but one strangely reluctant to take credit for his accomplishments, and also not a natural politician in our mass media/TV age. Ultimately, Bush couldn't get himself to believe that Americans would, in the end, really reject him, with his accomplishments and integrity, especially on foreign policy, for someone like Bill Clinton - a small-time governor with nothing like Bush's resume. But, the first President Bush was never trusted by the right wing of his party, and didn't help matters by breaking his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge. Then, he allowed Pat Buchanan to dominate the 1992 Republican convention with a speech that, Halberstam points out, was one of the ugliest ever delivered at a national political convention ("better in its original German," as the joke goes). And, he underestimated Clinton's "I feel your pain" appeal to the America of Oprah Winfrey and Geraldo Rivera. Another theme running through Halberstam's book is that perceived "disasters" of the past - Vietnam, Somalia (or as Richard Holbrooke calls it, "Vietmalia") - can often lead to inaction and even disaster - Bosnia, Rwanda - in the present. Drawing the wrong lessons from past experiences, or fighting the last war, or adapting too slowly to changes in technology (i.e., "smart bombs," "stealth" aircraft) are eternal problems, as Halberstam illustrates over and over again. And the constant concern with the latest poll ratings doesn't help matters either. One telling example is Bill Clinton, following the fall of Srebrenica and the massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs - as bad as World War II, President Chirac of France put it - flying into a rage, NOT over the horrible events themselves, but because "I'm getting creamed" politically! Overall, "War in a Time of Peace" is an excellent book, whose main flaws are: 1) it's too focused on personality; 2) it's too long and can get repetitive at times; and, more importantly, 3) it doesn't provide enough of an intellectual framework, or a more "macro" perspective, to put into context the post-Cold-War world, and the attempt to build a "new world order." Still, this is an excellent, fascinating book, and is highly relevant if for no other reason than it provides insight into some of the main players in the current Bush administration as, since 9/11, they confront the greatest international relations challenge of their lives. Let's just hope that, at the least, the top players in the Bush foreign policy team don't -- as many have done before them -- draw the wrong lessons from history.
Rating: 
Summary: Bush, Clinton, some new light.
Review: David has always been a information digger like no other author I've known. But what he brings to light is pertinent info that does explain current situations very convincingly. This book does that. The Bush Administration is cut short however the info brought to light is sufficient. There is a air to this book that wishes to discover our current situation in total from these past two presidents, but David goes deeper here and there. I say yes read the book, it is a valuable piece you won't be able to get anywhere else.
This time of a war in a time of peace is better explained to me in another book I have to recommend. A paper back that not only predicted the terrorist attacks, the bio attacks, that we would be forced into a much stricter way of living, but goes into the details of why much more convincing. SB 1 or God By Karl Mark Maddox.
Rating:
Summary: Good But...
Review: Halberstam, as ever, writes so well...I am jealous. However, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed in this book. While it serves as a good overview of Clinton's foreign policy, it skimps on the first Bush Administration First, the Persian Gulf War barely gets 20 pages, and it is almost all seen through the lens of the Air Force Colonel (John Warden) who planned the innovative air campaign. This is not really new or scandalous - Gordon and Traynor covered this in "The General's War" and you can find it in other sources. The only other mention you get is how tired Bush was from the Gulf War, and how it prevented him from tackling the Bosnia problem. Overall, Considering the subtitle is "Bush, Clinton and the Generals" Bush gets shorted. Second, while the portraits of the personalities are vivid, there just isn't anything really new or insightful here. Indeed, there were many vignettes where I felt like I had read this somewhere before. Bob Woodward's "The Commanders" is still the definitive Gulf War decision-making work, Elizabeth Drew's "On the Edge" covers Clinton's decision making shortcomings, Ivo Daalder's "Getting to Dayton" covers Bosnia u1p to 1995; Daalder and O'Hanlon's "Winning Ugly" has everything about Kosovo. As a student of international relations, my standards are a little higher. This book is useful to the extent it consolidates a lot of existing work, but it falls just a little short of being really deep or groundbreaking. Not even close to "Best and the Brightest."
Rating: 
Summary: Simply poorly researched
Review: How long can Halberstam continue on reputation alone? How can anyone write a book on U.S. foreign policy that has only one non-American interviewed for this topic? I mean, it is supposed to be a book about "foreign" policy so wouldn't you like to know what "foreigners" think of this policy? Ridiculous that this even got past the editors. Stick to Robert Kaplan for any real balanced analysis of the U.S. and its relationship to other nations and cultures around the world. Halberstam has become a total joke in his old age.
Rating:
Summary: The Politics Of Power In Post Cold War America
Review: This is not an easy read, but an essential one. It is a roadmap of domestic and foreign policies and politics from the end of one Bush Administration to the beginning of another. It's content centers on the push and pull of ideologies between the decision makers: those shaped by the horror of Vietnam and the younger or dovish politicians who escaped it; the New Age bureaucrats and the military establishment; the geopolitical isolationists and the internationalists. Halberstam chronicles the election and administration of Clinton. He explains how Clinton was able to bounce back, even from the most salicious of circumstances. He describes the events in the Persian Gulf, Somalia and Haiti. He extensively details the meltdown of Yugoslavia and America's policy or non-policy towards Milosevic and the atrocities he committed. He showed how these events, while not overtly threatening the United States, finally forced The Clinton Administration into the foreign policy arena. His cast of characters is extensive. There are the well known players; Bush Sr., Clinton, Cheney, Powell, Christopher and Albright. However, he includes the lesser known powerbrokers like Larry Eagleburger,Tony Lake, Gen. Wes Clark and Bill Cohen. His insights into their decisions, the interplay between the decision makers thenselves and what shaped them as people are nothing less than profound. In his own words, Halberstam spotlights not only the decisions made during this period but what drove them, the meetings where they were made and the covert signals from the White House and The Pentagon that finally tipped the scales in favor of one ideology over another. I found his commentary on the demise of serious journalism and it's relationship to the end of the Cold War particularly enlightening. The last page of the book was unfortunately prophetic where he speaks of the dangers to an open society like America from terrorism, rather than from a rogue state's military power. Halberstam leaves us at the beginning of January 2001, when the role of the United States in the post Cold War Era was not yet defined and at the doorstep of September 11, 2001.
Rating:
Summary: Waiting for closure
Review: Halberstam's reputation as a top-notch commentator on politicians, the military, and how they interact to produce something called "policy" has often been fascinating and insightful. However, since there was no "policy" from the Clinton administration for the various world crises Halberstam deals with in this book, the author instead concentrates on superficial biographies and thumbnail psychological profiles and makes an heroic attempt to link these sketches to the actions of the principals. I finished reading the book this morning and I came away without a clearer understanding of foreign affairs during the 1990s. Still, Halberstam forces the reader to confront some uncomfortable truths about the American people and their attitudes toward Clinton and his foreign "policy." It's interesting to read about the luminaries of the decision-making process in light of their frequent appearances on TV since September 11. Sandy Berger can not finish a sentence without an "uh" or a stutter these days, whereas Dick Holbrooke seems quite confident in expressing his views. I was a little disappointed to read (if it's true) of Norman Schwarzkopf's having an underling iron his uniform on a flight during the Gulf War - Norm doesn't seem the type, but I could be wrong. Has Halberstam lost his fastball? He seemed much more comfortable in skewering the rich and powerful in his previous works. Who can forget his characterization of CBS chief James Aubrey as "the huckster's huckster"? Perhaps Clinton and his minons are considered excessively easy targets and therefore off limits. Richard Reeves and Tom Hendrickson have the advantage of historical distance in their recent works; I wonder if Halberstam and his readers might have profited from a book on the same subject a few years down the road within the context of the war on terrorism.
Rating:
Summary: The People Behind Decisionmaking
Review: This book supports, in many ways and through numerous examples, the notion that "where you sit is where you stand" - the best example of which being Colin Powell's stark transformation from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the early nineties to Secretary of State under the current Bush administration. Halberstam aptly depicts how individuals, with their own personal or institutional agendas, impact upon ultimate decision-making and how rivalries within an administration will sometimes paralyze the decision-making process. Halberstam tells his story through selected "key" characters, among them Eagleburger, Lake, Christopher, Clark, Cohen and others. Though this makes for interesting storytelling and clarifies matters for the lay person, it also limits the scope of his analysis, as it only represents a tiny fraction of the large mass of people, groups and institutions that have a say in - or some degree of influence upon - the final act of decision-making. Finally, a work like this one should help people realize that states but very rarely represent and broadcast a consolidated, homogeneous policy; instead, decision- and policy-making is an accumulation of contradictory pressures, agendas, ideologies, and objectives, and the biographical manner in which Halberstam presents his selected "key" players leaves no doubt about this phenomenon. Rather than accusing "US" or "Russian" foreign policy, one had better turn his or her attention to the people, the institutions, and the processes which - through sheer weight or concession - determine what policies will be adopted. One truly valuable addition to Halberstam's volume is Richard N. Haass's 'Intervention,' published by Brookings. A combined reading of the two books provides a high-fidelity picture of the issues behind the decision whether to, how to, and when to, use force, or not.
Rating:
Summary: A Failure of the Publishing Industry
Review: Halberstam's reportage is excellent, as usual. But where was the editor of this book? The text not only is repetitive (was it dictated?) but also contains a typo in the first few pages ("flare" for "flair" in my printing). This book retails for almost thirty bucks -- Halberstam and Scribner's should have shelled out the cash for a junior copywriter, at the least. By not doing so, they have shown a shameless disregard for the reader.
|
