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Summary: Inattention to Foreign Policy Can Equal Big Problems
Review: This is an excellent behind the scenes look at the processes, and lack there of, that took America through three post-Cold War "Teacup" wars: Mogadishu, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Halberstam shows that, while George Bush did well overseeing the end of the Cold War, his administration was not prepared for the tribal/ethnic upheavals that followed near the end of his term. More significantly, the author demonstrates that Clinton remained behind the power curve in this arena throughout most of his presidency.With Clinton focused on his domestic agenda, his administration was divided among themselves regrading policy in East Africa and the Balkans, the president did not take charge, and the pentagon opposed the administration and, at times, its own field commander. Halberstam's review reminds us how NOT to run wars, and that, regardless of how much an American chief executive wants to concentrate on domestic matters, foreign policy will pull him in. A U.S. president ignors the affairs of the world at his own political peril, and often at the world's real peril. After all, as the Slovenian foreign minister once said, "...the political will of the free world begins and ends in the oval office."
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Summary: Riveting! A Must read!
Review: Riveting account of the last decade or so of US foreign policy. The straight ahead account of the events is interesting, but the behind the scenes profiles on the players is what made this book great for me. The personalities, politics, hidden agenda and faults of the players are brought to life and really illustrate how foreign policy decision, even in the best if circumstances, are multi faceted beasts. Amazing the we ever get anything right and this books shows how many times we have gotten it wrong.
Definately a must read for any history or foreign policy buffs.
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Summary: he still sets the standard for in-depth journalism
Review: This book is Halberstam's study of leadership failure: in the Post-Cold War world older, he argues, Bush and then Clinton did not want to pay attention to the disintegration of Yugoslavia until it reached murderous proportions; instead they let the overly confident Europeans of the early 1990s dawdle. According to Halberstam, not only were there new (untested, i.e. risky) technologies available ' precision bombs and the B-2 stealth aircraft that could quickly take out the infrastructure with virtually no collateral civilian damage ' but there was a new crop of remarkable young leaders who were willing, indeed who felt personally compelled, to take the task on and were not allowed to do so. Furthermore, the author claims, there was a crusty layer of (often mediocre) leadership below Bush and Clinton, who were wary of entering a new Vietnam (or Somalia), throwing up political barriers and misleading them as to America's strengths.
I was astonished at Halberstam's descriptions of the technological advances that had taken place and how Pentagon doctrine had tended to lag far behind: we can, he says, now deliver powerful explosive devices within a few feet (!) of their targets, a gain in accuracy over earlier bombs that surpasses several orders of magnitude. After many doubts and false claims, apparently we are entering the era of 'smart bombs' and Halberstam dissects the debates they engender at the top levels of the military. This is very powerful stuff and will change our lives. According to Halberstam, the younger leaders, in particular the diplomat Richard Holbrooke and the army commander Wes Clark, had unusual skills and phenomenal brainpower. They were interesting and very difficult characters ' Holbrooke an arrogant, pushy type with too many enemies and Clarke your prototypical Rhodes Scholar super-preppie ' who in the end were able to accomplish a great deal, though only after the political fallout of the disaster had become so great that Clinton finally recognized the necessity of action. As they pursued their policies, both of them set fundamentally important precedents: Holbrooke helped to expand the role of the US beyond the Weinberger doctrine, according to which only vital threats to the US alone called for serious diplomatico-military commitments; he also negotiated the Dayton accords and helped to bring Milosevic down after the Kosovo bombing destroyed his political base in Serbia. Under extremely challenging political pressures, Halberstam writes, Clarke's operation was a turning point in the history of warfare, that is, a victory with airpower alone, which ranks with the introduction of tank warfare as a revolution in military strategy. Clarke and Holbrooke changed forever the way the US could wage war as well as demonstrated what types of diplomacy were possible. As Halberstam points out a bit pedantically, lessons would include: lack of clear leadership can hinder talented teams from coming together. Not only are goals undefined, but people cannot gain the mandate and clout to oppose the hidebound bureaucrats who failed to recognize radically changed conditions in the Post Cold War era. However, Halberstam relates, once Clinton paid attention and accepted the risks involved as unavoidable, Holbrooke, Clarke and others were allowed to do their thing with extraordinary results. After it was all over, the author notes, bitter Pentagon bureaucrats took their revenge on Clark, getting him fired by subterfuge and ending a remarkable career prematurely. Halberstam goes into fascinating detail on the politics and clashing cultures of the US military and civilian leaders, both of whom regard eachother warily for many legitimate reasons. Halberstam also goes into great detail about the situations in Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Haiti. While I had seen the breakup of Yugoslavia as inevitable and full of such deep hatreds that none of the actors came out clean, Halberstam argues that the Serbians were indeed the worst aggressors and needed to be stopped before perpetrating the worst genocide in Europe since WWII. Here, the reader is treated to the depth of his moral qualms as well as his penetrating questions about what America should do with its preeminent power. This is not a simple repeat of his Vietnam questions on the inevitability of local revolution, but a far more mature look at a different world, in which the US is the undisputed superpower yet reluctant to use its might. It leaves readers with many questions to resolve on their own, which is one of the most fruitful things that a great political book can accomplish. One of the marvels of Halberstam's reporting talent is that the reader sees policymakers and warriors as real people who are making decisions as best they can and within the limits of their education and outlook. It is too easy for us to ignore that there are many possible courses of action and many ways that things can turn out. As a close reader of the political scene, Halberstam's view is consistently trustworthy in my opinion. He seems to me to have a perfect pitch regarding politics, at least in the many areas I followed closely: I found myself agreeing with his slant on things and hence believing him when he reported on the things I knew less about. It is an ideal book to start a debate rather than the simplistic ideological diatribes that we have come to expect from the so-called pundits. While this book does not develop the narrative momentum and eloquence that Best and the Brightest does, the author still sets the highest standard for political reporting, an example to which all writers should aspire. He is, simply, one of the best. A must-read for anyone interested in foreign policy.
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Summary: The Best
Review: The book excels at everything it attempts. Halberstam guides the reader through complex changes in the American mood that created vastly different political identities. I was generally familiar with the material, but his approach to explaining the background--of both the decision makers and the larger American or Serbian environment in which they worked--of each major conflict was superb. Horray for Halberstam!
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Summary: Halberstam Doesn't Disappoint
Review: Great book - accessible and interesting; a modern-day "Best and Brightest"
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Summary: Catch up on post-Cold War politics
Review: Great, well written and interesting book. It's fairly easy to read, because Halberstam interjects the discussions on hard politics with lighter stories, anecdotes, and personality descriptions of the key players. I found it a great way to catch up on what I did not know about our politics and foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. Halberstam should have covered some things (e.g. Gulf War) a bit more thouroughly, but overall I was very satisfied.
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Summary: sometimes harrowing history of recent times
Review: I have often wondered what it was like to see the rise of Hitler. I see many similar themes in the rise of Milosevic. His use of ethnic hatred, the concentration camps and eventually the killings on a mass scale. Yet despite the mounting evidence, you can see from Halberstam's book, the extraordinary lengths that Europe and the United States went to in order not to do anything. Beginning with the toothless UN involvement through to the limited bombing of the Kosovo campaign. You get the impression that Milosevic was brought down by good luck rather than good management. The sections on the invasions of Croatia and Bosnia and the stop start inaction of the allies was a harrowing read as the number of casualties rose. Hallberstam is always interesting and throught provoking. To my mind, he clearly shows that the United States can never be insular again. It must engage in and be engaged in world events. Also interesting is the strong link between domestic and international politics in the United States. Halberstam is able to show how every international relations issue has domestic impacts. A very interesting book - both balanced and fair.
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Summary: Informative, but flawed
Review: Highly informative, especially on the inner workings of the Clinton White House, yet at times shows a peculiar ingenuousness. For example, Halberstam's near apostatic treatment of Col. John Warden's theories is disquieting. The inadequacy of Warden's air plan for the Gulf War is elided -- Warden's plan would have had the Iraqis capitulating in an unrealistically short time without ground action. The work of people like David Deptula in making a workable plan is ignored. Citation of the general dislike for Warden in the Air Force does little to disguise Halberstam's bent. This is a relfection perhaps of his relying heavily on interviews -- the bibliography shows a troubling lack of the vital works tounderstand airpower strategy, including, for example, Warden's own "the Air Campaign". The results of the idiosyncratic rather than systematic choice of written sources can be seen in the focus on the F-117 in the Gulf and the appearance of "Bandits Over Bagdad" an interesting collection of personal stories by F-117 pilots in the Gulf, but hardly a strategy evaluation. For Kosovo an insightful assesment is Nato's Air War for Kosovo : A Strategic and Operational Assessment by Benjamin S. Lambeth -- not mentiioned in the bibliography.
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Summary: Really good history of Bush(1) and Clinton in Bosnia, etc.
Review: From the end of the cold war until 9/11, the U.S. was in a different kind of military world. Suddenly none of the actions where troops might be sent actually affected the U.S. (Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia) with the minor exception of Haiti.
At the same time, only the U.S. could provide the leadership to stop the genocide occuring in each of these places. And as the world's sole superpower, the U.S. could act in each place if it wished to.
This book covers that period and shows the major players involved, what they tried to do, what they did do, and how the U.S. and other countries tried to learn how to best handle these issues.
It's a very good book. It suffers from the fact that the author clearly did not get to talk to the prime principal's much - Bush, Clinton, or the leaders in the various countries at war.
The world has changed again since 9/11 and it makes this book a bit dated. But still very interesting.
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Summary: Choose Your History Wisely
Review: With hindsight being 20/20, it's easy for writers and documentarians to "comment" on the military and political events of the 90's. Thus far, only Halberstam has truly chronicled them. This is one of the rare books where reading the end notes is an intellectual treat in and of itself.
Halberstam writes with a steady hand and a clear vision in this book -- no bias, no favoritism. This book seeks to educate and inform rather than reinforce a preconceived set of political beliefs.
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