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Summary: Contradictions in America's Foreign POlicy
Review: In the years since the end of the cold war, there clearly has been disagreement at the highest levels of American government about what to do about China. Since World War II, the Washington Consensus has grown accustom to calling all the shots in the Far East, but China has grown much too powerful to isolate, ignore or contain. In recent years, the United States has imposed numerous economic sanctions against China. Technology export restrictions have been placed on aerospace products, machine tools, and computers. However, these sanctions mostly just enriched economic competitors of American corporations. The Europeans, Japanese, and even Canadians have separate and independent foreign policies from the Washington consensus. With the end of the Cold War, most of the world is left with a hangover from that conflict. The "blowback" which you refer to in your book, will largely occur in America's loss of global leadership. China has concentrated its efforts on economic development and has no stomach for a war with America. Against America's wishes, both France and Russia have signed strategic partnership agreements with China. Even the British who still retain billions of pounds in investment in Hong Kong have no stomach for isolating China. Likewise, the Canadians who have actively recruited millions of skilled Chinese immigrants in recent years retain excellent diplomatic relations with Beijing. If the Washington consensus can't even count on the British and Canadians to condemn China in the United Nations, who can Washington depend on to isolate China. After years of futile economic and trade sanctions, American corporations are desperate to compete for lucrative contracts in China lost to European and Japanese competitors. America's former cold war allies largely just ignore the Washington consensus on China policy. Though ethnic ties with overseas Chinese communities, China is expanding its sphere of influence across Southeast Asia. If American corporations want to do business in Asia, they need to pay their respects to Beijing. Clearly, the Washington consensus is confused about how to respond to China growing economic and political influence. The upcoming debate on China's entry into the WTO will surely highlight all of America's foreign policy contradictions in the post cold war era. Ultimately, the Washington consensus will have no choice but to give China more breathing space to grow and expand.
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Summary: "Blame America First"
Review: This book is factually challenged and morally inconsistent. The central thesis is that the US aided Afghan Mujahadeen who then turned on the US. The problem is that Johnson, perhaps in a somewhat racist manner, can't seem to distinguish the Afghan people fighting for independence and the Arab foreigners. The US aided the former, the latter were funded from wealthy Saudis. Maybe Johnson thinks they are "all the same". Indeed, within Afghanistan, factions abound. Johnson's simpleminded, and frankly colonialist view, just muddies the water.
Two other themes are 1) that fighting against the Soviets was a mistake (the 1.5 million Afghans killed by them would probably disagree). This theme will find favor with Leftists. 2) That the US shouldn't have "walked away"--an invitation to paternalistic neocolonial interference in an entirely alien Muslim culture. On the face of it, it doesn't seem like a particularly bright idea.
Finally, after a long slog through Johnson's contradictory, blame-mongering book, I come to the conclusion that what Johnson is essentially saying is: "No good deed must go unpunished". The US aided Muslims in a fight for freedom. Rather than receiving credit, they were massacred. Thank goodness we have people like Chalmers Johnson to say "Told you so"...
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Summary: I wonder if gkjy read the book gkjy???
Review: gkjy, When you write "The central thesis is that the US aided Afghan Mujahadeen who then turned on the US" it makes me wonder if you read the book. There are things interesting about what happened in other parts of the world like Central America, Indonesia... Maybe you should try to have a copy of the first edition which was published in 2000? I have read the first 3 chapters and I like what I have read. It's more a case of explaining than blaming. Period!
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Summary: disheartened
Review: I came to Blowback by way of a year-long research project on globalization. Over the past year I have read dozens of books, both scholary and popular, on this topic. Right - Left - Love America - Hate America - Multi-Cultural - Eurocentric; I've suffered through them all ( happily, there is as yet no feminist perspective on the subject ).
First let me state that Chalmers Johnson, this regrettable book notwithstanding, is not by profession the village diot. Johnson is a highly respected economic and political analyst, a man who used to be worth listening to.
What happened? How did he come to cobble together this breathtakingly unanalytical smorgasborg? Where did the imperialist conspiracy rant come from? Johnson, where did you go?
Well, the easy answer is that he delves into complex areas of which he has no knowledge. His take on America's military policies is ludicrous. Anyone who questions why the U.S. Army is still in Korea after 50+ years need only point to Seoul on a map and drag his finger a couple of inches north, where he will discover NORTH KOREA. Of coures once an idealogue veers into unknown territory there is no other path left for him than that of conspiracy. Conspiracy "theory" is all fine and good for the lazy and uneducated; it's their sanctuary; but for a scholar of Johnson's caliber to go there is incomprehensible. Unti you see what I saw.
The professional works that I read on globalization were pretty much uniform in that they addressed one or another facet of free-trade and concluded more-or-less-nothing, all in scholarly language. For the most part the popular books were not nominally about globalization at all, although globalization was the only thread holding the books together, and to each other. Brushing aside the fact that most of the authors of the popular group are ageing oddballs from the 60s ( you underestimate the mustard-gas-like effect of that era at your peril ),the only possible reason for these immensely angry, nonsensical books is this: no one fully understands globalization. No one. Even when you define the thing narrowly it is a cantankerous beast, too young to tame; growing unpredictably every day like the Blob. They're frustrated, these authors. I can't blame them, but for some reason they must have a scapegoat and the've rounded up the usual suspect, America, as in why does America impose - dominate - ignore, etc. the third world? Silly question, really. You're at the top of the food chain, what do they expect you to do? When bad things happen you want to be sure they happen to someone else.
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Summary: christ
Review: filled with unstructured rambling, conspiratorial musings, and cherry-picked historical anecdotes to support a conclusion he pulled out of his ass. i was forced to read this rag in my international relations class. johnson is only a few centimeters above moore in his policy analysis yet my professor insisted he was a moderate. anyone who takes a logic class understands the danger of careless language use in attempting to form a cogent argument. all empires fall, america is an empire, america will fall. sorry, but the fact that, like other developing nations, we have military bases abroad plus the annexation of hawaii does not parallel america to the roman empire or even european colonialism.
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Summary: good information and analysis about US Policy
Review: This book gives lots of good information and analysis about US foreigh policy. It is a must read for anyone interested in the subject or anyone wondering how the world really works.
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Summary: overdone
Review: Johnson has a good thesis -- there are consequences to foreign policy aims and the varying means by which those aims may be pursued. The problem is with his supporting arguments. Far too much of what he trots out to support his central thesis is very questionable factually, pure nonsense, or old canards. There is plenty of evidence out there to support his thesis. Relying on very questionable "evidence" severely diminishes his central argument. The book is not worth reading.
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Summary: Essential Foreign Policy Reading.
Review: If you think that the motivation for the 9/11 attacks might be a little more complicated than 'they hate our freedom'. Then this book is for you.
It is a tour de force of research and well reasoned argument. With a voice of decades of experience; Chalmers Johnson presents a very plausible case of Imperial hubris and overstretch to the reader.
Hegemony is ugly no matter how you dress it up, and you will be suprised, shocked and perhaps embarrased by the things America has done to shore up its position in the world.
Read it, and pass it along. Soon.
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Summary: Interesting incite into American foreign policy in Asia
Review: Johnson has a wealth of understanding of the politics in East Asia and couples that with study of American foreign policy. It makes interesting reading, highlighting the militaristic, short-sighted and hypocritical foreign policies of successive US governments. Unfortunately it is rather an apologist view of the US imperialist policies, particularly opposed to military interventions and control of foreign policy abroad. Johnson's views are a keen and needed reposte to current US foreign policy, suggesting (rightly) that covert operations and insensitive military colonialisation resulted in blowbacks (the worst of which is 9/11), Johnson's view is almost definitely opposed to war and against 'colonial' defense policies set-up as deterants to aggression. However, if one thing is missing from Johnson's work it's a balanced approach towards appreciating the benefits of the US remaining at the sharp end of military advances, rather than discounting such efforts as counter-productive. All said and done, Johnson writes well and informatively on complex issues, though somewhat debateable, that should provide the reader with some interesting questions about the role of the world's leading super power.
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