A Republic, Not an Empire

Rating:
Summary: Thank God for this book!!!!!
Review: This is such a refreshing view of American foreign policy. This book completely reaffirmed my views on the cause of September 11 and the overcommitment of the United States. My favorite quote is a relatively simple analysis: "We are not hated for what we believe; we are hated for what we do... the terrorists were over here because we are over there." Thus, he refutes the Bush Administration's explanation for the terrorist attacks, an explanation which most Americans accept without question. This is a must-read for every American citizen; it provides a solid historical base and analysis of every important historical event and its contribution to American hegemony. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK! you cannot honestly say you know about American foreign policy until you do.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Analysis of American Foreign Policy Past and Present
Review: ~A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny~ is antidote to the policies of imperial empire-builders. Buchanan offers a sobering reassessment of our present foreign policy and its mindless interventionism in the name of empire. He does so in light of history. At the onset, he critiques some of our more recent interventions overseas. He offers some future war scenarios, which are errily prophetic in light of the post-9/11 world. To give a backdrop to his thesis, he offers an astute recap of American foreign policy and wars from the eighteenth century in a brilliant narrative. He proves that the republic of our forefathers has been abandoned. The U.S. has ventured into the world to become a policemen of sorts doing the legwork for internationalists and this is hardly in America's best interest. John Quincy Adams once avowed, "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is a well-wisher to the freedom of all and a vindicator only of her own." America really dived headlonged into its' obessesive interventionism with the assent of Woodrow Wilson and his grandiose globalist vision of a New World Order guided by the League of Nations.

Buchanan is wrongly smeared for his account of the America First movement, which opposed WWII. For one thing, FDR did much to antagonize the Japanese in the Phillipines. (See the New Dealer's War and Day of Deceit.) Though, Hitler always posed a long-term threat to his Western neighbors including the U.S. Most importantly, however, the assent of Hitler could have been avoiding altogether were it not for U.S. intervention in WWI. The U.S. should have heeded the wisdom of the founders and avoided European entanglements in the Great War. To substantiate this point, I recommend reading _The Myth of the Great War_ by John Mosier and _The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I_ by Thomas Fleming. These books make convincing cases that were it not for American intervention in WWI, Germany would probably have won the Great War after a long stalemate. France and Britain would sue for peace, and perhaps France would have had to make some minor territorial concessions. If this was the case, Germany would not likely have been so destabilized economically and politically. Moreover, politics in Weimar Germany during the 1920's would have never turned so extreme; it tediously bounced between the prospects of a Communist Red Revolution which happened for a short time in Bavaria and the Brown Revolution of Nazism which eventually swept the nation. Hitler flew in on a red carpet with his demagogic rhetoric, which appealed to Germany's bitterness and anti-Versailles sentiment. Critics can snear should have, could have, would have... but they're just missing the point. So, the proverbial wisdom goes, if we do not learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it.

Buchanan is hardly offering a pacifistic tome, but rather makes it clear America needs a strong defense based on policy of strategic independence. This was the foreign policy that the founding fathers envisioned. Putting America First has become apparently unfashionable and immoral, which explains why Buchanan has so many vehement critics. The most outspoken of which have probably never read his book. President George Washington avowed, "Honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none, I deem [one of the] essential principles of our government and, consequently, [one] which ought to shape its administration," and this is the embodiment of the foreign policy advocated by Buchanan. Buchanan articulates and substantiates the need for realigning America's foreign policy with that of the founders. The Federalists set the decorum with the Neutrality Act of 1798. Buchanan makes a compelling case for adhering to armed neutrality and stategic independence. This would include the following: 1) disentangling ourselves from the UN, NATO and various globalist commitments; 2) strengthening our military and defending America First with the bulk of our troops on our border and in our hemisphere; 3) and avoiding the 20th century's obsession with reckless intervention abroad; 4) stripping the Presidency of war powers usurped from Congress and codified in the War Powers Act of 1973, which sought to limit the Presidency's abuses, but at the same time codified and legitimized past unconstitutional precedent.