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Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power
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Manufacturer: Wiley
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.73
EAN: 9780470121184
ISBN: 0470121181
Label: Wiley
Manufacturer: Wiley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2008-01-29
Publisher: Wiley
Studio: Wiley
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Editorial Reviews:
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America's power is in decline, its allies alienated, its soldiers trapped in a war that even generals regard as unwinnable. What has happened these past few years is well known. Why it happened continues to puzzle. Celebrated Slate columnist Fred Kaplan explains the grave misconceptions that enabled George W. Bush and his aides to get so far off track, and traces the genesis and evolution of these ideas from the era of Nixon through Reagan to the present day.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: what went wrong
Comment: Let me start out by saying that this is the first 'current affairs' book I've read about the current administration so this book probably impressed me more than if I had some more knowledge when I began reading it.
Positives: Well-written and interesting chapters - one on the rise of 'transformation' weapons that have been utilized in the current wars, a very eye-opening chapter on the USA and North Korea, another informative chapter on the history of missile defense, and then a couple dryer chapters on the Bush administration and Iraq. What I enjoyed about the first three chapters and the book overall, is that it was more than a anti-Bush diatribe but an interesting history of advanced weaponry and foreign policy from the Cold War to present.
Negatives: Kaplan's account suffers heavily from the narrative fallacy - it is easy to see in hindsight the blunders of the Bush administration; it is easy to explain the muck of Iraq in terms of definite strategic and tactical errors; but were those mistakes so apparent as they were happening? The last chapter especially comes off as a chapter more or less saying 'Bush can do no right".
Despite the negatives, the reader will learn a great deal on what the author sees as the major blunders leading to the continuing occupation of Iraq (the de-Baathification in Iraqi politics, the dispersement of the Iraqi army, and the failure to capture Iraqi ammo depots). Ultimately, Rumsfeld is blamed for these issues - the primary one being the low amount of troops assigned to Iraq initially.
W. Bush comes off as a highly principled leader yet woefully uninformed in the reality of world politics. Kaplan takes Bush at his word that he sincerely desires to promote democracy and freedom - and that these are attainable when dictators are deposed (democratic freedom being the natural state of man).
Much of Kaplan's book hinges on his interpretation (?) that Bush and the neo-cons saw a chance to get rid of evil regimes and extend America's power when the Cold War ended. They believed that America would naturally fill the vacuum left by the Soviets and thereby exert an even larger influence on the world. What was not expected, is that much of the world was out of our control and did not want to be in our control - in short we were blinded by our hubris.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Spot on!
Comment: Daydream Believers, by Kaplan, was a FANTASTIC book. Interesting, well written, and important, Kaplan offers much more than the title led me to believe. Of course, it is another book on the mistakes of the Bush Administration's foreign policy, particularly regarding Iraq, but the book is grander than that. The best parts: 1) fascinating overview of about a half century of US military strategy (this is what makes the book so strong); 2) necessary look at the totality of the Bush foreign policy, rather than just a focus on Iraq; 3) interesting look at America's efforts to build a missile defense system; 4) the mistakes of the Democratic Party in failing to offer a realistic alternative to the current Administration's foreign policy; 5) and a fine statement on the need for a foreign policy that properly balances realism/national interests, with the legitimate pursuit of high minded goals for the world.
If I have to find a bad part, I guess some of the information contained here is a bit redundant after all that has been said by those critiquing the Bush mistakes, particularly on Iraq. But those mistakes need repeating. Not that the repetition will prevent their repeat: we already had Vietnam. Still, it doesn't hurt to tread over the topic.
The right will not like this book at all. No one can help that hard core crowd though. Admitting mistakes and holding their fellow ideologues accountable for the mistakes is too much to ask. Kaplan, however, still offers a lot of interesting history to people of all ideological leanings. At the very least, hopefully Kaplan CAN reach the left and middle.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lessons on how NOT to run a foreign policy
Comment: This book covers a lot of ground in explaining various (mis)steps of the the foreign policy of George W Bush in a relatively short space. The book combines an approach of going over actions and events along with the ideas (the "daydreams" of the title) that motivated these actions. The book doesn't just focus on the Middle East, but more broadly on the foreign policy of the admininstration, beginning with its goal of pushing a missle defense system (which Kaplan points out has been thought about and found wanting for decades).
The book definitely has a point of view - namely Bush administration has been steered by an unrealistic ideology that has produced a foreign policy with dire results. The book has an edge in its presentation (Kaplan writes for Slate) but seemed to be well documented, giving lots of quotes and citations. I will leave it to others to fact check, but after reading this book, it really is very hard to believe that the neoconservative view of foreign policy and the actors/actresses that brought it into action have done the country well.
The real question raised by a book like this is whether there are lessons to be learned of how NOT to conduct foreign policy that will inform future administrations. Time will tell.
It is a good read that does not bog down in deatils. Four Stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: well written but the (interesting) thesis is just too weak
Comment: Fred Kaplan is a historian / journalist, a columnist for 'Slate' and author of an excellent guide to cold war nuclear strategy. This new book is history that reads like good journalism. Kaplan's premise is actually best explained in the dust jacket. The disasters of recent American policy stem not from incompetence but from two grave misconceptions. First the belief that the world changed after 9/11, it hasn't. Second the belief that after America won the Cold War it emerged stronger than before, when it hadn't. Kaplan reminds us that the same processes and conflicts continue to drive history as before, and the end of the Cold War, by removing the need for American `leadership', has freed allies and rivals to pursue their own interests. The cold war may not have been a pyrrhic victory, but the chaotic aftermath may have made America weaker even as it's leaders had become more assertive. These are subtle and seductive arguments. Why use a explanatory chain saw when a scalpel will do the job as well?
Kaplan's individual chapters each explore a different fallacy. There's "the mirage of instant victory". The new guided weapons gave America a misplaced sense of superiority. This is Kaplan's strongest argument. Johnny Cash got it right in an old country song. He called the handgun, "the devil's right hand." Kaplan suggests a new candidate. As Cash sang, "..they can't get you into trouble, but they can't get you out."
In "the fog of moral clarity" explores the "no negotiations" line applied to North Korea (and again to Iran). In terms of deterring nuclear proliferation this righteous approach just hasn't worked. Clinton bargained and got better results. It's righteousness without results. If as Bush claims (against the advice of the intelligence community) that Tehran is pursuing the bomb, he seems on course to a repeat failure. McCain, at least if you are inclined to take presidential candidates at their word, wants a repeat failure too. Kaplan doesn't mention it but the "no talk" policy to Hesbollah and Hamas would seem another, if bipartisan, example.
"Silver bullets" looks at anti-missile technology and provides an excellent life history of Star Wars and sons. This is both Kaplan's strongest and weakest chapter. Historically the most interesting, it allows Kaplan's specialty to come to the fore. Still I'm just not convinced that these programs have seriously weakened America. Compared to the cost of the Iraq campaign these are a drop in the bucket. Their critics maintain the cost to aggressors of developing counter-counter measures is the Achilles Heel of these systems. But we still don't know yet. When Eisenhower commissioned the first spy satellites, the idea of space surveillance seemed absurd. Ike persisted and the investment eventually paid off. "Corona" prevented costly missile races and probably did more to prevent World War 3 than the UN. Reagan's missile shield may be a fantasy, but Kaplan does not prove that a more limited program to counter the more primitive efforts of neophyte missile powers is unattainable. Missile defense may be a boondoggle but it doesn't belong in the same category as the others.
All told it is a well written book, educational but I think it fails. Kaplan's core thesis, the postwar false assumptions did not just lead Bush astray. Presumably the Democrats who gave Bush a blank check shared the same thinking. Clinton's interventions in Yugoslavia, something Kaplan supports, were also driven by the same assumptions. Kosovo wasn't democracy delivered by smart bombs, but it did have multiculturalism in the bomb bay. Kosovo, a tactical `success', has not delivered multi-ethnic peace. Now it's Nato's clients who do the cleansing. Kaplan's thesis is undermined by unnecessary partisanship. You get the feeling that the only thing wrong with post-Cold War policy was that Bush, not Gore, became president. Considering Clinton's Iraq Liberation Act, my guess is that, after 9-11, it is a better than fifty-fifty bet, that Gore would have invaded Iraq sooner or later too. Had Kaplan merely limited his book explicitly to the Bush years he may have avoided this hook.
More importantly the thesis is really just too weak. America has suffered serious decline under Bush. When polls show that the majority of Australians, a country that has close ties with America, see China as a more responsible than the US, something is very wrong. And the Bush administration is to blame for this. Kaplan's expose of false assumptions that have eroded American power is true but insufficient. Bush has taken a car coasting downhill and hit the accelerator. What alienates the world, and perhaps now the American electorate, has been arrogant hypocrisy. All major powers engaged in counter-insurgencies use torture, yet the Americans have harmed their own cause and weakened the ideas which should be their strongest weapon in the war on terror. America's likely defeat is an own goal. The cavalcade of lies on Iraq has been spectacular. No serious student of international affairs, or even presidents, really expects them to tell the truth, however at least some pretence to a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind" can, at least, win America the benefit of the doubt. They lie, we know they lie and they don't care that we know. Bush pays foreigners no respect and the world returns the compliment.
Kaplan's book is too partisan to prove his thesis, and his thesis is too weak to explain Bush. Andrew Bacevich, who covers much the same ground, does a better job.
"Daydream Believers" by Fred Kaplan does not derive its name from the song made popular by the Monkees. The title is derived from Lawrence's "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom."
"...Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible."
Kaplan's title is really a misquote. Lawrence of Arabia's dangerous men turn dreams into reality. Kaplan's dangerous men just flounder in the sand.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "this was a new era"
Comment: An interesting book, and one whose accuracy I am probably not qualified to judge. Instinctively, Kaplan's arguments feel right given what I know about the values of the current administration and post-9/11 political history. I would be the first to admit, however, that what I know is reasonably small compared to what there is to know. I also recognize that sometimes a book that confirms your own preconceptions can feel instinctively right.
That said, I enjoyed the book. I was reminded of the Clausewitz line that "the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst." The story of a group of misinformed idealists who so confidently expected to be proved right that they disregarded advice and caution is a compelling narrative.
The structure was a little messy, and it felt from time to time a touch unorganized. Still, I followed the argument and did not really lose interest. Interesting, if you are interested.
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