Washington Rules
America's Path to Permanent War
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
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نقد و بررسی
May 24, 2010
U.S. Army colonel turned academic, Bacevich (The Limits of Power) offers an unsparing, cogent, and important critique of assumptions guiding American military policy. These central tenets, the "Washington rules"—such as the belief that the world order depends on America maintaining a massive military capable of rapid and forceful interventions anywhere in the world—have dominated national security policy since the start of the cold war and have condemned the U.S. to "insolvency and perpetual war." Despite such disasters as America's defeat in Vietnam and the Cuban missile crisis, the self-perpetuating policy is so entrenched that no president or influential critic has been able to alter it. Bacevich argues that while the Washington rules found their most pernicious expression in the Bush doctrine of preventive war, Barack Obama's expansion of the Afghan War is also cause for pessimism: "We should be grateful to him for making at least one thing unmistakably clear: to imagine that Washington will ever tolerate second thoughts about the Washington rules is to engage in willful self-deception. Washington itself has too much to lose."
Andrew Bacevich takes issue with such actions as the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Vietnam War, President Bush's strategy in Iraq, and President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan, seeing both parties as supporters of the federal government as a militaristic industry. The former soldier's words are voiced by Sean Runnette in a hard-driving, often angry or sarcastic narration, with the occasional shift to gentleness to hit home a point. Bacevich has developed an opinionated worldview, and he shares that view strongly in both his rhetoric and research. While Bacevich's words will likely reach only listeners who already share his opinions, his book provides much to think about. Listeners across the political spectrum will find his words disconcerting. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
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