Book Description
As trade flows expanded and trade agreements proliferated after World War II, governments—most notably the United States—came increasingly to use their power over imports and exports to influence the behavior of other countries. But trade is not the only way in which nations interact economically. Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders. Nearly $2 trillion worth of currency now moves cross-border every day, roughly 90 percent of which is accounted for by financial flows unrelated to trade in goods and services—a stunning inversion of the figures in 1970. The time is ripe to ask fundamental questions about what Benn Steil and Robert Litan have coined as “financial statecraft,” or those aspects of economic statecraft directed at influencing international capital flows. How precisely has the American government practiced financial statecraft? How effective have these efforts been? And how can they be made more effective? The authors provide penetrating and incisive answers in this timely and stimulating book.
Customer Reviews:
TERRIBLE.......2007-01-21
Very naive - these guys need to work harder before publising. Some terrible naive comments - reads like a bad essay at university and perhaps even high school. waste of money... Terrible stuff a shame that anyone published this.
Too little on actual financial statecraft.......2006-05-07
I must respectfully disagree with the esteemed reviewers of this book listed above. I expected so much more from a book with such a fine pedigree (Brookings and the US Council on Foreign Relations).
The topic of how states use financial instruments towards their foreign policy goals is an area which certainly requires more understanding. As such, I expected this book to be an in-depth study of the various ways states have used such tools, and how the authors expect such tools to be used in the future. I thus expected analyses of topics such as how states respond to currency crises of allies and enemies and how states use counterfeiting of enemies' currencies as foreign policy (i.e. as Iran is alleged to do with the US dollar). I also expected a study of how states manipulate access to important currencies (as when the US cut Panama off from receiving dollars as part of an effort to topple Noreiga) and how they have sought to manipulate the foreign financial press (as is alleged to have happened during the classical Gold Standard era).
Some of these topics did receive mention. The issue of how the US should respond to allies' crises received good coverage, especially regarding South Korea. There was also one paragraph acknowledging that countries have counterfeited others' currencies, and a brief discussion of petro-dollar recycling. Moreover, I found the chapter on how interest groups have attempted to restrict access to US capital markets to further other goals very illuminating, and there was a nice summary of anti-terrorism finance legislation. Overall, I found the first half of the book very enlightening.
Unfortunately, the other half of the book dealt predominantly with the authors' assertions that dollarization should be the way forward for developing countries to prevent currency crises, and in particular, that the US should encourage this and absorb some of the costs. The issues of whether countries should use floating, dirty float, pegged or dollarized exchange rates is an important one. However, I did not pick up this book to read about the authors' assertions about dollarization--I picked it up to read about financial statecraft.
Financial statecraft will only grow in importance, and as the authors note, it is critical that policymakers understand how it functions and what tools are at their disposal. This book only discusses financial statecraft primarily in its first 80 pages (and scattered in some places in the latter part of the book as well). I feel eighty pages was just too little to adequately examine financial statecraft. Instead, the reader is unfortunately left with a quick gloss-over of only a few aspects of such an important and under-analyzed topic.
Capital Markets Sanctions: A Very Stupid Idea Whose Time Has Come.......2006-03-09
Steil and Litan define economic statecraft as applying economic means to influence other actors in the international system, and financial statecraft as those aspects of economic statecraft that are directed at influencing capital flows. They cover a wide range of issues, starting from the recycling of petrodollars in the 1970s to the fight against the financing of terrorism after 9/11, with special highlights on financial sanctions against non-state actors and on the foreign policy dimension on financial crises.
Capital market sanctions, the idea of restricting access to the US capital markets in the service of foreign policy aims, are increasingly popular in some quarters, reflecting the growing importance of capital transactions over trade flows. The authors demonstrate that it is also an incredibly stupid idea: money is fungible, and the capital that is not raised in New York can be easily raised elsewhere at the same cost. Even if all major stock markets cooperated to bar access to targeted companies that operate in certain rogue states or participate in arms dealings, the small rise in the cost of capital that these firms would incur would be vastly offset by the gains accrued from these operations.
The authors raise the example of PetroChina, which Congress tried to ban from listing on the New York Stock Exchange because of its involvement in the Sudanese energy sector. The public campaign against the Chinese company assembled a motley crew of activists, ranging from organizations associated with the Christian Right to the AFL-CIO and human rights advocates. In the end, the IPO was scaled down and the campaigners claimed victory, as the AFL-CIO convinced some pension funds not to invest in the Chinese company.
Meanwhile, the share price of PetroChina quadrupled in four years, and Sudan now exports 85% of its oil to China. Interestingly, the main foreign investor in the company is the US mogul Warren Buffet, known for his investment acumen and who acquired 14% of the company through the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, where most of its shares are listed. The idea that foreign firms can raise capital only on Wall Street and that US investors wait at home for them to come is simply wrong.
This book is a reminder that "policymakers frequently apply financial statecraft with a poor understanding of how financial markets actually work, leading to policy actions which are inadequate or which exacerbate the problems they are trying to remedy."
Book Description
Policymakers will need all the tools at their disposal to craft an effective response to international terrorism and to protect and promote other U.S. interests in the coming decades. In this quest to shape the right strategies for the challenges ahead, economic instruments will play a central role.
O'Sullivan, an expert on the use of positive and negative tools of economic statecraft, argues that in the post-September 11th international climate, the United States will be even more willing to use its economic power to advance its foreign policy goals than it has in the past. This impulse, she argues, can lead to a more effective foreign policy given the many ways in which sanctions and incentives can forcefully advance U.S. interests. But a recalibration of these tools—sanctions in particular—is necessary in order for them to live up to their potential. Critical to such a reassessment is a thorough understanding of how the post-cold war international environment—globalization and American primacy in particular—has influenced how sanctions work. O'Sullivan addresses this issue in a thorough examination of sanctions-dominated policies in place against Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan. Her findings not only highlight the many ways in which sanctions have often been poorly suited to achieve their goals in the past, but also suggest how policymakers might use these tools to better effect in the future.
This book will provide a valuable resource for policymakers groping to find the right set of instruments to address both the old and the new challenges facing the United States. It will also serve as an important resource to those interested in U.S. policy toward `rogue' states and in the status of the sanctions debate between policymakers and scholars.
Customer Reviews:
Crafting Effective Sanctions.......2004-05-17
Over the last two decades, American policymakers have increasingly used sanctions to punish countries that transgress U.S. and international norms, or attack U.S. interests. Sometimes these sanctions are coordinated with multilateral sanctions; sometimes the U.S. applies them alone. Sometimes the U.S. puts forward comprehensive sanctions against a country; sometimes it only sanctions particular companies or organizations in a country rather than the country itself. In some cases, the U.S. continually adjusts its sanctions against a particular country; in other cases, those sanctions remain fairly static.
The variety of sanction packages begs a question: which ones actually work in changing the behavior of the state being sanctioned? Part of the surprising multifaceted answer to this question, according to Meghan O' Sullivan, is that many policymakers don't even seem to care. Instead, they look upon sanctions as a generic expression of disapproval against the country being sanctioned -- with U.S. domestic interests often affecting the actual shape that disapproval takes -- rather than as a practical tool of statecraft.
O'Sullivan's book is an attempt to rescue sanctions from this current state by showing their potential as effective policy to change the sanctioned state's behavior. She does this by closely examining four case studies where the U.S. employed sanctions against countries it deemed to be state sponsors of terrorism - Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan.
This book's twin cardinal virtues are its thoroughness and its cautious conclusions. Despite footnoting every twist and turn in how the U.S. employed sanctions in the four cases, and what subsequently happened in those sanctioned countries, O'Sullivan never overreaches in her claims. Many places in the book, she is careful to note that proving what sanctions accomplished (or did not accomplish) in any particular case is extremely difficult to separate from other factors affecting the outcome. Nevertheless, she superbly teases out some interesting and valuable conclusions from the data.
At the end of her book, O'Sullivan focuses on what policymakers need to do to make sanctions effective policy rather than just dramatic policy. She believes they should employ sanctions that are flexible, as well as maintain open channels of communication with the sanctioned country. Too often, U.S. policymakers have used rigid and redundant guidelines for sanctions that don't allow the target to be rewarded for good behavior. Without this flexibility, there is almost no incentive for the country to change. This causes the U.S. sanctions regime against it to harden into permanent U.S. policy, even when there is little interest in either country for this to happen.
Best in Class.......2003-07-20
It is unfortunate that the debate with respect to the use of sanctions so often boils down to a religious one - sanctions good or sanctions bad. What nuance there is in that argument often seems as similarly simplistic - multi-lateral sanctions good, unilateral sanctions bad. In this context, Meghan O'Sullivan's "Shrewd Sanctions" presents a timely and carefully reasoned call for a more finely calibrated approach to the use of sanctions as a tool of foreign policy. In each of four case studies covering Libya, Iraq, Iran and Sudan, O'Sullivan evaluates sanctions regimes against a set of criteria which includes their economic and political impact, effectiveness relative to the goals laid out for them, the varied costs associated with their imposition, and the relative effectiveness of these sanctions regimes vs. alternative policy instruments. In her final chapter, O'Sullivan lays out a series of specific recommendations for policy makers to strengthen the performance of sanctions.
"Shrewd Sanctions" does seem to me one of those rare books able to appeal to a "crossover" audience - of sanctions "experts" on the one hand, and relative foreign policy novices on the other. That it does so is a tribute to O'Sullivan's fluid writing, rigorous and straightforward analysis, and her ability to continually frame the most specific instances and arguments in a broader context - both historically and in the most current and urgent geo-political sense. I expect this to be a staple in classrooms and in the foreign policy establishment for some time to come.
A well-balanced perspective.......2003-03-15
Most of us want the interational community to check countries that support terrorism, violate the human rights of their citizens, or threaten cross-border aggression. At the same time, we hope to avoid resort to projecting military power in the event of each transgression. Sanctions, therefore, should be the ideal tool. Yet, looking back in recent history, have sanctions really worked efficiently and effectively in any important case?
Meghan O'Sullivan's book tries to answer that question -- and to offer insights for those considering the use of the sanctions in the future -- by providing a detailed analysis of 4 recent cases where sanctions have been used against countries supporting terrorism or cross-border aggression. Her analysis, which finds no examples of truly successful sanctions regimes, suggests 4 rules for thinking about sanctions use in the future:
1. Unilateral sanctions are rarely effective; broad-based international action is far more powerful
2. Secondardy sanctions -- like Helms-Burton, where the US sought to punish constituencies in sovereign nations that saw Cuba differently than did the US Congress -- are counterproductive
3. Effective sanctions regimes need to be tailored carefully to specific goals
4. Flexibility -- the ability to recalibrate sanctions as the targeted country shifts its behavior -- is critical to the success of any sanctions effort
If these rules were taken to heart, O'Sullivan's analysis suggests that sanctions might prove to be a much more effective tool than they have been in the past. This conclusion offers hope, though one is left to wonder if US and UN political processes will ever permit sanctions to be more than they have been so often in the past: a salve meant primarily for the abrasions inflicted on special interest groups in the sanctioning countries by other thorny instruments of foreign policy.
Book Description
Environmental problems like global climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion can only be remedied if states cooperate with one another. But sovereign states usually care only about their own interests. So states must somehow restructure the incentives to make cooperation pay. This is what treaties are meant to do. A few treaties, such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, succeed. Most, however, fail to alter the state behaviour appreciably. This book develops a theory that explains both the successes and the failures. In particular, the book explains when treaties are needed, why some work better than others, and how treaty design can be improved. The best treaties strategically manipulate the incentives states have to exploit the environment, and the theory developed in this book shows how treaties can do this. The theory integrates a number of disciplines, including economics, political science, international law, negotiation analysis, and game theory. It also offers a coherent and consistent approach. The essential assumption is that treaties be self-enforcing-that is, individually rational, collectively rational, and fair. The book applies the theory to a number of environmental problems. It provides information on more than three hundred treaties, and analyses a number of case studies in detail. These include depletion of the ozone layer, whaling, pollution of the Rhine, acid rain, over-fishing, pollution of the oceans, and global climate change. The essential lesson of the book is that treaties should not just tell countries what to do. Treaties must make it in the interests of countries to behave differently. That is, they must restructure the underlying game. Most importantly, they must create incentives for states to participate in a treaty and for parties to comply.
Product Description
Civilisations die from suicide," Toynbee warned us, "not by murder." The United States, along with Australia and several others have pursued fatally flawed economic and financial policies for almost four decades, beginning with ill-judged interest-rate hikes and stagflation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They then punctuated the years afterwards with policy departures which, almost without exception, made things worse. In effect, they embarked on serial attempts at economic, social, political and strategic suicide through often obsessive devotion to such concepts as "free" markets, deregulation, privatisation and globalisation. They neglected mounting dangers from debt, deficits and derivatives, from rampant speculation, chronic unemployment, low wages and mounting inequality at home and abroad. Long years of unmitigated error have reduced a once magnificent American economy to one that increasingly resembles a hollowed-out shell. Though there continue to be great potential strengths in the American economy and society, these strengths have already been gravely diminished and the unremitting ebb of intrinsic power persists while other economies grow stronger, ironically by grasping the opportunities that feckless American policies continue to surrender to them. Perversely, predatory finance capitalism has nourished and become a victim of the prey that, with exquisite cleverness, it sought to capture and exploit. This erosion of economic and financial strength has grave social, political and strategic consequences. Not so long ago, the United States was, despite some inevitable imperfections, one of the world's most admired, progressive and transparent democracies. That democracy has been increasingly corrupted over the years and America's capacity to carry out its role as a superpower - certainly as the world's single superpower - has been put gravely at risk. These are some of the major issues addressed in "America's Suicidal Statecraft". Basically, they are down-to-earth economic and financial issues but they have have had and continue to have the most far-reaching social, political and strategic impacts - for the United States, for closely allied countries such as Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand and, indeed, for the whole world community. There are still ways in which the decline and prospective fall of the United States can be reversed; but that will call for an enormous exercise of political will and, above all, a comprehensive change of vision. At the moment, given the many complexities and uncertainties in the world economic, social, political and strategic situation, the most likely outcome is that American policies will be reversed and a new vision adopted only as irresistible imperatives when a devastating collapse has already occurred or is transparently under way. A crucial question is how many months or years we have left before we reach the point of collapse and just what we can do that will be effective in the meantime. "America's Suicidal Statecraft" suggests some approaches.
Customer Reviews:
A Robust Case for Peaceful Change.......2007-05-09
Dr Cumes' latest book "America's Suicidal Statecraft" should be read by everyone: policymakers, professional economists, bankers, businessmen and general public alike. He has been uncannily right for nearly forty years, from predicting "stagflation" in the early `seventies, to identifying shifts from domestic price inflation to deficits in the external balances in the `eighties, to foreseeing the stock-exchange crashes of 1987 and 2000, to identifying the development of a "casino-like" world economy, as he called it, especially from the 1990s onwards and, of course, to predicting the emergence of the "Asian Tigers" and the growth - unprecedented in speed and scale - of the two new potential "superpowers", China and India.
Now he warns us that nothing has been, or is being, done to devise effective means of managing the flow of funds - or the flow of "liquidity" or credit - in any way sufficient to avoid what promises to be the most monumental financial bust of all time. This bust will be global but it is most likely to hit hardest those who have been least inhibited in their embrace of modern finance capitalism and their "permissive" approach to financial and economic regulation.
Let us be clear, he says, that the advocacy of effective management of the flow of funds, domestically and globally, is not to advocate the destruction of capitalism but, on the contrary, to advocate effective means of preserving the essential nature of an economic system which has brought enormous benefits - along with enormous risks - over the past three centuries.
Even in the fundamentals of interest rate policy, he says, we have gone wrong and have delivered a triple whammy to boost inflation. "The reasons why this should be so are clear enough. Higher interest rates mean higher costs of production. Higher interest rates mean lower levels of output as some producers cut or cease production. Higher interest rates mean lower productivity by deterring fixed-capital investment which will enhance output per employee. There is thus a triple whammy giving a robust boost to inflation."
He points out that this reckless economic behaviour is in the context of a world armed to the teeth with the most terrifying weapons ever known and a struggle for limited resources that will continue to intensify deeply the risks of armed and potentially global conflict.
While Dr Cumes identifies the risks, he also shows how we can draw away from the abyss. The United States can reverse its progress towards self-destruction and maintain its role as a "superpower". But it will need to be a superpower for peaceful change. It will need to adopt economic policies that are soundly based not on speculation but on sustainable production. It will need to see that cooperative global solutions, rather than the use or threat of naked force are the pathway to human wellbeing - and indeed to human survival.
Dr Cumes outlines, in some detail, the policies and procedures whereby these solutions can be achieved. He warns that effective action along these lines may not be politically practicable before we endure a global bust; but, he says, we should then be prepared to act in ways that restore global stability and not in ways that, as in the Great Depression of the 1930s, will intensify the grave economic, social, political and strategic crises to which it now seems that, almost inevitably, we will be exposed.
For both his analysis of our problems and his proposed solutions, Dr Cumes' latest book should be on the reading list of everyone concerned about the future of life on our planet.
HaverleighOperation EqualizerThe indigent rich;: A theory of general equilibrium in a Keynesian systemInflation!: A Study in Stability
Customer Reviews:
In Defense of Economic Sanctions.......2002-03-01
As a realist, Baldwin holds that state actors can successfully assert international influence and power by using economic means, even when the actual results are a failure in economic terms. This broadened potential for success arises from the often-underestimated utility of non-economic, security-based outcomes, such as signaling other nations about strategic intentions and commitments. Thus, by his argument, we should judge the U.S. sanctions against Iraq or Cuba as successes, not as the failures they are commonly held to be.
He writes that "mutually beneficial exchange relationships . . . should be viewed in terms of power" (xi). For Baldwin, we should see economics not as a voluntary market structure that freely distributes goods, but should instead see the market as "an instrument of politics" (3). Any time that economics is used as an instrument of international politics, he calls it "economic statecraft," which Baldwin defines as "governmental influence attempts relying primarily on resources that have a reasonable semblance of a market price in terms of money" (30).
Although he sees economic statecraft as relying upon economic resources, the desired results should not necessarily be viewed in economic terms. He instead conceptualizes the results of economic statecraft quite broadly, as being "influence attempts," which means that they try to influence the behavior of other states in any way, economic or otherwise. It is this contention around which the importance of Baldwin's entire argument hinges, for it is this broadening of the intended results of economic statecraft to include all "influence attempts" that leads him to conclude that "the utility of economic techniques of statecraft has been systematically underestimated because of inadequacies in the analytical frameworks used to make such estimates" (58).
What does Baldwin have in mind when he emphasizes non-economic types of influence? When we think of economic sanctions, one key tool of economic statecraft, he reminds us that "the particular state with which trade is embargoed may or may not be the primary target of the influence attempt" (17). Here he draws our attention to the broader strategic context of international relations, by reminding us of the importance of onlookers in strategic interaction between two states. Analysts commonly use the concept of "signaling" to describe the mutual perceptions among participants and onlookers in a particular strategic interaction. "Economic sanctions may be effective not because of their economic impact, which may be nil, but rather because of the signal they send about the intentions of the state imposing the sanctions" (24). These signals can have a variety of effects, both positive and negative, that will structure future strategic calculations and interactions. Economic sanctions "may trigger a sense of shame, impose a sense of isolation from the world community, signal a willingness to use more radical measures, or simply provoke reexamination of policy stances in the target country" (63). The strength of Baldwin's argument here is that it breaks ground into areas that liberal accounts cannot tread by virtue of their reliance upon the imperatives of voluntary exchange implicit in the market. By going past this limitation, Baldwin shows how state agents can structure world power by manipulating the choices, capabilities and payoffs that other actors possess, and thereby shape the matrix of incentives.
A thorough analysis of the correlates of successful santions.......1998-05-07
Baldwin manages to capture much of the dynamics of sanctions policies in modern international relations. He extracts the theory of statecraft and most clearly defines the role of economics. Finally he considers cases of sanctions and provides a compelling explanation of success or failure. A must read for all students of economics and international relations.
Customer Reviews:
Good soundbites, but..........2003-02-21
These 10 commandments are a quick, easy-to-digest read on how Nixon and other select world personalities approached delicate tasks of getting others to say "yes". Nixon comes across as a highly intelligent, highly capable leader. Humes' insight into the man, and skill as a professional writer, makes Nixon's skills and intellect accessible to the reading audience in neatly packaged soundbites.
The trouble I had with this book is that Humes had an axe to grind when it came to Nixon. Several anecdotes in the Ten Commandments came across as "build up Nixon by tearing down others"--most surprisingly Henry Kissinger, most vigorously Jimmy Carter. This tear-down detracted from the stories of Nixon's accomplishments, and made the read less enjoyable. Had Humes focussed on the positive, his underlying message would have been better received.
Finally, this is categorized as a business book, and Humes makes a woeful attempt at tying the principles back to the business world. While the Commandments certainly apply, Humes application of these principles to the business world is disjointed from the rest of the book making for an awkward reading transition. He would have been better served to have included the business world tie-back to the Epilogue, where he could have investigated their application more fully.
Read this book for Nixon anecdotes... draw your own conclusions on application to the business world.
12th Commandment?.......2001-12-04
Humes' admiration and respect for Nixon as a leader and stateman jumps out from the pages of this captivating book. The historical vignettes are carefully chosen and skillfully articulated to elucidate Nixon's craftiness as a negotiator on the world stage. And Humes is clearly intent to debunk popular perception about Kissinger's capacity for vision and stature on matters of statecraft.
On the whole, Humes makes a very persuasive argument about Nixon's prowess and stature as a politician and a stateman. But Humes' passionate view on the superior intellect and virtue that Nixon personified inevitably compels one to find a satisfactory answer to the question: Why did things turn out the way they did after and despite Nixon?
A case in point is what has since come to be known as US' policy of strategic ambiguities on the "One China" issue, ostensibly a brilliant stroke of Nixonian diplomacy of "never giving up unilaterally what could be use as a bargaining chip." Humes laments that by switching US diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Red China, Jimmy Carter in one fell swoop destroyed the elaborate scheme conceived by Nixon to hold Red China in check by playing the Taiwan card. By all accounts, it appears more like a scheme too clever by half, because it is not apparent that the US national interest is optimized by the policy of strategic ambiguity. In any case, judging by the exalted standards set by Nixon - at least as Humes sees it - it would be a tall order for succeeding US presidents to match Nixon's craftiness at the negotiating table and ruthless power play.
Regardless of how elaborate Nixon's schemes are, they are bound to be chipped away by new advisors - with their own ideologies and philosophies on statecraft - that come into power under new US administrations. This is not to mention inevitable changes in environmental factors (ebbs and flows of the economy, for example) which necessarily raise the specter of adjustment in government policies.
In short, Nixon's ten commandments are in no doubt an immense wealth of wisdom for all to tap, but what is missing is a sense of humility and a dose of faith in humanity in applying these wisdom. Perhaps a twelfth commandment is therefore in order: Never be too clever by half.
Good, Practical Handbook on Getting Things Done.......1999-12-30
This book is a practitioner's guide. Whether you are a leader or involved in negotiations, Mr. Humes's book offers up valuable lessons for both disciplines.
Well organized and fast paced. The author highlights an event from President Nixon's life to serve as an example for each lesson. Successful leadership and negotiation can be practiced and learned. Mr. Humes shows how Nixon conceptualized a goal, prepared a strategy, tried to understand his opponent's needs and worked toward a solution that advanced America's interests.
Recommended for your manager's bookshelf.
Book Description
The conventional wisdom is that economic sanctions do not work in international affairs. If so, why do countries wield them so often? Daniel Drezner argues that, paradoxically, countries will be most eager to use sanctions under conditions where they will produce the feeblest results. States anticipate frequent conflicts with adversaries, and are therefore more willing to use sanctions. However, precisely because they anticipate more conflicts, sanctioned states will not concede, despite the cost. Economic sanctions are thus far less likely to be effective between adversaries than between allies.
Customer Reviews:
Moral Clarity for the Modern Conservative........2004-09-15
You listened to the President emphasize at the RNC that Government should be a tool, a facilitator to help people better themselves. He didn't mention eliminating goverment. George Will wrote this book about 10 years ago, yet his message can be so pertinent to the modern conservative. There was a lot of discussion recently about how in 2008, different types of so-defined conservatives will be competing for the Republican mantle to carry in the upcoming decades. It raises the question: since the role of the conservative today is no longer to be anti-communist (since the end of the Cold War), nor to eliminate government, nor to even battle deficits, what is the conservative's ideology today? George Will already had the answers with his great foresight. The book really helps a self-defined conservative re-think why we identify with a conservative and what conservatism really is. He articulates concepts that can be difficult to otherwise sort through. Mr. Will in this book makes numerous references to philosophers/writers whom he apparently has been well-guided by such as Edmund Burke, Disraeli, Aristotle, etc.
George Will in this book challenges the notion that conservatism should be defined strictly around an economic principle (capitalism). He gives conservatism greater purpose than just facilitating economic fulfillment through limited government intervention in the market. He resoundingly sends his message in this book that the conservative's mindset shouldn't be to detest government but to improve it and structure it so it is better able to empower and encourage citizenry to uphold its moral responsibilities as well as its economic ones.
I would recommend this book to be included in curricula for graduate-level public-administration programs. In courses that put an emphasis on Hobbes, Machiavelli, Locke and Jeffersonian themes, this book would be an useful refutal to compliment such readings.
Brilliant Insights into What Makes Nations Great.......2003-02-28
Although George Will can be an extremist in some of his views, he has a good mind and is gifted as an author and orator. This is nowhere more evident than in this collection of 20th century essays, where he focuses on "statecraft as soulcraft." Thomas Jefferson understood that an educated citizenry was a Nation's best defense, and the Vietnamese have clearly demonstrated that a nation with a strong strategic culture can defeat the United States when it practices the American way of war (lots of technology, little public support for the war). Today we are beginning to understand that the moral aspects of national character are 3-5 times more important than the physical and economic and technical aspects. Michele Borba's new book, Building Moral Intelligence, together with George Will's dated but still powerfully relevant book, comprise the urgently needed elementary education for all adults who would be responsibile citizens--or leaders of citizens.
A Neoconservative's View of The State.......2002-02-06
Will, a neoconservative often mistaken for a conservative of the old mold, presents his case for the Leviathan state. To Will, if government is good, then more government is better. He sees the state as the rightful architect of society, trusting politicians and bureaucrats to steer the proles along the path to greatness, meaning Empire. I regard neoconservatives as Judas goats; Will is a prime example. This is the man who, a few years ago, said that it is time America repealed "the embarrassing Second Amendment."
Will provides an intellectual history of modern conservatism.......1998-09-17
In this volume, George Will examines the historical roots of conservatism as a way of governing. Drawing on examples from the direct ancestors of American Founding Fathers (the English), Will provides a compelling case for policies that are conservative in intent, as well as in effect. He also shows what strategy should be properly regarded as conservative.
Book Description
The essays here address the relationship between economic interdependence and international conflict, the political economy of economic sanctions, and the role of economic incentives in international statecraft.
Customer Reviews:
An impressive and meticulously researched account on intelligence..........2005-07-12
Yes, Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century is relentlessly critical of the blundering past performance of various administrations, e.g., "Note well that liberals in America, when in charge of government at any level, of university faculties, or of CIA directorates, take care to hire and award contracts to likeminded folk and to exclude others." P 231.
And, yes the aphorisms are authentic, fascinating, and call for radical reformation e.g., "Sound knowledge of a disorderly world, rather than faith in a trouble free, post-end-of-history `new world order,' will best fit nations to thrive in the twenty-first century." P 72. "There is never enough intelligence to guarantee instant success at no cost and never enough to overcome entrenched prejudice." P 213. "It is more important to define what any particular job, e.g., espionage, is to accomplish, how it is to be accomplished, and to hire the right kinds of people to do it, than it is to decide for which bureaucracy these people will work." P 293.
But the roots of this work lie deep in lessons that humankind desperately needs to understand now at the beginning of the new millennium: the mystery of foreign lands and the mystery of the language, culture, and people integral to them.
o Despite superficial signs of a uniform world culture (cassette recorders, jeans, soda pop, burgers, rock groups), Africans are becoming more African, Asians more Asian, Russians more Russian, etc. The often astonishingly good English spoken by young people from Moscow to Mecca - never mind the Indian subcontinent, where it is the lingua franca - has led many U.S. analysts to the disastrous conclusion that foreigners can be understood in terms of what they say in English. On the contrary, their English words are our symbols, to which they do not necessarily attach the same meaning or convictions we attach. P 239.
o The characteristics of the person sent to gather information often make the difference between information that is useful and information that is worse than useless. P 301.
o The network is most important. Closed terrorist cells in the Middle East are part of the semiopen entourages of terrorist chieftains who are part of overt Palestinian politics in which Arab governments take major parts. P 311.
o Among the most effective forms of propaganda is the propaganda of the deed-the sight of a corpse, and the feeling that one may be next. Nothing so cements a movement for the long run as martyrs, nor changes a government so definitively as killing its members or supporters. P 375.
After my first reading of Informing Statecraft, I read it at random, and find that no matter where I pick up the thread, it produces a comprehensively researched and unrivaled account of the intelligence industry. As always, Codevilla navigates the shoals of this information with great skill and dexterity.
Six Stars.......2003-08-28
Glad it's back in print! The best book on intelliegnce out there, a beautiful sythesis of general principles and historical examples. In particular, Codevilla has grasped James Jesus Angleton's seemingly simple insight -- that our enemies, as thinking, breathing human beings, may actually go out of their way to feed us false intelligence, so that we will believe things that aren't true -- which has been totally lost to CIA for almost 30 years. Instead, it has been replaced with a naive faith that CIA is simply too smart and professional to be fooled.
Codevilla, from years as a Senate intelligence staffer, knows otherwise, and he chronicles one blunder after another. The lesson: since few if any of Codevilla's proposals were implemented, when CIA says something does or doesn't exist, you should be very, very skeptical. CIA has secret intelligence right? They know things we don't, right? Wrong.
For any intelligence hands, this is the First Book.......2000-05-13
Admirably writeen, lucid prose, outstanding thought, this book would be the first book I would assign to anyone looking to understand the nature of intelligence.
It is interesting to note that Codevilla wrote two of the best introductions on "how to think" about two major subjects- about war in "War, Ends and Means" and "Statecraft". It is a crime that this book is out of print, and one should do everything in ones power to obtain a copy.
The only other book in the intelligence field that approaches this level of worth is "The New KGB, Engine of Societ Power", an older 1980's book by Robert Corson. All the other poor books on intelligence either take the character of "The Puzzle Palace" (which is stupid and an insider's pro-old boys network hack job) or one of Noam Chomsky's blithering semi-conspiracy theories. "Informing Statecraft" is the only type of really usefull intellectual companion to intelligence work in all existance.
This book is exactly what an intelligence book should be- an attack on the structural inadequacies of the United States intelligence community in the guise of a "how-to" book on how to run things correctly. Flipping through the book, one will wonder at the bales of common sensical yet brilliant realpolitik critiques involved in his analysis of what intelligence should be about.
Informing Policy is more important than stealing secrets.......2000-04-08
"It is not too gross an exaggeration that when considering any given threat, DIA will overestimate, CIA will underestimate, and INR will blame the U.S. for it." From his opening chapter and his distinction between static, dynamic, and technical facts, on through a brilliant summary of the post-war spy on page 103 and lengthy sections on how we've gotten it wrong, how we can get it right, and what is needed in the way of reform, I found this book worthy of study. An analyst and political staffer by nature, the strength of this book rests on the premise in the title: that intelligence should be about informing policy, not about collecting secrets for secrets' sake.
Simply the best basic book on intelligence available.......1999-03-06
I'm going to sound like a schoold-girl with an infatuation if I let what I think about this book out. One hears many reviews that begin with "This book should be the first book anyone reads about blah blah blah", but this is a rare case of crystal clear thinking about intelligence that amounts to a genius. Were I to make or run an intelliegence agency, this book would be the first book I would give to my officers and agents.
Maybe the reason for Mr. Codevilla's excellence is his devotion to translating Machiavelli (now that's someone I'd like to have in an intelligence agency), or maybe not. What I do know is this book talks first and foremost about the basic questions intelligence operations should be asking about themselves and their work.
I've read a lot of books about intelligence agencies, but they all end up being either a) anecdotal, story like intepretations, b) partisan tracts on different aspects of intelligence work, or c) op-ed pieces.
I would put this book even above such works as "The Puzzle Palace". The only other book I have read with this caliber material was on Russian intelligence, "The New KGB: Engine of Soviet Power".
This book, however, takes the cake, and it restores my faith in looking up obscure intellectuals- this reminds me of the HL Mencken maxim- "There are only two types of books: the kind of books people read and the kinds of books people should read". This book is the latter. Buy it and read it twice.
Books:
- Foundations of Multinational Financial Management
- Game Theory for Applied Economists
- Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban Educational Reform
- Gilded Tarot
- Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
- Global Challenges: An Approach to Environmental, Political, and Economic Problems
- Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security
- Global Shift, Fifth Edition: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy (Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours)
- Global Strategy (with World Map and InfoTrac )
- Handbook of Semidefinite Programming - Theory, Algorithms, and Applications (INTERNATIONAL SERIES IN OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND) (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science)
Books Index
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General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century
Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger
State Power and World Markets: The International Political Economy
The Next Great Globalization: How Disadvantaged Nations Can Harness Their Financial Systems to Get Rich
Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
