What do you think?
Rate this book
أمريكا على مفترق الطرق: ما بعد المحافظين الجدد
يشكل هذا الكتاب انشقاقاً فكرياً وسياسياً عن مشروع المحافظين الجدد في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، فقد كان فرانسيس فوكوياما أحد المفكرين والمنظرين الكبار للمحافظين الجدد، وفي هذا الكتاب يبدو فوكوياما معارضاً وناقداً لسياسات بوش في العراق والحرب على الإرهاب، ويدعو في كتابه إلى طريق جديد وأكثر واقعية للولايات المتحدة الأمريكية لترويج التنمية السياسية والاقتصادية وتجنب الحرب الاستباقية.
تراث المحافظين الجدد يقول فوكوياما: إن سياسات الولايات المتحدة في الحرب على أفغانستان والعراق ليست تطبيقاً للمبادئ المحافظة الجديدة كما أفهمها، ويصف قادة الإدارة الأمريكية وبخاصة الثلاثي بوش وتشيني ورامسفيلد بأنهم ليسوا مثقفين من المحافظين الجدد وأن تطبيقهم للحرب كارثي على المصالح الأمريكية .
تراث المحافظين الجدد يقول فوكوياما: إن سياسات الولايات المتحدة في الحرب على أفغانستان والعراق ليست تطبيقاً للمبادئ المحافظة الجديدة كما أفهمها، ويصف قادة الإدارة الأمريكية وبخاصة الثلاثي بوش وتشيني ورامسفيلد بأنهم ليسوا مثقفين من المحافظين الجدد وأن تطبيقهم للحرب كارثي على المصالح الأمريكية .
274 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 2006
17 people are currently reading
967 people want to read
About the author
Francis Fukuyama
100books2,111followersYoshihiro Francis Fukuyama (born 27 October 1952) is an American philosopher, political economist, and author.
Francis Fukuyama was born in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. His father, Yoshio Fukuyama, a second-generation Japanese-American, was trained as a minister in the Congregational Church and received a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago. His mother, Toshiko Kawata Fukuyama, was born in Kyoto, Japan, and was the daughter of Shiro Kawata, founder of the Economics Department of Kyoto University and first president of Osaka Municipal University in Osaka. Fukuyama's childhood years were spent in New York City. In 1967 his family moved to State College, Pennsylvania, where he attended high school.
Fukuyama received his Bachelor of Arts degree in classics from Cornell University, where he studied political philosophy under Allan Bloom. He earned his Ph.D. in government from Harvard University, studying with Samuel P. Huntington and Harvey C. Mansfield, among others. Fukuyama has been affiliated with the Telluride Association since his undergraduate years at Cornell, an educational enterprise that was home to other significant leaders and intellectuals, including Steven Weinberg and Paul Wolfowitz.
Fukuyama is currently the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and Director of the International Development Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, located in Washington, DC.
Fukuyama is best known as the author of The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Fukuyama predicted the eventual global triumph of political and economic liberalism.
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such... That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.
He has written a number of other books, among them Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity and Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. In the latter, he qualified his original 'end of history' thesis, arguing that since biotechnology increasingly allows humans to control their own evolution, it may allow humans to alter human nature, thereby putting liberal democracy at risk. One possible outcome could be that an altered human nature could end in radical inequality. He is a fierce enemy of transhumanism, an intellectual movement asserting that posthumanity is a highly desirable goal.
The current revolution in biological sciences leads him to theorize that in an environment where science and technology are by no means at an end, but rather opening new horizons, history itself cannot therefore be said to be, as he once thought, at an end.
In another work The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstruction of Social Order, he explores the origins of social norms, and analyses the current disruptions in the fabric of our moral traditions, which he considers as arising from a shift from the manufacturing to the information age. This shift is, he thinks, normal and will prove self-correcting, given the intrinsic human need for social norms and rules.
Francis Fukuyama was born in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. His father, Yoshio Fukuyama, a second-generation Japanese-American, was trained as a minister in the Congregational Church and received a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago. His mother, Toshiko Kawata Fukuyama, was born in Kyoto, Japan, and was the daughter of Shiro Kawata, founder of the Economics Department of Kyoto University and first president of Osaka Municipal University in Osaka. Fukuyama's childhood years were spent in New York City. In 1967 his family moved to State College, Pennsylvania, where he attended high school.
Fukuyama received his Bachelor of Arts degree in classics from Cornell University, where he studied political philosophy under Allan Bloom. He earned his Ph.D. in government from Harvard University, studying with Samuel P. Huntington and Harvey C. Mansfield, among others. Fukuyama has been affiliated with the Telluride Association since his undergraduate years at Cornell, an educational enterprise that was home to other significant leaders and intellectuals, including Steven Weinberg and Paul Wolfowitz.
Fukuyama is currently the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and Director of the International Development Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, located in Washington, DC.
Fukuyama is best known as the author of The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Fukuyama predicted the eventual global triumph of political and economic liberalism.
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such... That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.
He has written a number of other books, among them Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity and Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. In the latter, he qualified his original 'end of history' thesis, arguing that since biotechnology increasingly allows humans to control their own evolution, it may allow humans to alter human nature, thereby putting liberal democracy at risk. One possible outcome could be that an altered human nature could end in radical inequality. He is a fierce enemy of transhumanism, an intellectual movement asserting that posthumanity is a highly desirable goal.
The current revolution in biological sciences leads him to theorize that in an environment where science and technology are by no means at an end, but rather opening new horizons, history itself cannot therefore be said to be, as he once thought, at an end.
In another work The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstruction of Social Order, he explores the origins of social norms, and analyses the current disruptions in the fabric of our moral traditions, which he considers as arising from a shift from the manufacturing to the information age. This shift is, he thinks, normal and will prove self-correcting, given the intrinsic human need for social norms and rules.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
August 23, 2020
Five pages in and I was sure I would hate America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy, by Francis Fukuyama. His earlier book The End Of history by title alone struck me as too silly to read. Having finished Crossroads, it is a certainty I was too hasty about Cross Roads and may need to reconsider the other. America At the Cross Roads is an effort to bring forward Neoconservative theory and prove this new approach with historical examples. His are not my politics. His book is a demonstration case that argues for the advantages of listening to input not from your own echo chamber.
At the Cross Roads is in part a printing of his Castle Lectures in Yale’s Program in Ethics, Politics and Economics given in 2005. At the time of publication, he was the Benard L. Swatrz Professor of Political Economy and director of the International Development Program at the School of Advanced Studies, John Hopkins Univ. Therefore, a very high-level academic speaking before a very high-level group of scholars. Credentials aside, he has a tendency to establish context and validity by listing the names of other scholars. This works if you know who these people are. Some names I recognized, but recognition does not specify what part of that person’s thinking is being evoked in support of what part of the argument under discussion. This problem is mostly in the early chapters.
He is explicit that his topic is international policy. All domestic issues he shrugs off with the exception of approval of “Broken Windows Policing� and what officers call “whack-a-mole� arrest tactics. Broken Windows has its advocates. But it is the kind of policing that gets a black man kill for the crime of selling individual cigarettes on the streets. I will later have cause to wonder about the strategies he advocates in international policy and why they have no analogue in domestic policies.
Leaping ahead, the heart of the text can be drawn around Fukuyama disagreements wit the foreign policy position of the later Bush presidency that lead us into the second Iraq and satellite Afghan Wars. Much of this case is insightful. He is rudely harsh towards then Secretary of State, General Colin Powel. Here is where his politics keep him from speaking honestly.
Sec Powel was coldly sacrificed before the UN. He was given equivocal intelligence and was promised it was entirely valid. When it proved to be less than he described it, as an honest man he was compromised and had to resign. What Fukuyama cannot bring himself to admit was that this administration was committed, a priori to launching a war. All policy statements and intelligence were shaped to that preselected purpose.
This is not to say that there was no intelligence only that it was culled for the purpose of proving the need for immediate preemptive military action. Fukuyama makes it clear that the UN and modern history allow for justified preemptive action. It is that the rules for this particular defensive war to minimize a later war were never rigorously encoded. At bottom no WMD were found. America had presumed rights to action it would not have granted to most other nations. An agreed case for action by America as a allowed originator of such action; was that USA is a ‘City on the Hill� with a proven moral right and ability to apply force for the greater good of the region or world, in short American Exceptionalism is the case for America to be allowed to conduct preemptive war at itsown discretion. Or so the Bush administration argued and with important limits so does Fukuyama.
Every time I read this, I had to wonder why China should not be allowed to make the same case for itself. They certainly feel themselves to be exceptional and backed by the superior morality of their world views. In sum, these intangible values are a matter that any country can make for itself , with or without an American ruling on that country’s suitability.
Moving back from specifics as applied to the Bush Administration, Fukuyama makes a very cogent case for the real problems of nation building. Bush doctrine was bed rocked in the belief that regime change must mean replacement by a liberal free democratic government. Fukuyama is right to suggest that regime change only produces a new regime. Nation building is a long term, highly fraught process. The process must promote sufficient wealth to give people time to consider larger things. An economic Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In addition, nation building requires time and resource consuming efforts to build and protect institutions. This may involve both subversive and open efforts. The goal being to build everything from educational systems to an opposition press. International involvement may include supervision of foreign investments, be it county to county assistance programs, Non-Government Organization grants or commercial private money. Where there is money there can be corruption and minimizing may be the best that can be achieved. Planning has to accept the pre-existence of tribalism, factionalism and the history of local traditions and customs.
One has to wonder if Fukuyama has analogs for promoting domestic tranquility.
Despite traditional conservative rejection of international organizations, Fukuyama has a better analysis. Large international organizations like the UN are by design inefficient, but they can create instant legitimacy. The future may not be around the UN, but its replacement to create legitimacy will still have to be inefficient. NATO can be a lot more efficient, but it is also not bound to be America’s handmaiden and cannot be assumed to be will to act on demand. Ultimately the future may depend on more flexible and temporary alignments. Something between a suspect “coalition of the willing� and a reluctant NATO.
To some degree America At the Cross Roads is a product of its time. America had broken Iraq and was not clear what it might mean to fix it. I doing this it had compromised its standing as a benevolent hegemon. He was still viewing America as the world’s only superpower. The rise of China as a powerful and aggressive claimant to be the sole hegemon for all of East Asia was not in his estimation. That China is following an American model, China demonstrates their only respect for American primacy. Both China and Russia are or are becoming increasing creditable in Africa and South America. Nothing in Cross Roads anticipates these developments.
There is much to learn from Fukuyama. He is not nor does he desire to be an objective, apolitical analyst. He may not be in your echo chamber; he should be on your shelves.
At the Cross Roads is in part a printing of his Castle Lectures in Yale’s Program in Ethics, Politics and Economics given in 2005. At the time of publication, he was the Benard L. Swatrz Professor of Political Economy and director of the International Development Program at the School of Advanced Studies, John Hopkins Univ. Therefore, a very high-level academic speaking before a very high-level group of scholars. Credentials aside, he has a tendency to establish context and validity by listing the names of other scholars. This works if you know who these people are. Some names I recognized, but recognition does not specify what part of that person’s thinking is being evoked in support of what part of the argument under discussion. This problem is mostly in the early chapters.
He is explicit that his topic is international policy. All domestic issues he shrugs off with the exception of approval of “Broken Windows Policing� and what officers call “whack-a-mole� arrest tactics. Broken Windows has its advocates. But it is the kind of policing that gets a black man kill for the crime of selling individual cigarettes on the streets. I will later have cause to wonder about the strategies he advocates in international policy and why they have no analogue in domestic policies.
Leaping ahead, the heart of the text can be drawn around Fukuyama disagreements wit the foreign policy position of the later Bush presidency that lead us into the second Iraq and satellite Afghan Wars. Much of this case is insightful. He is rudely harsh towards then Secretary of State, General Colin Powel. Here is where his politics keep him from speaking honestly.
Sec Powel was coldly sacrificed before the UN. He was given equivocal intelligence and was promised it was entirely valid. When it proved to be less than he described it, as an honest man he was compromised and had to resign. What Fukuyama cannot bring himself to admit was that this administration was committed, a priori to launching a war. All policy statements and intelligence were shaped to that preselected purpose.
This is not to say that there was no intelligence only that it was culled for the purpose of proving the need for immediate preemptive military action. Fukuyama makes it clear that the UN and modern history allow for justified preemptive action. It is that the rules for this particular defensive war to minimize a later war were never rigorously encoded. At bottom no WMD were found. America had presumed rights to action it would not have granted to most other nations. An agreed case for action by America as a allowed originator of such action; was that USA is a ‘City on the Hill� with a proven moral right and ability to apply force for the greater good of the region or world, in short American Exceptionalism is the case for America to be allowed to conduct preemptive war at itsown discretion. Or so the Bush administration argued and with important limits so does Fukuyama.
Every time I read this, I had to wonder why China should not be allowed to make the same case for itself. They certainly feel themselves to be exceptional and backed by the superior morality of their world views. In sum, these intangible values are a matter that any country can make for itself , with or without an American ruling on that country’s suitability.
Moving back from specifics as applied to the Bush Administration, Fukuyama makes a very cogent case for the real problems of nation building. Bush doctrine was bed rocked in the belief that regime change must mean replacement by a liberal free democratic government. Fukuyama is right to suggest that regime change only produces a new regime. Nation building is a long term, highly fraught process. The process must promote sufficient wealth to give people time to consider larger things. An economic Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In addition, nation building requires time and resource consuming efforts to build and protect institutions. This may involve both subversive and open efforts. The goal being to build everything from educational systems to an opposition press. International involvement may include supervision of foreign investments, be it county to county assistance programs, Non-Government Organization grants or commercial private money. Where there is money there can be corruption and minimizing may be the best that can be achieved. Planning has to accept the pre-existence of tribalism, factionalism and the history of local traditions and customs.
One has to wonder if Fukuyama has analogs for promoting domestic tranquility.
Despite traditional conservative rejection of international organizations, Fukuyama has a better analysis. Large international organizations like the UN are by design inefficient, but they can create instant legitimacy. The future may not be around the UN, but its replacement to create legitimacy will still have to be inefficient. NATO can be a lot more efficient, but it is also not bound to be America’s handmaiden and cannot be assumed to be will to act on demand. Ultimately the future may depend on more flexible and temporary alignments. Something between a suspect “coalition of the willing� and a reluctant NATO.
To some degree America At the Cross Roads is a product of its time. America had broken Iraq and was not clear what it might mean to fix it. I doing this it had compromised its standing as a benevolent hegemon. He was still viewing America as the world’s only superpower. The rise of China as a powerful and aggressive claimant to be the sole hegemon for all of East Asia was not in his estimation. That China is following an American model, China demonstrates their only respect for American primacy. Both China and Russia are or are becoming increasing creditable in Africa and South America. Nothing in Cross Roads anticipates these developments.
There is much to learn from Fukuyama. He is not nor does he desire to be an objective, apolitical analyst. He may not be in your echo chamber; he should be on your shelves.
December 5, 2019
This book is slightly confused. It seems premature in that sense, as though Fukuyama is re-evaluating his ideology after the improper implementation of it. It is important to recognize this book is now 12 years old and we know a lot more about the terrible impacts of neo-conservatism.
It is clear that ne0-conservatism has become something that he can no longer sign up to. But his argument that what neo-conservatism is, is something different to the form of neo-conservatism propagated by Bush and his cronies.
The history of neo-conservatism did little to justify it's foundations other than explain how important a certain form of moral paradigm was to it's founding fathers. IN one of the stranger stretches in the book he tries to suggest that critiques of neo-cons can be anti-semitic because there are many Jewish thinkers in the movement. At another point he mocks cultural relativism, with a slightly straw man-esque description, before arguing later in the book that democracy should be allowed even when it doesn't look how the USA envisaged.
At the core of the book remain Fukuyama's ideology that US Liberal Democracy and Neo-Liberal capitalism are a net good for the world and often the US will have to act unilaterally to ensure this happens. He argues that in an ideal world this would be done through a system of multi-multilateral institutions. One justification being the lack of power of institutions like the UN, this is ironic as the USA has done much to undermine the united nations.
The book is convoluted, it's attitude to facts suspect (eg. Asian Tiger countries are a very particular form of state capitalism, not neo-liberalism. Eastern European shock capitalism was largely disasterous) and the ideas not well thought through. The book represents a last grasp at maintaining the key assumptions of an unfashionable ideology.
It is clear that ne0-conservatism has become something that he can no longer sign up to. But his argument that what neo-conservatism is, is something different to the form of neo-conservatism propagated by Bush and his cronies.
The history of neo-conservatism did little to justify it's foundations other than explain how important a certain form of moral paradigm was to it's founding fathers. IN one of the stranger stretches in the book he tries to suggest that critiques of neo-cons can be anti-semitic because there are many Jewish thinkers in the movement. At another point he mocks cultural relativism, with a slightly straw man-esque description, before arguing later in the book that democracy should be allowed even when it doesn't look how the USA envisaged.
At the core of the book remain Fukuyama's ideology that US Liberal Democracy and Neo-Liberal capitalism are a net good for the world and often the US will have to act unilaterally to ensure this happens. He argues that in an ideal world this would be done through a system of multi-multilateral institutions. One justification being the lack of power of institutions like the UN, this is ironic as the USA has done much to undermine the united nations.
The book is convoluted, it's attitude to facts suspect (eg. Asian Tiger countries are a very particular form of state capitalism, not neo-liberalism. Eastern European shock capitalism was largely disasterous) and the ideas not well thought through. The book represents a last grasp at maintaining the key assumptions of an unfashionable ideology.
October 16, 2019
Fukuyama ebben a könyvében elmagyarázza, mi is az a neokonzervativizmus*, hogyan alakult ki, és hogy ő maga miért szakított vele. Felmerült bennem olvasás közben a kérdés, hogy miért olvasok én a neokonzervativizmusról, az USA egyik (egykori?) meghatározó eszmeáramlatáról egy olyan történelmi pillanatban, amikor az amerikai csúcspolitikát szemmel láthatóan nem eszmék, hanem egy hektikus, fura hajú milliárdos irányítja**. Továbbá: miért érdekel F. konfliktusa Bush-sal a második öbölháború miatt, amikor ez az esemény egyre inkább a múlt ködébe vész � lassan már ott tartunk, hogy könnyes nosztalgiával gondolok vissza az ifjabb Bokor Gyuri gyerekre, mint az amerikai republikánus gondolat egyik, tulajdonképpen vállalható képviselőjére.
Alighanem azért, mert a második öbölháború volt az a pont (és ezt Fukuyama nagyon jól érzékeli), amikor az USA elvesztegette azt az erkölcsi tőkét, amit a hidegháború végéig felhalmozott. Nem csak arról van szó, hogy amikor tömegpusztító fegyverekre hivatkozva lerohanta Irakot, akkor tulajdonképpen az egész arab világot maga ellen fordította. Nem is csak arról, hogy miután lebontotta Szaddám államát, képtelen volt helyette életképesebbet létrehozni, így létrejött azt a hatalmi űr, ami a dzsihadista szervezeteknek kedvezett � ezzel pedig a permanens háborúnak egy olyan fokozatát hozta létre, amit egésze egyszerűen nem lehet megnyerni hagyományos reguláris hadsereggel, legyen az akármilyen high-tech. A fő probléma az, hogy az USA hagyományos szövetségeseinek ekkor lett tele a hócipője az egypólusú világrenddel, ekkor mondtak először határozottan nemet arra a „jóindulatú hegemóniára�, amire hivatkozva Bush önkényesen beavatkozott egy távoli geopolitikai régióban. Mert a „jóindulatú hegemónia� csak addig működik, amíg a felek többé-kevésbé meg vannak győződve róla, hogy a nagyhatalom erejét bölcsen, a közösség érdekeit szem előtt tartva használja fel. Konfliktusok persze már az öbölháború előtt is voltak, de ekkor még az USA hivatkozhatott arra, hogy egy egyértelműen negatív erő (a Szovjetunió) ellensúlya, és az elvárhatónál nagyobb erőfeszítést tesz azért, hogy a világ többé részét megvédje. De Bush esetében már más volt a helyzet: Bush döntései nem tűntek bölcsnek, és az sem látszott, hogy saját érdekein kívül más is befolyásolná a döntésben � ez pedig létrehozta azt a szakadást a demokratikus blokkon belül, ami máig is érzékelhető.
Fukuyama azért is bírálja Busht, mert kisajátította és kifordította a neokonzervatív eszmét. A neokonzervatívok ugyanis hagyományosan szkeptikusak azzal kapcsolatban, hogy egy állam mechanikusan, erőből demokratizálható � ők (Fukuyamával együtt) inkább abban hisznek, hogy ezek a változások a történelmi időben fokozatosan, bizonyos intézmények létrejötte után, „természetes módon� jönnek létre. Ezzel szemben Bush fogta magát, és páros lábbal beleugrott az egészbe, a gondoknak egy egészen bámulatos spirálját indítva el.
Jól összeszedett, világos okfejtésekre alapozó könyv. Még pár jól eltalált jóslat is akad benne (például hogy a terrorizmus elleni harc színtere Nyugat-Európa lesz), ha valaki igényli az ilyesmit.
* Ami nem tévesztendő össze az európai konzervativizmussal. Főképp azért, mert az európai konzervativizmus jórészt nem elválasztható a nemzetben és etnikumban való gondolkodástól � ami viszont értelemszerűen Amerikában sosem lehetett meghatározó tényező. Ami ezt a világnak azon a felén pótolja, az a Függetlenségi Nyilatkozat felsőbbrendűségébe vetett hit, ami gyakran elképesztő erkölcsi magabiztossággal párosul, és azzal az őszinte hittel, hogy a világ akkor tenné magával a legjobbat, ha hallgatna a bölcs és tiszta Egyesült Államokra.
** Merthogy az nem eszme, hogy „Make America Great Again�. Hiszen MILYEN a „Nagy Amerika�? Ha tényleg azt akarnák, hogy Amerika nagy legyen, akkor a legegyszerűbb volna azt a tervezett kerítést Mexikó túlsó határára emelni � és hopp, Amerika máris nagyobb lenne egy mexikónyival. És ez egy csapásra megoldaná az illegális bevándorlás problémáját is.
Alighanem azért, mert a második öbölháború volt az a pont (és ezt Fukuyama nagyon jól érzékeli), amikor az USA elvesztegette azt az erkölcsi tőkét, amit a hidegháború végéig felhalmozott. Nem csak arról van szó, hogy amikor tömegpusztító fegyverekre hivatkozva lerohanta Irakot, akkor tulajdonképpen az egész arab világot maga ellen fordította. Nem is csak arról, hogy miután lebontotta Szaddám államát, képtelen volt helyette életképesebbet létrehozni, így létrejött azt a hatalmi űr, ami a dzsihadista szervezeteknek kedvezett � ezzel pedig a permanens háborúnak egy olyan fokozatát hozta létre, amit egésze egyszerűen nem lehet megnyerni hagyományos reguláris hadsereggel, legyen az akármilyen high-tech. A fő probléma az, hogy az USA hagyományos szövetségeseinek ekkor lett tele a hócipője az egypólusú világrenddel, ekkor mondtak először határozottan nemet arra a „jóindulatú hegemóniára�, amire hivatkozva Bush önkényesen beavatkozott egy távoli geopolitikai régióban. Mert a „jóindulatú hegemónia� csak addig működik, amíg a felek többé-kevésbé meg vannak győződve róla, hogy a nagyhatalom erejét bölcsen, a közösség érdekeit szem előtt tartva használja fel. Konfliktusok persze már az öbölháború előtt is voltak, de ekkor még az USA hivatkozhatott arra, hogy egy egyértelműen negatív erő (a Szovjetunió) ellensúlya, és az elvárhatónál nagyobb erőfeszítést tesz azért, hogy a világ többé részét megvédje. De Bush esetében már más volt a helyzet: Bush döntései nem tűntek bölcsnek, és az sem látszott, hogy saját érdekein kívül más is befolyásolná a döntésben � ez pedig létrehozta azt a szakadást a demokratikus blokkon belül, ami máig is érzékelhető.
Fukuyama azért is bírálja Busht, mert kisajátította és kifordította a neokonzervatív eszmét. A neokonzervatívok ugyanis hagyományosan szkeptikusak azzal kapcsolatban, hogy egy állam mechanikusan, erőből demokratizálható � ők (Fukuyamával együtt) inkább abban hisznek, hogy ezek a változások a történelmi időben fokozatosan, bizonyos intézmények létrejötte után, „természetes módon� jönnek létre. Ezzel szemben Bush fogta magát, és páros lábbal beleugrott az egészbe, a gondoknak egy egészen bámulatos spirálját indítva el.
Jól összeszedett, világos okfejtésekre alapozó könyv. Még pár jól eltalált jóslat is akad benne (például hogy a terrorizmus elleni harc színtere Nyugat-Európa lesz), ha valaki igényli az ilyesmit.
* Ami nem tévesztendő össze az európai konzervativizmussal. Főképp azért, mert az európai konzervativizmus jórészt nem elválasztható a nemzetben és etnikumban való gondolkodástól � ami viszont értelemszerűen Amerikában sosem lehetett meghatározó tényező. Ami ezt a világnak azon a felén pótolja, az a Függetlenségi Nyilatkozat felsőbbrendűségébe vetett hit, ami gyakran elképesztő erkölcsi magabiztossággal párosul, és azzal az őszinte hittel, hogy a világ akkor tenné magával a legjobbat, ha hallgatna a bölcs és tiszta Egyesült Államokra.
** Merthogy az nem eszme, hogy „Make America Great Again�. Hiszen MILYEN a „Nagy Amerika�? Ha tényleg azt akarnák, hogy Amerika nagy legyen, akkor a legegyszerűbb volna azt a tervezett kerítést Mexikó túlsó határára emelni � és hopp, Amerika máris nagyobb lenne egy mexikónyival. És ez egy csapásra megoldaná az illegális bevándorlás problémáját is.
Read
June 23, 2024The worst thing Bush did was bait neoconservative intellectuals into forgetting that conservatives are supposed to be against rapid political revolution instituted from the top down
March 4, 2025
Published five years after September 11, 2001, America at the Crossroads is Francis Fukuyama’s explanation of why he, unlike other neoconservatives, did not support the invasion of Iraq and why he can no longer support neoconservatism “as both a political symbol and a body of thought� (xi). Why care about a political debate that is now twenty years old? Because the book is not simply an apologia; it is also an attempt by Fukuyama to explain why neocons went wrong and to sketch a new, alternative paradigm for how the United States should relate to the rest of the world. The result might help us to better understand our own political moment.
Fukuyama begins with a history of the neoconservative movement, which traces its roots to the 1940s in a group of largely Jewish intellectuals who “came from working-class, immigrant backgrounds and attended� City College of New York (15). This history won’t be of interest to most readers; for those who do enjoy it, there’s a good documentary called Arguing with the World (1998) that includes interviews with Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe, and Daniel Bell. Over time, they went in different directions politically and, to my knowledge, only Kristol embraced the neoconservative label. But they all shared a strong commitment to opposing communism.
Four common principles emerged from this early movement:
� “a concern with democracy, human rights, and more generally with the internal politics of states;
� a belief that U.S. power can be used for moral purposes;
� a skepticism about the ability of international law and institutions to solve serious security problems;
� and finally, a view that ambitious social engineering often leads to unexpected consequences and often undermines its own ends.� (4-5, bullet points added)
A small number of second-generation neoconservatives, such as Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, and Robert Kagan, were taught by the philosopher Leo Strauss or one of his students (e.g., Allan Bloom, Harvey Mansfield, and Harry Jaffa). Studying with Strauss and, specifically, reading texts from Plato and Aristotle, they learned about the idea of “regime.� Ancient thinkers understood “a regime not in the modern way, as a set of visible formal institutions, but rather as a way of life in which formal political institutions and informal habits constantly shape one another� (25). One possible inference of this view is that “certain political problems can be solved only through regime change,� whether it comes from internal forces or external ones (28). These younger neocons translated the idea into an “expansive, interventionist, democracy-promoting position that has come to be seen today as the essence of neoconservatism…� (40). And, indeed, regime change would become the main argument for the Bush administration concerning the Iraq War after inspectors and intelligence professionals failed to find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) or establish a clear link between the Iraqi government and al-Qaida. (On the subject of WMDs, Fukuyama thinks that the Bush administration, like virtually everyone else at the time, genuinely believed the Iraqis had limited stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. So “it is more likely that administration officials were guilty of exaggerating rather than lying…� to the American people, namely, by failing to clarify that “weapons of mass destruction� did not necessarily mean nuclear weapons [93].)
Fukuyama thinks that neoconservatives in the 2000s, overconfident in their successes from the Reagan era, badly misjudged their own ability to effect change in the world and failed to foresee the global anti-American backlash and military quagmire that resulted. He thinks that the Bush administration went wrong in three ways: it “overestimated, or perhaps more accurately mischaracterized,� the threat of radical Islamism; it “failed to anticipate the virulently negative global reaction to its exercise of ‘benevolent hegemony�; and it “failed to anticipate the requirements for pacifying and reconstructing Iraq� (5-7). He makes a case for each, but I won’t rehash the details here.
The most interesting part of the book lies in Fukuyama’s attempt to stake out a position he claims “is not captured by any existing schools within the U.S. foreign policy debate� (xii). He identifies four different schools (7):
1. Neoconservatives who hold the principles mentioned above
2. Realists in the tradition of Henry Kissinger “who respect power and tend to downplay the internal nature of other regimes and human rights concerns�
3. Liberal internationalists “who hope to transcend power politics altogether and move to an international order based on law and institutions�
4. Jacksonian American nationalists “who tend to take a narrow, security -related view of American national interests, distrust multilateralism, and in their more extreme manifestations tend toward nativism and isolationism�
He thinks these schools are inadequate to the world today, writing,
Near the end of the book, Fukuyama spends time thinking about the kinds of new institutions that are needed for our world today. “What we do not have,� he writes, “are adequate institutions of horizontal accountability among states� (156). We need them for two reasons: first, globalization makes nations subject to actors outside their jurisdiction and, second, the U.S.’s dominance vis-à-vis its allies generates resentment, mistrust, and even soft forms of resistance. Fukuyama thinks that we need “a large number of overlapping and sometimes competitive international institutions� that “provide governance across a range of security, economic, environmental, and other issues”—not a single, global, one-world-order-type institution like the United Nations (158, 162-163). He details existing institutions that might serve as models and sketches ones that we still need to create. The goal, for him, is to find ways to balance legitimacy and effectiveness, something that neither American unilateral action nor U.N. decision-making processes succeed in doing. For the U.S., the aim is “not to abjure the use of American power but to be more cautious in its use, to use soft rather than hard power, and to devise more subtle and indirect ways of shaping the world� (188).
How might any of this history and these concepts help us understand what’s going on in the world today? The NYTimes columnist Ross Douthat treads similar ground to what I have in mind in from this past weekend when he claims that the current U.S. presidential administration is “ruthlessly stripping away pretenses around the United States, its alliances and the situation in the world.� He pairs several pretenses and realities, arguing that the U.S. is no longer the unipolar, benevolent hegemon that it once was (or at least imagined to be by neoconservatives), able to fight and win wars across multiple theaters; that our European allies are not, unfortunately, strong, equal partners in matters of global security; and that Ukraine, lamentably, will have to accept a deal that is less than what justice requires.
To extend Douthat’s argument, we can apply Fukuyama’s typology of foreign policy schools to senior officials in the Trump administration. Trump himself is somewhere between a realist and a Jacksonian nationalist. I see little evidence that he cares to use American power, especially military power, for moral crusades. The clear case is Ukraine (with Israel as the obvious counter-evidence to address). J.D. Vance seems harder to place. You might see his Munich address, where he chided European leaders for their supposed abuses of citizens� rights, as somewhat neoconservative (in the earlier, CCNY sense). Or you might interpret it along Jacksonian nationalist lines as an attempt to move away from European allies (as he did in the recent, lively meeting with Zelensky at the White House). He also evidences signs of realism, following Trump’s lead on a Ukraine-Russia peace deal and supporting Elbridge Colby’s nomination for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Pete Hegseth seems to be some hybrid between a neoconservative and a Jacksonian nationalist. On the former, he’s quite supportive of a strong military that, when necessary, acts unilaterally; he defends Israel and speaks out against Islamism; and he’s very skeptical of international institutions (including NATO!). He doesn’t seem to have much appetite for regime change, though, or other avenues of democracy promotion.
Who, if anyone, in Trump’s administration could be called a “realistic Wilsonian� à la Fukuyama? ChatGPT lists Rex Tillerson, H.R. McMaster, and Jim Mattis, all first-term appointees who left on less-than-ideal terms. Any in the current administration? It’s hard to think of anyone. Rubio, sort of? Given the absence of such people, what predictions might Fukuyama make about this administration and America’s fortunes during it? If those predictions do not seem credible, is it a matter of bad practical judgment? Or some deeper, principled problem with “realist Wilsonianism�?
But wait, there’s more: the “end of history� thesis clarified (again)
In passing, Fukuyama corrects one misunderstanding of his earlier work The End of History and the Last Man. Some critics wrongly interpreted him as saying that “there is a universal hunger for liberty in all people that will inevitably lead them to liberal democracy� (54). But the book is “finally an argument about modernization.� (54) He continues,
Fukuyama begins with a history of the neoconservative movement, which traces its roots to the 1940s in a group of largely Jewish intellectuals who “came from working-class, immigrant backgrounds and attended� City College of New York (15). This history won’t be of interest to most readers; for those who do enjoy it, there’s a good documentary called Arguing with the World (1998) that includes interviews with Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe, and Daniel Bell. Over time, they went in different directions politically and, to my knowledge, only Kristol embraced the neoconservative label. But they all shared a strong commitment to opposing communism.
Four common principles emerged from this early movement:
� “a concern with democracy, human rights, and more generally with the internal politics of states;
� a belief that U.S. power can be used for moral purposes;
� a skepticism about the ability of international law and institutions to solve serious security problems;
� and finally, a view that ambitious social engineering often leads to unexpected consequences and often undermines its own ends.� (4-5, bullet points added)
A small number of second-generation neoconservatives, such as Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, and Robert Kagan, were taught by the philosopher Leo Strauss or one of his students (e.g., Allan Bloom, Harvey Mansfield, and Harry Jaffa). Studying with Strauss and, specifically, reading texts from Plato and Aristotle, they learned about the idea of “regime.� Ancient thinkers understood “a regime not in the modern way, as a set of visible formal institutions, but rather as a way of life in which formal political institutions and informal habits constantly shape one another� (25). One possible inference of this view is that “certain political problems can be solved only through regime change,� whether it comes from internal forces or external ones (28). These younger neocons translated the idea into an “expansive, interventionist, democracy-promoting position that has come to be seen today as the essence of neoconservatism…� (40). And, indeed, regime change would become the main argument for the Bush administration concerning the Iraq War after inspectors and intelligence professionals failed to find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) or establish a clear link between the Iraqi government and al-Qaida. (On the subject of WMDs, Fukuyama thinks that the Bush administration, like virtually everyone else at the time, genuinely believed the Iraqis had limited stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. So “it is more likely that administration officials were guilty of exaggerating rather than lying…� to the American people, namely, by failing to clarify that “weapons of mass destruction� did not necessarily mean nuclear weapons [93].)
Fukuyama thinks that neoconservatives in the 2000s, overconfident in their successes from the Reagan era, badly misjudged their own ability to effect change in the world and failed to foresee the global anti-American backlash and military quagmire that resulted. He thinks that the Bush administration went wrong in three ways: it “overestimated, or perhaps more accurately mischaracterized,� the threat of radical Islamism; it “failed to anticipate the virulently negative global reaction to its exercise of ‘benevolent hegemony�; and it “failed to anticipate the requirements for pacifying and reconstructing Iraq� (5-7). He makes a case for each, but I won’t rehash the details here.
The most interesting part of the book lies in Fukuyama’s attempt to stake out a position he claims “is not captured by any existing schools within the U.S. foreign policy debate� (xii). He identifies four different schools (7):
1. Neoconservatives who hold the principles mentioned above
2. Realists in the tradition of Henry Kissinger “who respect power and tend to downplay the internal nature of other regimes and human rights concerns�
3. Liberal internationalists “who hope to transcend power politics altogether and move to an international order based on law and institutions�
4. Jacksonian American nationalists “who tend to take a narrow, security -related view of American national interests, distrust multilateralism, and in their more extreme manifestations tend toward nativism and isolationism�
He thinks these schools are inadequate to the world today, writing,
That world is characterized by American hegemony and a global anti-American backlash, complete with inchoate forms of ‘soft� balancing; a shift in the locus of action away from nation-states toward non-state actors and other transnational forces; an accompanying disintegration of sovereignty both as a normative principle and as an empirical reality; and the emergence of a band of weak and failed states that are the source of most global problems. (8-9)He calls his own proposal “realistic Wilsonianism� (xii). It “begins from certain neoconservative premises: first, that U.S. policy and the international community more broadly need to concern themselves with what goes on inside other countries, not just their external behavior, as realists would have it; and second, that power—specifically American power—is often necessary to bring about moral purposes� (9). It assumes that “ambitious social engineering is very difficult and ought always to be approached with care and humility� (9). It focuses on development and “differs from neoconservatism (and Jacksonian nationalism) insofar as it takes international institutions seriously� (10). He tries to dispel worries, adding,
We do not want to replace national sovereignty with unaccountable international organizations; the United Nations is not nor will it ever become an effective, legitimate seat of global governance. On the other hand, we do not now have an adequate set of horizontal mechanisms of accountability between the vertical stovepipes we label states—adequate, that is, to match the intense and social interpenetration that we characterize today as globalization. The state retains a critical function that cannot be replaced by any transnational actor: it remains the only source of power that can enforce a rule of law. But for that power to be effective, it must be seen as legitimate, and durable legitimacy requires a much higher degree of institutionalization across nations than exists currently.He focuses on institutions because he sees them as “critical intervening variables…that must be in place before a society move from an amorphous longing for freedom to a well-functioning, consolidated democratic political system with a modern economy� (117). They are only one dimension of development but a very important one (others include “resources in the form of investment capital, good economic policies, geography, disease burdens, and the like…� [123]). He thinks that the U.S. should focus more on promoting good governance, which involves “the creation of effective institutions that are conditions of democratic government but not necessarily democratic in themselves� (140). One great model is the European Union accession process, which works because membership provides applicant countries “a large political and economic incentive to reform; it is completely backloaded, rewarding countries only after reforms are completed; and the accession criteria are relatively transparent and hard to dilute� (146). Taken together, these reasons provide countries strong internal reasons to reform, which seem to be a prerequisite for creating durable institutions that can eventually support liberal democratic forms of life.
Near the end of the book, Fukuyama spends time thinking about the kinds of new institutions that are needed for our world today. “What we do not have,� he writes, “are adequate institutions of horizontal accountability among states� (156). We need them for two reasons: first, globalization makes nations subject to actors outside their jurisdiction and, second, the U.S.’s dominance vis-à-vis its allies generates resentment, mistrust, and even soft forms of resistance. Fukuyama thinks that we need “a large number of overlapping and sometimes competitive international institutions� that “provide governance across a range of security, economic, environmental, and other issues”—not a single, global, one-world-order-type institution like the United Nations (158, 162-163). He details existing institutions that might serve as models and sketches ones that we still need to create. The goal, for him, is to find ways to balance legitimacy and effectiveness, something that neither American unilateral action nor U.N. decision-making processes succeed in doing. For the U.S., the aim is “not to abjure the use of American power but to be more cautious in its use, to use soft rather than hard power, and to devise more subtle and indirect ways of shaping the world� (188).
How might any of this history and these concepts help us understand what’s going on in the world today? The NYTimes columnist Ross Douthat treads similar ground to what I have in mind in from this past weekend when he claims that the current U.S. presidential administration is “ruthlessly stripping away pretenses around the United States, its alliances and the situation in the world.� He pairs several pretenses and realities, arguing that the U.S. is no longer the unipolar, benevolent hegemon that it once was (or at least imagined to be by neoconservatives), able to fight and win wars across multiple theaters; that our European allies are not, unfortunately, strong, equal partners in matters of global security; and that Ukraine, lamentably, will have to accept a deal that is less than what justice requires.
To extend Douthat’s argument, we can apply Fukuyama’s typology of foreign policy schools to senior officials in the Trump administration. Trump himself is somewhere between a realist and a Jacksonian nationalist. I see little evidence that he cares to use American power, especially military power, for moral crusades. The clear case is Ukraine (with Israel as the obvious counter-evidence to address). J.D. Vance seems harder to place. You might see his Munich address, where he chided European leaders for their supposed abuses of citizens� rights, as somewhat neoconservative (in the earlier, CCNY sense). Or you might interpret it along Jacksonian nationalist lines as an attempt to move away from European allies (as he did in the recent, lively meeting with Zelensky at the White House). He also evidences signs of realism, following Trump’s lead on a Ukraine-Russia peace deal and supporting Elbridge Colby’s nomination for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Pete Hegseth seems to be some hybrid between a neoconservative and a Jacksonian nationalist. On the former, he’s quite supportive of a strong military that, when necessary, acts unilaterally; he defends Israel and speaks out against Islamism; and he’s very skeptical of international institutions (including NATO!). He doesn’t seem to have much appetite for regime change, though, or other avenues of democracy promotion.
Who, if anyone, in Trump’s administration could be called a “realistic Wilsonian� à la Fukuyama? ChatGPT lists Rex Tillerson, H.R. McMaster, and Jim Mattis, all first-term appointees who left on less-than-ideal terms. Any in the current administration? It’s hard to think of anyone. Rubio, sort of? Given the absence of such people, what predictions might Fukuyama make about this administration and America’s fortunes during it? If those predictions do not seem credible, is it a matter of bad practical judgment? Or some deeper, principled problem with “realist Wilsonianism�?
But wait, there’s more: the “end of history� thesis clarified (again)
In passing, Fukuyama corrects one misunderstanding of his earlier work The End of History and the Last Man. Some critics wrongly interpreted him as saying that “there is a universal hunger for liberty in all people that will inevitably lead them to liberal democracy� (54). But the book is “finally an argument about modernization.� (54) He continues,
What is initially universal is not the desire for liberal democracy but rather the desire to live in a modern society, with its technology, high standards of living, health care, and access to the wider world. Economic modernization, when successful, tends to drive demands for political participation by creating a middle class with property to protect, higher levels of education, and greater concern for their recognition as individuals. Liberal democracy is one of the by-products of this modernization process, some that becomes a universal aspiration only in the course of historical time. I never posited a strong version of modernization theory, with rigid stages of development or economically determined outcomes. Contingency, leadership, and ideas always played a complicating role, which made major setbacks possible if not likely.Nota bene, chumps.
August 13, 2016
Why read "America at the Crossroads" eight years later? Before answering, let me say that this book was written in 2006 and largely probes the foreign policy of the first George W. Bush administration, and how the Iraq war will forever cast the term 'neoconservative' in a particular light.
This book marks a transition in Francis Fukuyama, who one indirectly gets the picture of dealing with a lot of cognitive dissonance with soon-to-be-former ideological friends, from a political philosopher and policy analyst primarily aimed with explaining a Hegelian unfolding of world history to democracy ("End of History") to a policy practitioner aware of the full historical difficulty of institution building and the multi-millennium impacts of culture on the kinds of achievable political society ("Origins of Political Order").
The distinction called out in this volume is that trust in democracy and a skepticism of international projects is better when it is not interpreted that cultures will automatically build democracies for themselves and that international institutions are untrustworthy dilutions of the will of a democratic state, but instead that our democratic peers are wise council and that international institution building is a careful continual attention and tuning to the unintended consequences of aide and development.
This leads me to why one might still consider reading this book, and that is because the problems are still with us and the advice about development and institution building still seems in the kind of spirit we might like to develop. Any challenge worth having is ongoing or chronic: maintaining friendships, businesses, communities, homes, international relations, a natural environment, and so on, but there are also chronic situations that aren't necessarily worthwhile, but where we've gotten ourselves by our actions and how we continue to cope with them defines our character. At the time of writing, the Iraq war is over, but the development of institutions still sees chronic problems. Even heartening transitions, like that of the Ukraine, have not proven to be uncomplicated.
What was it like to live with the fear that rouge states would provide nuclear or biological weapons to extremist groups with demonstrated capabilities to make terrible attacks? It feels the same, as the problem is still with us, whether moderated or exacerbated being well beyond my ability to estimate. What was it like to live when the dominant thrust of United States international policy was reacting to this situation? What it was not was a new permanent order, even if it felt like it, as developing relationships never stops. This book takes us to that truth showing itself at that time.
This book marks a transition in Francis Fukuyama, who one indirectly gets the picture of dealing with a lot of cognitive dissonance with soon-to-be-former ideological friends, from a political philosopher and policy analyst primarily aimed with explaining a Hegelian unfolding of world history to democracy ("End of History") to a policy practitioner aware of the full historical difficulty of institution building and the multi-millennium impacts of culture on the kinds of achievable political society ("Origins of Political Order").
The distinction called out in this volume is that trust in democracy and a skepticism of international projects is better when it is not interpreted that cultures will automatically build democracies for themselves and that international institutions are untrustworthy dilutions of the will of a democratic state, but instead that our democratic peers are wise council and that international institution building is a careful continual attention and tuning to the unintended consequences of aide and development.
This leads me to why one might still consider reading this book, and that is because the problems are still with us and the advice about development and institution building still seems in the kind of spirit we might like to develop. Any challenge worth having is ongoing or chronic: maintaining friendships, businesses, communities, homes, international relations, a natural environment, and so on, but there are also chronic situations that aren't necessarily worthwhile, but where we've gotten ourselves by our actions and how we continue to cope with them defines our character. At the time of writing, the Iraq war is over, but the development of institutions still sees chronic problems. Even heartening transitions, like that of the Ukraine, have not proven to be uncomplicated.
What was it like to live with the fear that rouge states would provide nuclear or biological weapons to extremist groups with demonstrated capabilities to make terrible attacks? It feels the same, as the problem is still with us, whether moderated or exacerbated being well beyond my ability to estimate. What was it like to live when the dominant thrust of United States international policy was reacting to this situation? What it was not was a new permanent order, even if it felt like it, as developing relationships never stops. This book takes us to that truth showing itself at that time.
May 28, 2024
Fukuyama discusses his break with the neoconservatives (neocons), especially when it relates to USA’s foreign policy. In a nutshell, the neocons believe in the necessity of building democratic governments and norms across the globe. As an outgrowth of that motivating factor, they believe in “regime change� and “nation building.� He contrasts neocon thinking with isolationist approaches (the outside world is of no concern); the realists, who engage in raw power politics without getting embroiled in human rights; and the liberal internationalists “who hope to transcend power politics altogether and move to an international order based on law and institutions.�
Fukuyama is critical of the neocons for their aggressively reckless approach to foreign intervention and offers up, as an alternative, “Realistic Wilsonism� that takes a more cautious approach to “nation building� and democracy propagation, including, though with eyes open, working with international institutions, “focusing particularly on weak or failed states.�
Fukuyama’s approach comes from the same neocon roots. He shares the goals, but faults them on their implementation. He argues that democracy, rule of law, and human rights involve universal values that U.S. foreign policy is obligated to pursue around the globe. The theoretical underpinning for this way of seeing the world comes primarily from Leo Strauss and the Chicago school. While Strauss did not, apparently, make the transition between his political theory and its application in practice, his thinking underpins neocon thinking. Strauss was a universalist (in the sense of Plato’s Good), who opposed relativism in political and cultural values. Given this, his adherents enter that realm of highly opinionated judgment about what is good and what is bad when it comes to action on the foreign stage. And from that, a certain sense of aggression flows about who is right and who is wrong and what must be done about it. The end result is zealotry and intolerance regarding one’s own rightness and exceptionalism and the evil that exists beyond one’s shores. It is, of sorts, a national tribalism: We’re good, others are bad unless they are allied with us.
There’s an evangelical arrogance that comes with “making the world safe for democracy.� (A question is begged: Why, psychologically, is there the need to insist on one’s own form of government and cultural values, to the point it becomes an evangelical mission versus letting each country sort through its own values and future.) It certainly was Bush II’s mission, despite his 2000 campaign argument that he was against nation-building, and it became the motivating purpose for his presidency.
As a result, he let the neocons hijack 9/11, and he and they took the U.S. into Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. The idea was to get rid of a bad dictator, and then to establish a friendly regime and another base of operations in the middle east, besides Israel. Iraq was a self-serving intervention under the banner of freedom and democracy. (Fukuyama problematically, makes it seem like the WMD justification for going into Iraq was a matter of poor intelligence, whereas it was merely a pretense to sell the war to the American public, and to cover up more nefarious motivations.) And that’s the problem with believing in a Universal Good. What constitutes it, its content, is filled with self-serving values akin to a might-makes-right approach. This is why the US is chronically viewed with such skepticism if not hatred. (Fukuyama pretty much says this when it comes to US foreign aid serving America’s interests versus the interest of the host country.)
Fukyama’s break with the neocons over Iraq was not that “there was a universal human desire to be free of tyranny and a universalism to the appeal of life in a prosperous liberal democracy,� but that its prerequisite was the lack of institutional infrastructure in Iraq to support all of that. The country’s transformation was doomed to fail because the institutional prep work had not been done and, at the time of this book (2006) Iraq showcased his point. But had the prep work been done, it was entirely appropriate for the US to jump in with nation building.
Obama was criticized (mocked) by the neocons and others for his “don’t do stupid shit� characterization of his foreign policy. While lacking the elegance of Fukuyama’s “Realistic Wilsonism,� Obama was exactly correct. The USA’s foreign task is not to ignore human suffering or abuses world wide, but to be directly skeptical about what it can do to redress problematic situations. (An exception was Secretary of State Clinton getting caught up with neocon thinking when it came to the Arab Spring in 2011. She and others hot dogged the democracy movement, but left huge problems for us in Egypt and Libya as well as Iraq.) Where the US can jump in and out to solve egregious situations, it should do so. Otherwise stay clear of getting embroiled in intractable problems and leave it for the locals to work out themselves. At the same time, Obama was able to finesse the trap set for him about American exceptionalism, stipulating what he meant by that term, which was distinctly not, that we are superior to other nations.
We’ve got a truck load of problems in the U.S., including an existential - a proper use of that terminology here - threat of the worst kind: significant anti-democratic movements and Christian (authoritarian) nationalism, the supporters of which are true believers in their own version of the Good (the Platonic roots in Christianity seem clear enough). With problems like this, just who are we to shine our light around the globe?
Fukuyama is critical of the neocons for their aggressively reckless approach to foreign intervention and offers up, as an alternative, “Realistic Wilsonism� that takes a more cautious approach to “nation building� and democracy propagation, including, though with eyes open, working with international institutions, “focusing particularly on weak or failed states.�
Fukuyama’s approach comes from the same neocon roots. He shares the goals, but faults them on their implementation. He argues that democracy, rule of law, and human rights involve universal values that U.S. foreign policy is obligated to pursue around the globe. The theoretical underpinning for this way of seeing the world comes primarily from Leo Strauss and the Chicago school. While Strauss did not, apparently, make the transition between his political theory and its application in practice, his thinking underpins neocon thinking. Strauss was a universalist (in the sense of Plato’s Good), who opposed relativism in political and cultural values. Given this, his adherents enter that realm of highly opinionated judgment about what is good and what is bad when it comes to action on the foreign stage. And from that, a certain sense of aggression flows about who is right and who is wrong and what must be done about it. The end result is zealotry and intolerance regarding one’s own rightness and exceptionalism and the evil that exists beyond one’s shores. It is, of sorts, a national tribalism: We’re good, others are bad unless they are allied with us.
There’s an evangelical arrogance that comes with “making the world safe for democracy.� (A question is begged: Why, psychologically, is there the need to insist on one’s own form of government and cultural values, to the point it becomes an evangelical mission versus letting each country sort through its own values and future.) It certainly was Bush II’s mission, despite his 2000 campaign argument that he was against nation-building, and it became the motivating purpose for his presidency.
As a result, he let the neocons hijack 9/11, and he and they took the U.S. into Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. The idea was to get rid of a bad dictator, and then to establish a friendly regime and another base of operations in the middle east, besides Israel. Iraq was a self-serving intervention under the banner of freedom and democracy. (Fukuyama problematically, makes it seem like the WMD justification for going into Iraq was a matter of poor intelligence, whereas it was merely a pretense to sell the war to the American public, and to cover up more nefarious motivations.) And that’s the problem with believing in a Universal Good. What constitutes it, its content, is filled with self-serving values akin to a might-makes-right approach. This is why the US is chronically viewed with such skepticism if not hatred. (Fukuyama pretty much says this when it comes to US foreign aid serving America’s interests versus the interest of the host country.)
Fukyama’s break with the neocons over Iraq was not that “there was a universal human desire to be free of tyranny and a universalism to the appeal of life in a prosperous liberal democracy,� but that its prerequisite was the lack of institutional infrastructure in Iraq to support all of that. The country’s transformation was doomed to fail because the institutional prep work had not been done and, at the time of this book (2006) Iraq showcased his point. But had the prep work been done, it was entirely appropriate for the US to jump in with nation building.
Obama was criticized (mocked) by the neocons and others for his “don’t do stupid shit� characterization of his foreign policy. While lacking the elegance of Fukuyama’s “Realistic Wilsonism,� Obama was exactly correct. The USA’s foreign task is not to ignore human suffering or abuses world wide, but to be directly skeptical about what it can do to redress problematic situations. (An exception was Secretary of State Clinton getting caught up with neocon thinking when it came to the Arab Spring in 2011. She and others hot dogged the democracy movement, but left huge problems for us in Egypt and Libya as well as Iraq.) Where the US can jump in and out to solve egregious situations, it should do so. Otherwise stay clear of getting embroiled in intractable problems and leave it for the locals to work out themselves. At the same time, Obama was able to finesse the trap set for him about American exceptionalism, stipulating what he meant by that term, which was distinctly not, that we are superior to other nations.
We’ve got a truck load of problems in the U.S., including an existential - a proper use of that terminology here - threat of the worst kind: significant anti-democratic movements and Christian (authoritarian) nationalism, the supporters of which are true believers in their own version of the Good (the Platonic roots in Christianity seem clear enough). With problems like this, just who are we to shine our light around the globe?
February 17, 2011
الكتاب يتكلم عن أحداث 11 سبتمبر , و أخطاء بوش في الإدارة وحرب العراق
أعتقد إني أخطأت في شراء الكتاب
فالكتاب للسياسين المتعمقين جدا لكن سأحاول أن أكمل قراءته و أحاول أن أكمل الفهم
أعتقد إني أخطأت في شراء الكتاب
فالكتاب للسياسين المتعمقين جدا لكن سأحاول أن أكمل قراءته و أحاول أن أكمل الفهم
September 24, 2022
The book contains several essays, and although it gained most attention because of Fukuyama’s opinions of the Iraq war it is not focused only on that issue. First part of the book explains neoconservatism, large parts are devoted to post-Cold War global diplomacy, general opinions on economic and political development, and the current state of international institutions. Iraq war is the issue that loosely connects all the other topics, and the book balances well between political theory and historical events. Even now, opinions on global security and events leading to the Iraq war serve as an interesting read in political history.
Fukuyama presents a short history of neoconservatism, a movement of disillusioned anti-communist leftists who embraced cultural conservatism during the 1960s, along with opposition to welfare state and social engineering, later even accepting some of the Reaganomics. Several main characteristics of neoconservatism are pointed out, such as advocacy of interventionist foreign policy, distrust of international institutions and Straussian belief in the importance of internal character of regimes. He downplays the influence of Leo Strauss in the movement and especially in high politics since Strauss was not a doctrinal thinker and didn’t really leave much practical advice on public and foreign policy. He also points out complexities of the Straussian idea of regime and regime change, which is based on suspicion of Enlightenment rationalism, presupposes myth-making and difficult changes of informal institutions.
Thus, Straussian philosophy couldn’t imply the naïve idea that Iraq or any other country would revert to a natural state of democracy once the dictatorship is overthrown. Instead, he attributes such interventionist enthusiasm to younger authors such as William Kristol and Robert Kagan who advocated a unilateralist, militaristic type of Wilsonianism and in triumphalist post-Cold War climate became dominant in the previously more heterogeneous neoconservative movement. Fukuyama also gives his opinions about what went wrong in American diplomacy and intelligence analysis, presenting some alternative solutions, even an alternative justification for the war. From the historical overview of successful (Germany, Japan) and less successful (Philippines, South America) US attempts at social engineering, it is concluded that institutional change is achievable only when there is a strong internal demand for it. He attempts to balance between realism and liberalism, between criticism of US foreign policy and limitations of existing international institutions, advocating a pluralist, competitive approach for global organizations. Most of the issues that Fukuyama mentions are still unsolved and debated today, so the book hardly lost any relevancy.
Fukuyama presents a short history of neoconservatism, a movement of disillusioned anti-communist leftists who embraced cultural conservatism during the 1960s, along with opposition to welfare state and social engineering, later even accepting some of the Reaganomics. Several main characteristics of neoconservatism are pointed out, such as advocacy of interventionist foreign policy, distrust of international institutions and Straussian belief in the importance of internal character of regimes. He downplays the influence of Leo Strauss in the movement and especially in high politics since Strauss was not a doctrinal thinker and didn’t really leave much practical advice on public and foreign policy. He also points out complexities of the Straussian idea of regime and regime change, which is based on suspicion of Enlightenment rationalism, presupposes myth-making and difficult changes of informal institutions.
Thus, Straussian philosophy couldn’t imply the naïve idea that Iraq or any other country would revert to a natural state of democracy once the dictatorship is overthrown. Instead, he attributes such interventionist enthusiasm to younger authors such as William Kristol and Robert Kagan who advocated a unilateralist, militaristic type of Wilsonianism and in triumphalist post-Cold War climate became dominant in the previously more heterogeneous neoconservative movement. Fukuyama also gives his opinions about what went wrong in American diplomacy and intelligence analysis, presenting some alternative solutions, even an alternative justification for the war. From the historical overview of successful (Germany, Japan) and less successful (Philippines, South America) US attempts at social engineering, it is concluded that institutional change is achievable only when there is a strong internal demand for it. He attempts to balance between realism and liberalism, between criticism of US foreign policy and limitations of existing international institutions, advocating a pluralist, competitive approach for global organizations. Most of the issues that Fukuyama mentions are still unsolved and debated today, so the book hardly lost any relevancy.
February 26, 2023
This book was written in the wake of the failure in Iraq hence it had a major influence on the writer. apparently he declared that the neocons' policy had to be toppled down , and the new American foreign policy ought to be more dependent on soft power and hidden sovereignty and hegemony .. no more Americans' iron fist !
A book like that , in 2006 , is like a rational promotion for the democrats , especially Obama's new open minded policy , to be the new POTUS!
A book like that , in 2006 , is like a rational promotion for the democrats , especially Obama's new open minded policy , to be the new POTUS!
Read
March 26, 2025see if books could kill the end of history
March 5, 2017
كما يقول المثل المصري "أسمع كلامك أصدقك،أشوف أمورك أستعجب"، فكر تيار المحافظين الجدد نظريا يحتوي علي مبادئ راقية جدا مجموعة في الأربع نقاط التالية، لكن الواقع أنة فكر إمبريالي، يؤيد الكيان الصهيوني بتفسيرات توراتية بأن وجود الكيان الصهيويني مهم لنزول المسيح الثاني و ذلك سر قوة اللوبي الصهيوني في أمريكا.
المبادئ الكلاسيكية لحركة المحافظين الجدد:
١/الإيمان بأن الطبيعة الشخصية الداخلية لأنظمة الحكم تهم، و يجب علي السياسة الخارجية أن تعكس أعمق قيم المجتمعات الليبرالية الديمقراطية، و أن كل الدول تسعي للقوة بغض النظر عن نوع نظام الحكم.
٢/الإيمان بأن قوة أمريكا قد إستخدمت و يمكن أن تستخدم من أجل أغراض أخلاقية.
٣/عدم الثقة في مشاريع الهندسة الإجتماعية الطموحة.
٤/إرتياب في مشروعية القانون الدولي وفي فعاليتة و في مشروعية مؤسساتة و فعاليتها في تحقيق الأمن و العدالة.
ملخص الكتاب علي هيئة ملف Microsoft Word مرفوعا علي خدمة التخزين السحابي Box.com علي الرابط التالي:
المبادئ الكلاسيكية لحركة المحافظين الجدد:
١/الإيمان بأن الطبيعة الشخصية الداخلية لأنظمة الحكم تهم، و يجب علي السياسة الخارجية أن تعكس أعمق قيم المجتمعات الليبرالية الديمقراطية، و أن كل الدول تسعي للقوة بغض النظر عن نوع نظام الحكم.
٢/الإيمان بأن قوة أمريكا قد إستخدمت و يمكن أن تستخدم من أجل أغراض أخلاقية.
٣/عدم الثقة في مشاريع الهندسة الإجتماعية الطموحة.
٤/إرتياب في مشروعية القانون الدولي وفي فعاليتة و في مشروعية مؤسساتة و فعاليتها في تحقيق الأمن و العدالة.
ملخص الكتاب علي هيئة ملف Microsoft Word مرفوعا علي خدمة التخزين السحابي Box.com علي الرابط التالي:
February 2, 2010
Reading this text I got the impression that Francis Fukuyama is a very serious man. I cannot imagine him laughing. Perhaps I’m wrong, and Mr. Fukuyama is fun to be around, but in this book at least he comes across as someone who sees some serious problems and has not time for humor or irony. Well, he does employ irony from time to time, but it’s with the flair of a mortician, or perhaps a copy editor.
With that in mind, Fukuyama does indeed tackle some very serious issues, and does so very capably, ranging from hardcore theory to its practical manifestations, as well as reality on the ground and what we can practically expect as outcomes or potential solutions. Fukuyama is comfortable on both sides of the theory-praxis divide, and that I think makes it possible for him to merge two seemingly contentious positions, realism and Wilsonianism. In street language, he wants to merge the hardcore Kissinger-style approach of dealing with power relations vis-à-vis states with the Wilsonian approach of actually caring how those states are structured. Further, he wants to do this via, what he terms, multi-multilateralism. On the way there, Fukuyama goes over the long history of the neocon phenomenon (no, it did not start with Cheney) and rather intelligently jabs at the Bush administration’s legacy. He also offers some fresh approaches to the understanding of Islamic extremism. He does not see it as a Huntington’s large scale clash of civilizations, but rather as a smaller version of same that occurs within alienated emigrant communities. He sees them as channeling their angst into epistemes of very much Western rather than exclusively Middle Eastern origin. In this Fukuyama is partly inspired by the work of the great Oliver Roy, who has written extensively on the subject. Fukuyama also very rationally analyzes recent and current conflicts and international issues, and he often reframes events in a way that seems to imply that there are certain things that flew over the heads of other analysts, not to mention those running our government (past and present). He finishes by offering his own prescriptions for managing geopolitical order and disorder with a strong but more cooperative US foreign policy. Although I think that aspects of the approach he suggests would be difficult to sustain from one administration to another, I remain impressed.
With that in mind, Fukuyama does indeed tackle some very serious issues, and does so very capably, ranging from hardcore theory to its practical manifestations, as well as reality on the ground and what we can practically expect as outcomes or potential solutions. Fukuyama is comfortable on both sides of the theory-praxis divide, and that I think makes it possible for him to merge two seemingly contentious positions, realism and Wilsonianism. In street language, he wants to merge the hardcore Kissinger-style approach of dealing with power relations vis-à-vis states with the Wilsonian approach of actually caring how those states are structured. Further, he wants to do this via, what he terms, multi-multilateralism. On the way there, Fukuyama goes over the long history of the neocon phenomenon (no, it did not start with Cheney) and rather intelligently jabs at the Bush administration’s legacy. He also offers some fresh approaches to the understanding of Islamic extremism. He does not see it as a Huntington’s large scale clash of civilizations, but rather as a smaller version of same that occurs within alienated emigrant communities. He sees them as channeling their angst into epistemes of very much Western rather than exclusively Middle Eastern origin. In this Fukuyama is partly inspired by the work of the great Oliver Roy, who has written extensively on the subject. Fukuyama also very rationally analyzes recent and current conflicts and international issues, and he often reframes events in a way that seems to imply that there are certain things that flew over the heads of other analysts, not to mention those running our government (past and present). He finishes by offering his own prescriptions for managing geopolitical order and disorder with a strong but more cooperative US foreign policy. Although I think that aspects of the approach he suggests would be difficult to sustain from one administration to another, I remain impressed.
January 20, 2008
In this book Francis Fukuyama repudiates the label of neo-conservative, though not a lot of the elements of it. Basically what he's trying to do is simultaneously say that realism is misguided, since the internal dynamics of states matters a lot in how they conduct their external relations, while denigrating liberalism as weak (implicitly, anyway) and the current crop of neoconservatives as naive and over-simplifying.
Their idea that a democracy could be installed in Iraq thus magically making a dictatorship into a liberal democracy was flawed, because what Strauss and others believe by the word "regime" is far deeper to society than simply the cast of characters in power; it's a societal mindset, and as such, it's very difficult to change regimes.
He nonetheless advocates trying to do so, in a activist, muscular foreign policy with Wilsonian ideals, proposing that the UN is flawed and should be abandoned in favor of a world policy club limited to democracies, and that the development of political institutions should take its place alongside military and economic assistance to struggling and failed states.
I'm not sure he's not just taking the over-simplistic neo-con line and adding an asterisk, thus trying to invest it with depth. He also takes a lot of administrative and political decisions at face value, and doesn't think much about the complex motives of those in charge. But it's still an interesting thought, and I'd prefer this guy to Wolfowitz any day.
June 22, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and welcomed the clarification over the Author's previous "End of History and the Last Man" validation of the omnipotence of Liberal Democracy and Capitalist economy.
The book was written as a counterpoint to the "Bush Doctrine" or pre-emptive war; the "War on Terror", and the circumnavigation of International institutions in favour of the construction of the fabled "Coalition of the Willing". The Author argues that the imposition of the Patriot Act; the rhethorical war against Al-Qaeda, and the elevation of the hunt for Bin Laden to a comparable "war against Islam" have served only to de-stabilise and alienate, compromising US relations throughout the World, fostering distrust and undermining the vision of American Freedom as a viable model for aspirant nations, particularly in the wake of the illegal Iraq War. In essence, the A-political Last Man whom triumphed over the "Evil Empire" in the former Eastern bloc, has been hoist by his own pertard.
The Author argues for the adoption of "realistic Wilsonianism" which seeks to create "overlapping institutions" within the international political circuit which would negate the need for the Neo-Conservative World View and doctrine of "Pre-emptive" war by resolving the imperfections within institutions such as the UN and NATO.
This is a recommended read for anyone whom wishes to gain an inside view of the Neo-Conservative docrine and how it's administration has created an inherently poisonus and short-termist view, based upon pre-supposed American moral superiority versus the rest.
The book was written as a counterpoint to the "Bush Doctrine" or pre-emptive war; the "War on Terror", and the circumnavigation of International institutions in favour of the construction of the fabled "Coalition of the Willing". The Author argues that the imposition of the Patriot Act; the rhethorical war against Al-Qaeda, and the elevation of the hunt for Bin Laden to a comparable "war against Islam" have served only to de-stabilise and alienate, compromising US relations throughout the World, fostering distrust and undermining the vision of American Freedom as a viable model for aspirant nations, particularly in the wake of the illegal Iraq War. In essence, the A-political Last Man whom triumphed over the "Evil Empire" in the former Eastern bloc, has been hoist by his own pertard.
The Author argues for the adoption of "realistic Wilsonianism" which seeks to create "overlapping institutions" within the international political circuit which would negate the need for the Neo-Conservative World View and doctrine of "Pre-emptive" war by resolving the imperfections within institutions such as the UN and NATO.
This is a recommended read for anyone whom wishes to gain an inside view of the Neo-Conservative docrine and how it's administration has created an inherently poisonus and short-termist view, based upon pre-supposed American moral superiority versus the rest.
March 10, 2021
În timpul primului mandat al președintelui Bush, Statele Unite au fost atacate pe propriul teritoriu de grupul islamic radical al-Qaeda, în cel mai sângeros act terorist singular din istorie. Administrația Bush a răspuns acestui eveniment fără precedent printr-o serie de politici noi, ra-
dicale. În primul rând, a creat o agenție federală complet nouă. Departamentul Securității Interne, și a determinat Congresul să adopte Legea Patriot, destinată să ofere forțelor de ordine interne puteri sporite de a acționa împotriva potențialilor teroriști. În al doilea rând, a invadat Afganistanul, o țară de la celălalt capăt al lumii, și a înlăturat regimul taliban care adăpostea organizația al-Qaeda. În al treilea rând, a anunțat noua doctrină strategică a războiului anticipativ - în realitate, o doctrină a războiului preventiv - care afirmă atacarea inamicului în locul descurajării sau îndiguirii, care au constituit trăsăturile distinctive ale politicii Războiului Rece. În al patrulea rând, a invadat Irakul și a distrus regimu lui Saddam Hussein, pe motiv că acesta deținea sau căuta să obțină arme de distrugere în masă.
Primele două inițiative constituie răspunsuri inevitabile la atacurile din 11 septembrie 2001, solicitate de reprezentanții ambelor partide și susținute cu o largă majoritate de poporul american. Deși au existat critici față de unele aspecte ale Legii Patriot, care ar limita excesiv libertățile individuale, este greu de imaginat că națiunea ar fi putut continua abordarea lipsită de energie a siguranței interne după atacurile de la World Trade Center și Pentagon.
dicale. În primul rând, a creat o agenție federală complet nouă. Departamentul Securității Interne, și a determinat Congresul să adopte Legea Patriot, destinată să ofere forțelor de ordine interne puteri sporite de a acționa împotriva potențialilor teroriști. În al doilea rând, a invadat Afganistanul, o țară de la celălalt capăt al lumii, și a înlăturat regimul taliban care adăpostea organizația al-Qaeda. În al treilea rând, a anunțat noua doctrină strategică a războiului anticipativ - în realitate, o doctrină a războiului preventiv - care afirmă atacarea inamicului în locul descurajării sau îndiguirii, care au constituit trăsăturile distinctive ale politicii Războiului Rece. În al patrulea rând, a invadat Irakul și a distrus regimu lui Saddam Hussein, pe motiv că acesta deținea sau căuta să obțină arme de distrugere în masă.
Primele două inițiative constituie răspunsuri inevitabile la atacurile din 11 septembrie 2001, solicitate de reprezentanții ambelor partide și susținute cu o largă majoritate de poporul american. Deși au existat critici față de unele aspecte ale Legii Patriot, care ar limita excesiv libertățile individuale, este greu de imaginat că națiunea ar fi putut continua abordarea lipsită de energie a siguranței interne după atacurile de la World Trade Center și Pentagon.
February 5, 2011
Chapter 7 begins with these words: "It seems very doubtful at this juncture that history will judge the Iraq war kindly." Such words from one of the more impressive conservative voices in the United States, Francis Fukuyama, make this an important work.
Nonetheless, this is a powerful volume--and it builds on a slender work that is a genuine contribution in the debate over democratic nation building--his 2004 volume, State-Building. Indeed, these two works should probably be considered together.
The former lays out the prerequisites for any effort at democratic nation-building. It is a hard-headed work that complements a large literature--and is one that neocons in the Bush administration should have taken seriously.
This work attempts to show how the neoconservatives "lost their way." Fukuyama, once a player in this movement, reflected upon where the movement was going and has concluded that it has taken a wrong turn. Other revieweers accuse him of apostasy, opportunism, and so on. But this is a work from a leading intellectual that must be confronted and taken seriously. It will be interesting to revisit his observations a few years from now, when the destiny of Iraq is clearer.
Nonetheless, this is a powerful volume--and it builds on a slender work that is a genuine contribution in the debate over democratic nation building--his 2004 volume, State-Building. Indeed, these two works should probably be considered together.
The former lays out the prerequisites for any effort at democratic nation-building. It is a hard-headed work that complements a large literature--and is one that neocons in the Bush administration should have taken seriously.
This work attempts to show how the neoconservatives "lost their way." Fukuyama, once a player in this movement, reflected upon where the movement was going and has concluded that it has taken a wrong turn. Other revieweers accuse him of apostasy, opportunism, and so on. But this is a work from a leading intellectual that must be confronted and taken seriously. It will be interesting to revisit his observations a few years from now, when the destiny of Iraq is clearer.
Read
February 5, 2009Francis Fukuyama has often been more poised and clinical than his neoconservative contemporaries (including William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz). Perhaps this makes his backflip away from mainline neocon thought understandable, but it doesn't make it any more forgivable. Many reviewers censure the Johns Hopkins University professor for not providing a personal defense of his defection. All the political lather threatens to obscure the actual book, which contains a concise history of neoconservative thought and a thoughtful, if not totally new, proposal for more peaceful (or "soft power") means of nation building. That might give heart to liberals, but his colleagues feel he has abandoned the convictions of his 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, and committed the ultimate political sin: swapping horses at midterm.
This is an excerpt from a review published in .
April 14, 2011
Fukuyama has 3 good ideas for books, but this less than 200 page adaptation of a lecture series failed to live up to the author's ability. His summary of "neoconservatism", and the 2nd Bush administration's arrogant abandonment of the doctrine effectively allows Fukuyama to illustrate different strains within the same movement and distance himself from people like Paul "Iraq will finance its own reconstruction" Wolfowitz. He skims through development (both political and economic), finishing by slamming together a discussion of multi-multilateralism as a possible way forward in American foreign policy. One of his core points, that a national "regime" is more than just the figurehead but rather encompasses a societal attitude, makes a lot of sense both in context of the 2003 Iraq intervention and for those who hope to see a brighter future in the Arab World with the removal of leaders such as Mubarak and Ben Ali.
August 25, 2015
I read this book years ago, shortly after its publication in 2006. I read a review in the NYT Sunday Book Review, actually cutting out the two page review, folding it up and sticking it in the book. I think I was obsessed, for lack of a better word in trying to understand the thinking behind the neo-conserative philosophy as practiced by the Bush cabal. I did not understand it when I read it, and if I re-read the book, I still would probably not understand. I think Fukuyama was the appropriate person to pen this very short tome, having dis-associated himself with the individual cretins who were responsible for the brainwashing of George Bush and cementing the title of world's biggest terrorist nation for the United States. Nuf said. It is a short book, well documented and researched drawing on copious writings of the stalwarts responsible for the mess that is now the Middle East.
March 11, 2008
having read the previous book by this author, "The End of History and the Last Man", i was eager to see what he was up to now. this book is an insider's look at the neoconservative movement, which the author claimed allegiance to until recently, along with an analysis of where the White House neocon's went wrong on Iraq. the author then proposes a potential new style of foreign policy for the future of the US.
i would have give this book 5 stars, but it was obviously extended from an academic paper, so in places it is very difficult to read and in others it is quite repetitious. i found the analysis and ideas fascinating and i hope that the next president whoever it is takes the time to learn about this book.
i would have give this book 5 stars, but it was obviously extended from an academic paper, so in places it is very difficult to read and in others it is quite repetitious. i found the analysis and ideas fascinating and i hope that the next president whoever it is takes the time to learn about this book.
January 9, 2009
The first part of the book which is basically a history of neoconservatism by someone who knows what he's talking about (as opposed to 80% of the people who drop the term in conversation). Fukuyama's history of the neocons is excellent and highly recommended. The second part of the book describes the direction Fukuyama would have American foreign policy take. It can be summed up in one word: Kerry-esque.
April 26, 2011
I like the analysis on what neoconservatism is, how the Bush administration veered away from some of its core principles, and some the mistakes they made along the way, but his solution is pretty much comes straight out of , so just read that.
April 24, 2015
This book was written in the wake of the failure in Iraq hence it had a major influence on the writer. apparently he declared that the neocons' policy had to be toppled down , and the new American foreign policy ought to be more dependent on soft power and hidden sovereignty and hegemony .. no more Americans' iron fist !
A book like that , in 2006 , is like a rational promotion for the democrats , especially Obama's new open minded policy , to be the new POTUS!
A book like that , in 2006 , is like a rational promotion for the democrats , especially Obama's new open minded policy , to be the new POTUS!
June 10, 2015
This is a very well written book. It goes into a detailed explanation of the failure of the Iraq invasion particularly its failure to achieve any of the goals set out prior to the event. It also is prescient in its discussion around how this has negatively affected the world particularly the middle east lack of tolerance for US intervention. It would be interesting to have a new conclusion in view of ISIS today. An interesting analysis of the two main types of neoconservatives is compelling.
April 22, 2012
Powerful, fascinating account of the neoconservative history since the 1930's and its current legacy vision which includes the author's criticism of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's misjudgment of the world's reaction
July 31, 2013
interesting to see an objective perspective from a self-described former neoconservative that fits logically as closer to center-left. In the same style of but far more philosophical than Zakaria or Friedman. Worth a read from one of the greatest experts on geopolitics today.
January 28, 2016
Fukuyama is brilliant in tracing the flaws of the foreign policy during the Bush Administarttion, presenting possible multilateral solutions to the acute problems of failed/weak states, autocracies and humanitarian crisis.
March 21, 2007
i HEART Fukuyama.
September 11, 2007
Hindsight is 20/20.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.