May 16, 2004
MUST SEE TV:
Surprise, Security, and the American Experience by John Lewis Gaddis (Booknotes, May 16, 2004, 8 & 11pm, C-SPAN)
September 11, 2001, distinguished Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis argues, was not the first time a surprise attack shattered American assumptions about national security and reshaped American grand strategy. We've been there before, and have responded each time by dramatically expanding our security responsibilities.The pattern began in 1814, when the British attacked Washington, burning the White House and the Capitol. This early violation of homeland security gave rise to a strategy of unilateralism and preemption, best articulated by John Quincy Adams, aimed at maintaining strength beyond challenge throughout the North American continent. It remained in place for over a century. Only when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 did the inadequacies of this strategy become evident: as a consequence, the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt devised a new grand strategy of cooperation with allies on an intercontinental scale to defeat authoritarianism. That strategy defined the American approach throughout World War II and the Cold War.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11, Gaddis writes, made it clear that this strategy was now insufficient to ensure American security. The Bush administration has, therefore, devised a new grand strategy whose foundations lie in the nineteenth-century tradition of unilateralism, preemption, and hegemony, projected this time on a global scale. How successful it will be in the face of twenty-first-century challenges is the question that confronts us. This provocative book, informed by the experiences of the past but focused on the present and the future, is one of the first attempts by a major scholar of grand strategy and international relations to provide an answer.
We've been discussing his thesis--that George W. Bush is a revolutionary figure at least as regards America's approach to the world--for awhile now. Here are some prior, link-rich, posts:
-THE CONTINUITY OF JACKSONIANISM (February 08, 2004)
-GRAND STRATEGY (continued) (February 08, 2004)
-PARADIGM'N IN THE ROUGH (February 11, 2004)
-AS ROVE LICKED HIS CHOPS (March 01, 2004)
-EXCERPT: It's Not too Early to Begin Writing the History of 9-11: Chapter one of Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (John Lewis Gaddis)
I was twice a teaching assistant for Gaddis at Yale, both times for his Cold War History class. It was the most popular undergraduate class at Yale, attracting 450 students every other year.
Gaddis was remarkably good at integrating film and video into his lectures. (All of the video was taken from Ted Turner's "Cold War" mini-series, for which Gaddis was the principal historical advisor.)
This is the class where I figured out that Yale undergrads ain't their parents, politically. They're much more conservative, in general.
Whenever Gaddis would show a film-clip of Fidel Castro being interviewed, the students would roar with laughter. Castro was for them a ridiculous character from another era, an prating, foolish guest who'd overstayed his welcome.
Posted by: H.D. Miller at May 16, 2004 9:27 PMGaddis lost me when he veered off into the ditch with a "Bush ran the war well but has screwed up the peace because there wasn't enough planning" comment.
Oh, really? Tell that to those who now have clean running water, hospitals and supplies, cell phones, local governments, a temporary constitution, schools and supplies, upgraded phone and even internet service, ... the list goes on and on.
(*sigh*) ... Saying an untrue thing over and over again doesn't make it true, but it might as well be. It's an interesting world we inhabit when facts/cites aren't really required in order to believe something, anything, as long as you get enough people blathering and babbling about it. This, in a nutshell, is why I read news on the internet, so I can sift out the b.s. quickly and easily. And -- shockingly enough! -- there usually isn't much left.
Posted by: Jeff Brokaw at May 17, 2004 12:44 PMTed "The UN Can Do No Wrong" Turner's CNN documentary on the Cold War was a classic example of lefty historical spin. Heavy coverage was given to McCarthyism, the red scare, and US involvement in Central and South America. Barely mentioned was life under Communism, the mass exterminations under Stalin and Mao, and the postwar revelations about the Soviet spy apparatus.
Ronald Reagan was treated as a simpleton. The fall of Communism just happens (obligatory shots of the Berlin Wall falling down). It gives no investigation into the underlying reasons why the West won the war.
Posted by: Gideon at May 17, 2004 1:49 PM