This is something new for me: a book review. If I get a favorable response (meaning lots of comments, both positive and negative), I’ll do more.

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Stephen M. Walt, the author of Taming American Power is one of the leading practitioners of the neo-realist school of international relations theory.

    The term realism comes from the German realpolitik. It focuses on the balance of power among nation-states. Realpolitik is foreign policy based on practical concerns (political expediency) rather than ideals or ethics. Neo-Realism differs from classical realism by focusing on the international system rather than human nature.

Walt has impressive credentials. He is Academic Dean at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has been a Resident Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, and a consultant for the Institute of Defense Analyses, the Center for Naval Analyses, and the National Defense University. He serves on the editorial boards of Foreign Policy, Security Studies, International Relations, and Journal of Cold War Studies, and as Co-Editor of the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs. He was elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May 2005.

With this resume, it’s clear that Walt is an opinion leader in both government and academic circles. Notwithstanding his outstanding credentials and considerable influence, I have serious problems, on both methodological and substantive grounds, with his latest book.

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Taming American Power is a book about relations between and among states. Walt’s starting point is a wide-ranging description of the sources and manifestations of American primacy. Then, in the most insightful part of the book (“The Roots of Resentment”), he does a superlative job of describing the ways that others see America and why their perceptions differ from how we picture ourselves. The following two chapters discuss the strategies foreign governments employ in their relations with an America that is much more powerful than they are. These strategies fall into two broad categories—opposition and accomodation, each of which is broken down into several sub-categories. In the final chapter, Walt sets forth a foreign policy that he believes would be in our national interest.

Neo-Realism In an Era of Terrorism

In my view, Walt has considerable difficulty fitting al Qaeda and other Islamic terror organizations into his conceptual framework. This is probably true for most or all neo-realists. A school of thought that has the balance of power as its foundational principle is ill-equipped to understand a world in which the primary security threat is from transnational, religiously-inspired terrorist groups. For the U.S. or any other country to base a foreign policy on the assumption that al Qaeda will respond to carrots and sticks in the same manner as states would be the height of folly.

Many more states are threatened by al Qaeda and/or al Qaeda-inspired terrorism than by aggression from another state. Given the nature of the threat and the unmatched strength of the U.S. military, balance of power theory, if it is to have any validity in the current era, would have to say that other states would have moved into ever-closer relationships with America in the years since 9/11. Except for heightened behind-the-scenes cooperation within the intelligence community, quite the reverse has happened. The counter-argument is that, as has been shown in several public opinion polls, many populations fear U.S. power more than terrorism—even if their governments do not. It would be absurd for America to assign a greater priority to appeasing foreign publics than to eliminating terrorists.

If al Qaeda and the like were not part of the equation, Walt’s thesis—that the Bush Doctrine, because it has intensified anti-Americanism among peoples and governments, and allies and enemies—would have merit. But, not only is al Qaeda part of the equation, it is the most important part of the equation. Given that there is scant evidence that the policies of the Bush Administration has undermined relationships among intelligence organizations, it is far from clear that altering these policies in a manner that would lessen anti-Americanism would aid in the fight against al Qaeda. There may be—and, in my opinion, there is— a trade-off between improving our relations with foreign governments and our overseas approval ratings, and the efficacy of our efforts to defang the Islamic terrorists.

Islamic Terrorism

The most disturbing aspect of Walt’s book is that it displays only a superficial understanding of the nature of the threat from Islamic terrorism. He does not mention the jihadis’ long-term strategy of re-establishing the Caliphate and shows no evidence of having read Sayyid Qutb and other Islamist authors. Accordingly, he mistakes their tactics for their strategy. Not surprisingly, then, his policy recommendations are ill-conceived and, in my judgment, would facilitate rather than undermine their ability to achieve their objective.

As a result of his misperceptions, he believes that U.S. foreign policy, in general, and American support of Israel, in particular, are the root causes of the terrorists’ antipathy toward us:

    . . . international terrorists have not attacked the United States or its allies because they are opposed to U.S. values, or even primarily because they are worried about U.S. power. Instead, they have targeted the United States because they oppose its global military presence and the policies that presence is supporting. (p. 87)

    Although bin Laden is sometimes critical of American culture, his actions throughout his career have been inspired primarily by opposition to the specific policies of particular states . . . Indeed, bin Laden emphasized in October 2004 that he and his followers were not at war against “freedom,” which is why they did not strike countries like Sweden. (p. 85)

    U.S. Middle East policy is one of the main reasons why terrorists like Osama bin Laden want to attack the United States . . . Even worse, America’s tacit (and, at times, active) support for Israeli expansionism makes bin Laden and his ilk look like prophets and heroes rather than murderous criminals. (p. 234) [emphasis added]

    . . . if the United States can portray those who use terrorism as criminals driven largely by a selfish desire for power, then a terrorist campaign is likely to fail. (p. 138)

In addition to not appreciating the nature of the threat, he appears to underestimate its severity and potential impact on the U.S. How else can these words be explained?

    If the United States responds [to terrorism] in a harsh and indiscriminate manner, it will merely vindicate the terrorists’ own use of violence and reinforce their image as heroic opponents of foreign oppression. (p. 138)

    [Unlike during the Cold War], a hierarchy of [U.S.] interests is less apparent. There is no clear and fixed enemy – even al Qaeda is too diffuse a threat to provide that focus – which means it is more difficult to identify a clear and fixed set of priorities. (p. 196) [emphasis added]

    Although the United States should take every reasonable step to prevent another terrorist attack, it could absorb a replay of September 11 once every ten years and continue to thrive as a society. (p. 237)

Rogue States and Nuclear Proliferation

Within the span of 14 pages, Walt proffers two statements that contradict each other.

    The danger that rogue regimes will give away WMD is extremely remote . . . a rogue state that obtained WMD could not be sure that the United States would not retaliate if it merely suspected that they had transferred weapons to a terrorist group. (p. 224) [emphasis in the original]

Acting on suspicion means pre-emption, which Walt strongly opposes.

    The risk of nuclear terrorism will . . . increase if more and more countries acquire nuclear weapons of their own. (p. 238)

In discussing his policy recommendations (to be described shortly), Walt includes words I interpret as a reference to Iran:

    [This strategy] would . . . not try to use U.S. military power to impose democracy on other countries or to disarm potential proliferators. (p. 222)

The United Nations

Walt is a multilateralist with a high regard for the UN. Commenting on the run-up to the Iraq war, he says that

    America’s opponents [in the Security Council] sought to prevent the use of force in this particular instance, while simultaneously strengthening the authority of the UN system. (p. 146)

There is an alternative perspective that I share: by not authorizing the use of force to punish a serial violator of Security Council resolutions, America’s opponents weakened the UN, setting it on the same path as the ignominious road followed by the League of Nations.

A few pages later, he avers that

    . . . the world community has an established procedure for legitimating the use of military force, a procedure that the U.S. doctrine of pre-emption violates. (p. 162) [emphasis in the original]

Here, Walt ignores the fact that the Security Council has authorized the use of military force only twice in its history (Korea in 1950 and Iraq in 1990). This hardly constitutes an “established procedure.”

Policy Recommendations

Walt proposes that offshore balancing is “the ideal grand strategy for an era of U.S. primacy”:

    In this strategy, the United States deploys its power abroad only when there are direct threats to vital U.S. interests. Offshore balancing assumes that only a few areas of the globe are of strategic importance . . . [Included in this category are] Europe, industrialized Asia and the Persian Gulf. Offshore balancing further recognizes that the United States does not need to control these areas directly; it merely needs to ensure that they do not fall under the control of a hostile Great Power and especially not under the control of a so-called peer competitor. (p. 222)

Three items are worthy of note here: first, in talking of areas of strategic importance, he references Great Powers, but not al Qaeda; second, by his definition, Pakistan and Afghanistan are not considered to be strategically important; and third, while Walt claims that “offshore balancing is not isolationist,” it sounds like it’s only one step removed.

As to winning the War on Terror, he believes that the necessary and seemingly sufficient condition is for the U.S. to lay it on the line with Israel:

    If the United States wants to win the war on terrorism, it must find a way to reverse the steady deterioration of its standing in this critical part [the Middle East] of the world . . . the United States should use its considerable leverage to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end, [which includes pressuring Israel] to withdraw from virtually all territories it occupied in June 1967, in return for full peace. If Israel remains unwilling to grant the Palestinians a viable state . . . the United States should end its economic and military support . . . The United States will still support the continued existence of a Jewish state (the same way that we support a Norwegian state, a Thai state, a Polish state, etc.), and it would be prepared to help if Israel’s survival were threatened. (pp. 233-234)

His perspective is a further indication—as if one were necessary—that he fails to comprehend the true nature of the jihadi threat, to both America and Israel. Also worth noting is the fact that he does not define “full peace” or how to achieve it, and ignores the fact that Israel—but not Norway, Thailand, and Poland—faces an existential threat.

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I am amazed that someone of Walt’s stature could so completely misread today’s threat environment, and I can only hope that, should a Democrat (or a “dovish” Republican, for that matter) be elected President in 2008, he will not follow Walt’s advice. Even if this does not occur, I am deeply concerned that Walt’s views will influence a generation of students—Harvard students, at that.