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Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk
International affairs expert and award-winning author of Special Providence Walter Russell Mead here offers a remarkably clear-eyed account of American foreign policy and the challenges it faces post—September 11.Starting with what America represents to the world community, Mead argues that throughout its history it has been guided by a coherent set of foreign policy objectives. He places the record of the Bush administration in the context of America’s historical relations with its allies and foes. And he takes a hard look at the international scene–from despair and decay in the Arab world to tumult in Africa and Asia–and lays out a brilliant framework for tailoring America’s grand strategy to our current and future threats. Balanced, persuasive, and eminently sensible, Power, Terror, Peace, and War is a work of extraordinary significance on the role of the United States in the world today.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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256 people want to read
About the author
Walter Russell Mead
26 books78 followersAmerican academic. He is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and previously taught American foreign policy at Yale University. He is also the Editor-at-Large of The American Interest magazine and a Distinguished Scholar at the Hudson Institute.
From 1997 to 2010, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, serving as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy from 2003 until his departure.
Mead writes regular essays at the website of the American Interest on a wide variety of subjects ranging from international affairs to religion, politics, culture, education and the media. Over the years he has contributed to a wide variety of leading American journals ranging from Mother Jones and GQ to the Wall Street Journal. He serves as a regular reviewer of books for Foreign Affairs and frequently appears on national and international radio and television programs.
Mead is an honors graduate of Groton and Yale, where he received prizes for history, debate, and his translation of New Testament Greek. He has traveled widely in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and often speaks at conferences in the United States and abroad. He is a founding board member of New America, and also serves on the board of Freedom House.
From 1997 to 2010, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, serving as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy from 2003 until his departure.
Mead writes regular essays at the website of the American Interest on a wide variety of subjects ranging from international affairs to religion, politics, culture, education and the media. Over the years he has contributed to a wide variety of leading American journals ranging from Mother Jones and GQ to the Wall Street Journal. He serves as a regular reviewer of books for Foreign Affairs and frequently appears on national and international radio and television programs.
Mead is an honors graduate of Groton and Yale, where he received prizes for history, debate, and his translation of New Testament Greek. He has traveled widely in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and often speaks at conferences in the United States and abroad. He is a founding board member of New America, and also serves on the board of Freedom House.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 3, 2009
Mead has many insights into the structure of the post 9-11 world of international relations. Power, Terror Peace and War offers some fascinating views into the state of the international community, the clash of civilizations, the role's that individual states are most likely to play and offers a full spectrum of strategies on dealing with modern terrorism. Furthermore, what I like about Mead is his focus on all kinds of power. Mead goes into much detail about using soft power, sticky power and hegemonic power, as opposed to just hard/kinetic power, which most books focus on these days. Overall I find Friedman to be more approachable and coming from a better place, but the weakness of Friedman is his most significant work to date is pre 9/11 and doesn't take into consideration the motivations and repercussions of cultural terrorism.
In addition, if like me, you listen to a lot of NPR when you're driving around and hear the capitol hill staffers throwing around terms like Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, Hamiltonian or Wilsonian, then like me after this book you'll finally know what the heck they're talking about!
Mead is a dry read. I enjoy that, but it's not for everyone.
In addition, if like me, you listen to a lot of NPR when you're driving around and hear the capitol hill staffers throwing around terms like Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, Hamiltonian or Wilsonian, then like me after this book you'll finally know what the heck they're talking about!
Mead is a dry read. I enjoy that, but it's not for everyone.
August 18, 2019
An uneven but enthusiastic defense of American unilateralism
This is largely a justification of American foreign policy. Mead's position is that Bush made mostly the right choices even if some of the planning and execution were not the best. Along the way I think Mead does a good job of explaining why the current administration believes that preemptive wars and unilateralism are sometimes necessary. He uses a plethora of coinages, American Revivalists, Arabian Fascism, millennial capitalism, harmonic convergence, Wilsonian Revivalism, Fordism, etc., in an attempt to provide a historical context. To be honest I got a little lost among these labels and had to frequently turn to the index to look up their first use so as to keep them straight in my head.
Mead's approach is bipartisan and he strives to make it non-religious as well, although ending the book with a quote from Christ is perhaps not the best way to achieve that, nor is some seeming naivete about the double meaning of the word "revival." Indeed one gets the sense that Mead is not only cozying up to neoconservatives but to Christian fundamentalists as well. Nonetheless he also quotes the Prophet; and the label he pins on Middle Eastern terrorists, "Arabian Fascists," attempts to secularize the conflict. Of course he can use all the labels he wants (some of which are clearly euphemistic while others are attempts at political correctness and bipartisanship); regardless the conflict between the West and the terrorists in the Middle East will continue to be played out in quasi-religious terms.
In addition to labels, Mead also uses special terms to define American power. There is "sharp," "soft," "sticky," and "sweet" power. Sharp power is military force and it is, to use Mead's words, "a very practical and unsentimental thing." (p. 26) Soft power is "cultural power, the power of example." Sticky power is economic power and it is sticky because it enmeshes others into economic dependence on business with the US. Sweet power is pretty much the same thing as soft power, "the power of attraction to American ideals, culture and power." (p. 36) In some places in the world, I would guess, sweet power would more properly be called "saccharine power."
Clearly this is American foreign policy seen from and justified from an American point of view. Thus Mead writes, "We do not want to...[impose] our will at gunpoint, but we also do not want to live in a world in which the United States cannot act without permission from a majority of other countries." (p. 63) This seems reasonable, and at any rate is realistic, but there is a fine line between realpolitik and the sort of absolutist belief in our righteousness that leads to the use of force to impose our will. Indeed Mead writes "that, for neoconservatives and Revival Wilsonians generally, American power is itself the summum bonum of world politics." He adds, "The End is so noble...that realist means are fully justified." (p. 90) The danger here is that along the way we may become that which we are fighting against.
Sometimes Mead's tone gets away from him and we are treated to indecorous outbursts. For example, while justifying the invasion of Iraq as a part of the greater war on terror, Mead writes, "This was a war, and the enemy had to learn who was the strongest and, if it came to that, the most ruthless." (p. 117) I dearly would hope that we can conduct the "war" against terrorists without becoming more ruthless than the terrorists.
At other times he is a bit snide, as when he remarks that "stroking Europe only seemed to increase Europe's already inflated sense of its importance in the world of American foreign policy." (p. 132) This is the mentality of the old politics among nations based on power. However I don't think this is the way we can best achieve American values and goals in the world. As Mead himself admits later on, less than five percent of the world's population, regardless of its power, cannot hope to control the other 95%. (p. 212)
Often Mead uses fuzzy phrases to make what are largely rhetorical points. In this way he reveals the politician in his soul rather than the professional journalist that he is. For example he writes, "The United States is not going to slow down its capitalist development to avoid offending the sensitivities of foreign countries..." (p. 159) But what does "capitalist development" mean? Is that the development of the Brazilian jungle or the Iraqi oil pipelines or is that about some infrastructure at home?
One can discern Mead's bottom line position from this statement on page 160: "A perfectly justifiable military action against the rogue regime in Iraq was effectively and widely portrayed as an assault by the United States against the foundations of international order." And one can see that he has a desire to broaden the war on terror when he avers that "Countries that allow their territory to host terror camps...and who...allow their financial systems to be used...[by] terrorist groups, are committing acts of war against civilization." (p. 174) I tend to agree with this sentiment, but does that mean we should consider invading Saudi Arabia?
Where I find myself in substantial agreement with Mead is that the structure of the United Nations must be amended in such a way as to reflect the actual distribution of power in the world. As Mead notes it is not right that (for example) France should have veto power over the rest of the world, or that a country with a million people should have the same voting power as a country with a billion people. Indeed, I believe that restructuring the UN and other international organizations such as the WTO should be a major goal of US foreign policy.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
This is largely a justification of American foreign policy. Mead's position is that Bush made mostly the right choices even if some of the planning and execution were not the best. Along the way I think Mead does a good job of explaining why the current administration believes that preemptive wars and unilateralism are sometimes necessary. He uses a plethora of coinages, American Revivalists, Arabian Fascism, millennial capitalism, harmonic convergence, Wilsonian Revivalism, Fordism, etc., in an attempt to provide a historical context. To be honest I got a little lost among these labels and had to frequently turn to the index to look up their first use so as to keep them straight in my head.
Mead's approach is bipartisan and he strives to make it non-religious as well, although ending the book with a quote from Christ is perhaps not the best way to achieve that, nor is some seeming naivete about the double meaning of the word "revival." Indeed one gets the sense that Mead is not only cozying up to neoconservatives but to Christian fundamentalists as well. Nonetheless he also quotes the Prophet; and the label he pins on Middle Eastern terrorists, "Arabian Fascists," attempts to secularize the conflict. Of course he can use all the labels he wants (some of which are clearly euphemistic while others are attempts at political correctness and bipartisanship); regardless the conflict between the West and the terrorists in the Middle East will continue to be played out in quasi-religious terms.
In addition to labels, Mead also uses special terms to define American power. There is "sharp," "soft," "sticky," and "sweet" power. Sharp power is military force and it is, to use Mead's words, "a very practical and unsentimental thing." (p. 26) Soft power is "cultural power, the power of example." Sticky power is economic power and it is sticky because it enmeshes others into economic dependence on business with the US. Sweet power is pretty much the same thing as soft power, "the power of attraction to American ideals, culture and power." (p. 36) In some places in the world, I would guess, sweet power would more properly be called "saccharine power."
Clearly this is American foreign policy seen from and justified from an American point of view. Thus Mead writes, "We do not want to...[impose] our will at gunpoint, but we also do not want to live in a world in which the United States cannot act without permission from a majority of other countries." (p. 63) This seems reasonable, and at any rate is realistic, but there is a fine line between realpolitik and the sort of absolutist belief in our righteousness that leads to the use of force to impose our will. Indeed Mead writes "that, for neoconservatives and Revival Wilsonians generally, American power is itself the summum bonum of world politics." He adds, "The End is so noble...that realist means are fully justified." (p. 90) The danger here is that along the way we may become that which we are fighting against.
Sometimes Mead's tone gets away from him and we are treated to indecorous outbursts. For example, while justifying the invasion of Iraq as a part of the greater war on terror, Mead writes, "This was a war, and the enemy had to learn who was the strongest and, if it came to that, the most ruthless." (p. 117) I dearly would hope that we can conduct the "war" against terrorists without becoming more ruthless than the terrorists.
At other times he is a bit snide, as when he remarks that "stroking Europe only seemed to increase Europe's already inflated sense of its importance in the world of American foreign policy." (p. 132) This is the mentality of the old politics among nations based on power. However I don't think this is the way we can best achieve American values and goals in the world. As Mead himself admits later on, less than five percent of the world's population, regardless of its power, cannot hope to control the other 95%. (p. 212)
Often Mead uses fuzzy phrases to make what are largely rhetorical points. In this way he reveals the politician in his soul rather than the professional journalist that he is. For example he writes, "The United States is not going to slow down its capitalist development to avoid offending the sensitivities of foreign countries..." (p. 159) But what does "capitalist development" mean? Is that the development of the Brazilian jungle or the Iraqi oil pipelines or is that about some infrastructure at home?
One can discern Mead's bottom line position from this statement on page 160: "A perfectly justifiable military action against the rogue regime in Iraq was effectively and widely portrayed as an assault by the United States against the foundations of international order." And one can see that he has a desire to broaden the war on terror when he avers that "Countries that allow their territory to host terror camps...and who...allow their financial systems to be used...[by] terrorist groups, are committing acts of war against civilization." (p. 174) I tend to agree with this sentiment, but does that mean we should consider invading Saudi Arabia?
Where I find myself in substantial agreement with Mead is that the structure of the United Nations must be amended in such a way as to reflect the actual distribution of power in the world. As Mead notes it is not right that (for example) France should have veto power over the rest of the world, or that a country with a million people should have the same voting power as a country with a billion people. Indeed, I believe that restructuring the UN and other international organizations such as the WTO should be a major goal of US foreign policy.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
August 17, 2017
A rare voice in that while pushing a particular idea of American foreign policy and agenda for what it should be in the future he maintains a balanced and fair stance in evaluating the variety of viewpoints in and outside of the U.S. regarding our foreign policy. The book covers a lot of ground, but doesn't delve deeply into much of it, instead glossing over numerous topics, which I think is unfortunate; however, Mead is upfront about this in the book's introduction, so I give him credit for that.
January 25, 2019
Powerful and insightful. It wasn’t a bunch of fluff nor incomprehensible political dribble, but rather took the complex issues of foreign affairs and made it understandable to the lay person. Mead shows a level of honest evaluation, both praise and criticism, of primarily the Bush but also the Clinton presidencies. I learned more about the complexities of foreign affairs and domestic economics than I did in most business classes. In the end he gives practical and specific hopes and plans for America to help the rest of the world and ourselves.
August 17, 2025
Fascinating to read this again after so many years
February 5, 2008
Reading/Read for a class. The book makes some good points about shifts in american foreign policy and the roles that Bush has had in enacting these changes that are generally perceived to be undesirable.
It's a very fast read, and i'm not sure that i like the book a whole ton, but it does have good information in it. My indifference in the book is likely to be a result of my general ignorance on historical events.
One really good point about the book is that Mead ties the american people into the issues facing the nation in some detail. He discusses our current status as americans as being a society of Wilsonian and Hamiltonian people for the most part and relates our actions as a country back to this concept.
It's a very fast read, and i'm not sure that i like the book a whole ton, but it does have good information in it. My indifference in the book is likely to be a result of my general ignorance on historical events.
One really good point about the book is that Mead ties the american people into the issues facing the nation in some detail. He discusses our current status as americans as being a society of Wilsonian and Hamiltonian people for the most part and relates our actions as a country back to this concept.
April 11, 2010
I think Walter Russell Mead is a genius. I loved his book Special Providence. God and Glory was also stellar. This book was much less original than those; it felt like he was kind of scrambling to get out a book on foreign policy post 9/11 because everyone else was doing it. It's fine, just nothing really new that's not in other books on the same topic.
June 5, 2007
Mead's post-9/11 look at things, again uses the four perspectives(Jacksonian, Jeffersonian, Wilsonian, Hamiltonian.)
Currently reading
September 9, 2008Just started reading it. I heard about WR Mead from my last book on American Vertigo.
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June 25, 2011Not sure yet...
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews