After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed

by Andrew J. Bacevich

A bold and urgent perspective on how American foreign policy must change in response to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Limits of Power and The Age of Illusions .

The purpose of U.S. foreign policy has, at least theoretically, been to keep Americans safe. Yet as we confront a radically changed world, it has become indisputably clear that the terms of that policy have failed. Washington’s insistence that a market economy is compatible with the common good, its faith in the idea of the “West” and its “special relationships,” its conviction that global military primacy is the key to a stable and sustainable world order―these have brought endless wars and a succession of moral and material disasters.

In a bold reconception of America’s place in the world, informed by thinking from across the political spectrum, Andrew J. Bacevich―founder and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a bipartisan Washington think tank dedicated to foreign policy―lays down a new approach―one that is based on moral pragmatism, mutual coexistence, and war as a last resort. Confronting the threats of the future―accelerating climate change, a shift in the international balance of power, and the ascendance of information technology over brute weapons of war―his vision calls for nothing less than a profound overhaul of our understanding of national security.

Crucial and provocative, After the Apocalypse sets out new principles to guide the once-but-no-longer sole superpower as it navigates a transformed world.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, American History, United States, American, Political Science

224 pages, Hardcover

Published June 8, 2021

About the author

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of colonel. He is the author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism and The New American Militarism. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998. He is the recipient of a Lannan Award and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/andrew...

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”The comparable surprises may lie just ahead seems likely. If once rid of Trump, political elites resurrect the comforting nostrums of the familiar History That Matters, they will all but guarantee such surprises. And should the accumulation and projection of military power, justified by claims of American Exceptionalism, once more define the central theme of American statecraft, then more needless wars, more waste, and more neglect of pressing priorities at home will result. And probably more Trumps as well.”

The reason why I like reading books like this is because it gives me a chance to think about what is really important and to divest myself of engrained lies that have allowed me to hide the truth from myself.

This book is not about Trump, though he plays a role in it. Andrew Bacevich analyses the decisions of all of our recent presidents and points out missed opportunities and moments of epic failure. All of these presidents lacked a true vision of what an evolved, progressive, dynamic America could be. If they had possessed the courage and insight to make progressive decisions when the opportunity was presented to them, they might have forever changed the scope of America’s future. ”Over the course of his eight years in the White House, Obama failed to implement or even to articulate a credible alternative to the national security paradigm conceived in the immediate aftermath of World War II. He thereby acquiesced in its perpetuation.” Our leaders are trapped in the mythical past, a past that never really existed, but most of us cling to some version of a hallucinatory idea of what America used to be and can be again, but the fact is, even if that perfect America had ever existed, it isn’t the America we need to be going forward.

Make America Great Again? How? There was no vision behind this concept. It just tripped the light fantastic in the minds of Trump’s rabid supporters. What it meant for most of these people was Make White People Feel Rich Again. Trump as president was on a revenge tour to eliminate and overturn every Obama policy that he could. He was like the pharaohs of ancient Egypt who had the hieroglyphics and statues of their political predecessors defaced. He thought he could cut deals with radical foreign leaders, but his self-promoted skills in this area were like most of his personal assertions, vastly exaggerated. Ultimately, he proved to be the wrong man, in the wrong position, at the wrong time. COVID-19 could have been a chance for him to step up and be the leader that he sees himself to be, but he failed to lead, and thousands died.

But it’s not really Trump’s fault. I mean he was just along for the ride. There wasn’t anyone more gobsmacked than Trump when he woke up the next day after the election and discovered the American people actually voted him into office. The fault lies with all of us and with his predecessors in office. Trump was the nuclear option. If these recent presidents had provided a vision of America that gave us hope and took us in a direction away from being an industrial military complex and focused on more important things, Trump would have never looked like a viable alternative for all those disaffective Americans who were wishing for a return to an America that never existed.

We should dream of The Jetsons, not the horse and buggy.

Bacevich talks about American Exceptionalism...okay, I just hurled all over my computer. I knew I should have written this review before I had breakfast. I’ve had many arguments over the past four years with people about this concept of American Exceptionalism. First point of fact is, when people evoke it, they aren’t talking about all Americans. They are talking about White Americans, more specifically White Male Americans. Those inconvenient people of color who clutter up our cities and workplaces are not part of their Exceptional vision of America. This belief in our Exceptionalism blinds us. It keeps us from even believing our own history. We wrap our history in honeyed gossamer which goes part and partial with believing in a mythical past as our best possible future.

One of the most exciting segments of the book is when Bacevich talks about who our future partners should be. He’s not talking about converting that friend with benefits into a permanent fixture in your life. He’s talking about our international relations. The amount of money we spend on our military every year is atrocious and is weakening (yes, in this case strength is a weakness) our nation and keeping us from evolving into a country which can be competitive in the future. Europe is quite capable of taking care of themselves. The concept that they will pay us for protection like we are the local hood who comes around to collect money from small businesses every week doesn’t work. They don’t want to pay. Japan can also take care of itself, and, wait for it...a controversial statement is about to land in this paragraph…, Israel can take care of itself, too. We send them billions in military aid to cultivate the Jewish vote at home, but the reality is that they have a GDP equal to Great Britain. They are the strongest military power in their region. They don’t need our help.

What we need to be focusing on is cultivating our relationships with our neighbors right here in North America. Our military and our cost of military spending need to be pulled back to just what we need to protect our shores. We could build up the Coast Guard and maybe finally upgrade the ancient planes that the Forest Service is using to fight those dangerous western fires. Think about how much less military spending that would be? We could reduce our national debt, invest in domestic infrastructure, and begin to incorporate segments of the Green New Deal into our future. I’m against putting diapers on cows (nobody wants to see that), but if we create a vision of a new future for America, we could convince people, Republicans are people, that a green future is not only viable but essential. I would love to see the economies of Mexico and Canada grow right along with our own.

Oh, and instead of chasing terrorists around the world in our failed war on terror ( put that in the same failure category as the war on drugs and prohibition), we could work with Mexico to take out those dangerous and despicable cartels existing right on our border.

How about instead of Making America Great, why don’t we make North America Great? The prospect is really exciting.

War is stupid, but Americans continue to laud it like it is the true test of Exceptionalism. When most Americans think of war, they think of WWII or some glorified version of the bloodbath of our own Civil War or they wax nostalgic about the American Revolution (do not look too closely at the Founding Fathers, most of whom never lifted a musket.). The recklessness of George W. Bush to embroil us in two foreign wars against unknowable enemies was to ignore everything we have learned about fighting these types of wars. You would think a short study of Vietnam would be enough to dissuade any politician from ever considering entangling us in another foreign war with an uncertain objective and the impossibility of ever achieving some semblance of victory. Let’s not forget that the hawkish Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden also voted to go to war in Iraq. Obama, in what shouldn’t have been a courageous vote but turned out to be just that, voted against war in Iraq. That vote coupled with his star power helped launch him to the presidency.

Our military is composed of an All Volunteer Army. I feel that designation provides a little distance for the average American from the carnage that we send these young men and women into. If we had a draft option as part of our military system, I believe that voting for war would be a much harder political decision. I’m not advocating for the draft, but I think we shouldn’t feel comfortable with our decision simply because we see these soldiers as professionals who are paid to fight. Bacevich lost a son in Iraq and also had a long career in the military, so his perspective on these unnecessary foreign wars is very personal.

”A strategy of sustainable self-sufficiency just might enable a government accustomed to squandering lives and dollars to become a government that nurtures and preserves.”

This is not an impossible dream. We must learn from the past and look to the future.

I want to thank Henry Holt for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer- I was contacted by Henry Holt offering a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My views are in no way endorsed or countenanced by Henry Holt or its parent company, Macmillan.-Now that I've got that out of the way...here's my take on this book. This book should be essential reading for any American high school civics course. The author makes the case that American Exceptional-ism is a relic of the past. He goes on to cite numerous policy failures of past administrations. These include Operation Ranch Hand (think Agent Orange), the War on Drugs, and the ongoing Global War on Terror. He posits several key decision points that could have swung the scales of History in an entirely different direction. The writing was clear, crisp, and brutally honest.This book was the second I've read by this author, the other being his history of wars in the Middle East. Both stand among my short list of books about current affairs that are synthesized to be easily understood by a general audience. Overall a very thought inspiring book.

[Graeme Newell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I could not move past the condescension that permeates this book. It starts out with the oversimplified attitude that “everyone is an idiot.”

The author makes some interesting arguments for possible solutions, but a lot of them struck me as utopian. No question, the system is broken, but solutions are only available to those who are masters at working within that broken system. Standing outside and throwing rocks is a lot of cheap talk.

Bacevich just seems a bit naive to me. He was just too quick to dismiss diligent people who are working hard to change the system for the better. There are tons of amazingly smart people in government and business, but they must work within a deeply flawed system. World leaders don’t share their honest feelings, they share carefully scripted talking points aimed at swaying the masses. It’s how the game has to be played.

[Ram Kaushik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a blistering critique of U.S. foreign policy since WW2. The entire book is dispassionately (and persuasively) written but the author’s thinly concealed fury at the self-serving, ineffective and inefficient policy establishment is evident. The first inclination among warmongers and defenders of the US foreign policy establishment line will be to attack Mr. Bacevich as a peacenik or dewy-eyed leftist: something that’s rather hard to pull off, considering he is a decorated Vietnam vet who has suffered the ill effects of Agent Orange, plus the inconvenient fact that he has lost a son in combat during the Iraq war. Basically, his credentials as a hard-eyed pragmatist are impeccable, making his damning conclusions even more credible. Let me try and summarize his conclusions, none of which were particularly jaw-dropping to a longstanding cynic like myself.

1. The U.S. military-industrial complex is a self-serving beast that sustains itself through two mechanisms – firstly, long-running and ill-considered military adventures in lands far away (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam) - and secondly, low-level proxy regime change and insurgent operations (Latin America, Syria, Lebanon etc.). Administrations starting wars are seen as decisive and strong (remember “mission accomplished” anyone?) so wars are reasonably popular in U.S. elections to either deflect attention from real problems or to cover up policy ineptitude.

2. Even if we set aside the sheer moral indefensibility of propping up murderous dictatorships and creating proxy wars for a moment, the simple fact is that U.S. foreign policy is simply obsolete and ineffective. Stuck in the time warp of Cold War zero sum games, defense strategy is simply not equipped to fight the low intensity terrorist conflicts and cybersecurity threats of the 21st century.

3. At an annual budget of a trillion dollars and 800 military bases across 70 countries, it is ludicrous to describe the U.S. as anything other than an Empire. The hypocrisy of couching the American Empire in platitudes of “preserving freedom” or “fighting for democracy, liberty and peace” rings hollow pretty much everywhere in the world. Bacevich is particularly scathing in critiquing this mythology as preserved by both Democratic (Hilary Clinton, Lyndon Johnson etc.) and Republican neo-cons (Bush, Cheney and their ilk). Creating this mythology of “why we fight” was largely ineffective in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan eras and promises to be even less effective in the 21st century if the U.S. continues its current trajectory.

Mr. Bacevich proposes a new and limited U.S. foreign policy ambition with a fraction of the Pentagon war-machine budget. He suggests refocusing priorities to domestic concerns like economic inequality, racism and climate change. Given the huge vested interests at work, this seems a pipedream but we can applaud both his analysis and his passionate advocacy of doing the right thing. I highly recommend this concise, cogently argued, articulately written and well organized book! Let’s just say its somewhat unlikely that Mr. Bacevich figures in the Christmas card list of Republicans, Democrats or the Pentagon.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: An argument that 2020 represented the final unraveling of the United States’ post-Cold War superpower status and that U.S. policy must change, reflecting its changed status in the world and changing priorities at home.

If ever a year might be considered apocalyptic, 2020 is one for the books. We have witnessed a global pandemic that has taken millions of lives globally and over 700,000 U.S. lives and counting. Extreme weather events resulted in drought, flooding, extended fire seasons, extreme storms, and coastal inundations. Police involved shootings inflamed racial tensions. A bitterly fought election resulted in a denial of certified results and a nearly successful effort to prevent the constitutional certification of those results by those who denied them. Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to project power in Iraq and Afghanistan, born of 9/11 failed while China’s power is in the ascendant.

Andrew Bacevich, witnessing these events, and having witnessed the new, post-Cold War order America tried to sustain as the world’s only superpower fail, argues that the U.S. must awaken to its changed place in the world and must change its policies accordingly. He contends that, while paying respect to Reinhold Niebuhr, the U.S. has in fact followed a policy of arrogant hubris instead of the one of “self-awareness, humility, and prudence…of realism combined with moral responsibility” (p. 29). The Cold War alliances of the West, particularly NATO exist mostly in name only. America, apart from token presences, has fought its wars alone.

Bacevich takes the bold step of touching the “third rail” of American policy and argues for no “special relationships”–not with Great Britain and not with Israel. He argues not for cutting ties, but for normalizing them, treating them as we do other countries with whom we do business. He argues that if anything, our relationships with our immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico, ought to take precedence. He also argues that our changing climate poses threats to our security, and possibly our health, as diseases may find new vectors for global spread. COVID may just be our wake up call.

He also argues, as others have in different contexts, for the importance of addressing our racial history. He implicates racism in the ways we have fought our wars, depending heavily on black soldiers, and in our ventures in Iraq, on the good soldier, Colin Powell, to make the case for war. It was sobering to read this as news came of Powell’s passing, and how this one episode tarnished an otherwise distinguished career culminating in our first Black serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State.

Bacevich argues for a policy of sustainable self-sufficiency in global affairs. He believes this means to withdraw from NATO, allowing the European Community to determine its own future. He likewise advocates withdrawal from the Greater Middle East and that terrorism should revert to be treated as a criminal matter. The once exception he makes is in East Asia. He argues that the rise in China’s power, reflected in military power argues for a continued presence. In fact, it may argue for the concentration of our diffused forces, while doing all to pursue peaceful co-existence. He also argues for an enhanced focus on a new North American Security Zone (NASZ) focusing on addressing the challenges and security of our own continent.

Years ago, Paul Kennedy, in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, argued that the fall of the great powers came from the projection of their power in the world that bankrupted them and inevitably involved overreach. Bacevich seems to make a similar argument here, contending that the U.S. already has seen the collapse of its efforts to project itself as a global superpower and must refocus on what it is still capable of in addressing the challenges, international, domestic, and natural, on its own doorstep. In 2020, we at least glimpsed the apocalypse. It could get worse! His call for sustainable self-sufficiency in our own policies and in our relations with the world reflects Niebuhr’s humility and realism. It acknowledges that U.S. cannot do what other nations must do for themselves. It is not isolationist, because it recognizes shared interests with other countries in matters like trade, climate, and world health and that we may need a more tightly focused exercise of our military forces.

Where I have questions is in his proposal to withdraw from the Greater Middle East. Given its strategic location at the nexus of Europe, Asia, and Africa and its energy resources, is it reasonable to assume we may withdraw our presence and the nations of this area will be able to be sustainably self-sufficient? Instead, will there be a vacuum filled by others? While we must not repeat the folly of nation building, may our presence help preserve national sovereignty as does our presence in East Asia? Even if the U.S. and its North American neighbors maintain energy self-sufficiency (a priority I think), this region is vital in the global energy equation, and a disruption could destabilize global relations.

It seems that the policies chosen with regard to our near neighbors, our own racially diverse nation, and our natural environment could either meet or fail the test of moral responsibility. Given our history and current dispositions in all three areas, it seems to me that what Bacevich is proposing is a corporate revival of moral responsibility amid a history of declension. It will require courageous and resolute leadership that refuses the traditional nostrums about American greatness. I hope Bacevich is a praying man. What he prescribes is a tall order that it seems we have little inclination to pursue. I agree that needs to change. I’ll be praying with him.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[Chris Dietzel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book never had a chance of being a success. In an age in which everyone is divided between establishment news commentary (NYT, WaPo, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc.) or independent sources (Joe Rogan, Jimmy Dore, Matt Taibbi, etc.), Bacevich makes it clear his intended audience is the establishment while providing an anti-war and anti-imperialist message that would appeal to independent readers, although not within the establishment framing that Bacevich provides.

Meanwhile, my biggest issue with the book is that his entire premise is that the American apocalypse already occurred. You might not know it, but the apocalypse happened in 2020 with the combination of Covid, Trump, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Considering it's 2025 and there are no discernible differences between pre-American apocalypse life and now, that is a truly cringe-worthy claim to make, and Bacevich has a lot of work to do just to get out from under that hugely flawed premise.

It's a shame because I actually agree with his idea that the U.S.'s 800 military bases across the world are bankrupting us, that NATO's original mission is over and has only created more issues in the present geopolitical world than it has solved, and that the U.S. military should be brought home to focus on rebuilding the U.S. infrastructure, which is crumbling.

[Matthew Petti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: the author was my boss.

Andrew Bacevich starts off After the Apocalypse by explaining that — like a French historian writing in the wake of the Nazi German invasion — he is responding in the heat of the moment to the “Apocalypse” of 2020. So be warned, it is not an academic text so much as a stream of consciousness.

The book’s basic idea is that all the calamities of 2020 demonstrate a rot that has been growing in the American elite for awhile. (Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to see that.) According to Bacevich, the problem is an almost religious belief that America is the main character of history. With it comes a refusal to see the flaws of America or its actions, and denial that other countries or environmental forces like climate change can drive events outside of America’s control.

Bacevich clearly knows his stuff. He constantly refers to quotes from historical figures, events in U.S. foreign policy and even old pop culture references that he has stored in his head. So his thesis is well-supported by evidence.

However, I would like to have seen a little more attention to the material forces driving American power and decline. Bacevich focuses a lot on the *ideas* elites have. He talks less about the tools at their disposal and physical limits on their power, making a few references to Pentagon budgets and the national debt. I get that the book was not meant as a rigorous academic study, but it only reinforces the idea of American willpower over material constraints that Bacevich is fighting against.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 2021 audible book is one of the most recent addition of Andrew Bacevich to his amazing and challenging series of books, which I have been eagerly absorbing for a number of years now. Bacevich is one year younger than me and I am 76. I think he has more brain power on this topic and more experience than me, but he also has the writing talent to be able to make his points in a way that are accessible to people. He is able to expose history for what it is rather than for what we are told continuously by the politicians and media. He is not gentle. He talks the kind of talk that I want to hear my politicians talk. I also know that he is walking a torturous road because I am also on that road trying to convince anybody that we need to spend less on the military and more in other places. I am sorry to say that I do not know if anybody is listening to Andrew Bacevich other than me. Most of the people he identifies by name in the book, he considers to be working against the best interest of our country. Regrettably I don’t think he identifies people who are currently moving our country and our politics in a direction that he believes is necessary. But for starters, more people need to be reading his books.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

TL;DR

After the Apocalypse takes on the myth of American Exceptionalism and doesn't leave it standing. With historical incidents and a mostly clear eyed look at contemporary politics, Bacevich shows us that the U.S. hasn't adapted to the changing world. A must read for national politicians, and recommended for political and historical aficionados.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a review copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. What follows is my opinion and mine alone.

For more reviews, please, visit Primmlife.com.

Review: After the Apocalypse by Andrew Bacevich

The myth of American Exceptionalism was made for people like me. I grew in a small town in the Midwest. My family were and are farmers who love the land they’ve worked for generations. I also grew up in the wake of the unprecedented prosperity the country felt during the Cold War, and I remember the feeling of winning when the Berlin Wall came down. Then, Desert Storm rolled over Iraq, and we fought in Bosnia. I was deep in the belief that the U.S. was pushing history in the right direction. 9/11 was a huge wakeup call for me, and the never ending wars that followed it opened my eyes. I saw the Vietnam conflict finally for the disaster and loss that it was. I read about how we bungled the Korean War. Then my eyes were opened to how the U.S. enacted regime change pretty much whenever it felt like it, and often those regime changes supported dictators instead of democracy. At the same time, friends and people I admire acted as if those things didn’t matter. Sure, we lost in Vietnam but Desert Storm and Bosnia had us right back as the world’s military leaders. As much as I would have preferred, I couldn’t go back to looking at the country as better than any other. Sure, the U.S. has done great things, but it has also done terrible things. As I learned more about U.S. history, I saw that American Exceptionalism is a myth. It’s what we tell ourselves to feel good about bombing civilians and enacting racist laws. But I could not explain to my friends why I viewed our country as simply a. That is until I read Andrew Bacevich’s After the Apocalypse. In this book, Bacevich takes on the myth of American Exceptionalism. By exposing readers to the less altruistic parts of our national history, After the Apocalypse shows us that American Exceptionalism is a narrative that requires ignoring parts of our national narrative that makes us uncomfortable.

Andrew Bacevich seeks to dispel the myth of American Exceptionalism in this short book. It reads fast but is packed with a lot of information and some good historical analysis. Bacevich begins the book discussing Marc Bloch and the book he wrote, L’étrange défaite or The Strange Defeat. Bloch’s purpose was to understand what happened to the legendary French army when the German Wehrmacht overwhelmed it. L’étrange défaite ultimately was about failure of leadership, and Bacevich seeks to do something similar in After the Apocalypse. Mostly, he succeeds, but as he notes at the end of his letter to readers, this book is not for our time but for those who come after.

Bacevich interrogates the American notion that history is leading to a destination that looks similar to the U.S. To do this, he puts the slogans of American Exceptionalism against the realities of history. He accuses American’s of blindly accepting a ‘manufactured memory’ of American history. And he’s, of course, correct. Across party lines, the accepted vision of American history is rosy and childish because we continually ignore the sins of our past, the dangers of the present, and the changing future. One of the easiest examples to use of this is America and the Allied victory in World War 2. Then, the U.S. entered the Cold War and remained stuck in the moments after the Berlin Wall fell. In 1952, Harry S. Truman said, “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.” This is still the go-to Republican tactic because it’s effective and because we’re stuck in a myth where it’s us against the commies.

But Bacevich points out that it’s not just Republicans stuck in this myth. Joe Biden published an article “Why America Must Lead Again.” The underlying assumption of the article is that the American way is the right way, and that what America wants is good for the rest of the world. This is the established dogma in American political leadership regardless of party. But it is helping America anymore?

The Sins of America

Bacevich list three grave sins that America has committed: imperialism, militarism, and intentional killing of noncombatants. But sadly the majority of the U.S. do not view these as sins; it sees these three topics as part of America’s might. These three sins have become part of the national character whether we like it or not. Our country stations military bases around the world, engages in regime change when we feel it’s necessary, and exploits countries for their resources. Peace is something that the U.S. does not do; we’ve been involved in some conflict or other all across the globe under the pretense of protecting Americans for the majority of my life. Bacevich correctly asks whether sending troops overseas actually protects this country. If the empire shrunk and we closed some of the military bases around the globe, would the country be less safe?

Militarism is a funny thing in the U.S. Support the troops is a must repeat rally cry for any politicians, but very few consider supporting the troops by not sending them to fight. (Also, raising taxes to pay for veteran healthcare is somehow not considered supporting the troops.) Politicians and pundits who have never served, like Fucker Carlson, have no problem sending the troops they supposedly support off to fight in foreign lands. They call this patriotism when they don’t have a personal stake in the game. And militarism is a game to most Americans. We spend money on the biggest guns, tanks, aircraft, ships, drones, satellites, blah, blah, blah. See also the right wing nut jobs who dress up like soldiers to protest and bully. Looking accurately at history won’t solve this.

But Bacevich, I think, misses a big part of why militarism is what it is today. The military in the U.S. is a fighting force secondarily. Primarily, it is a jobs program that employees a large number of Americans. And what’s more, it’s a socially acceptable use of government money to create jobs. The same idiots who think funding infrastructure will lead to Soviet style breadlines also thinks we don’t spend enough on the military. The U.S. has the largest military budget on the planet with no other country coming close, and that means a large part of our economy is sustained by military spending. I say this as someone who works for a defense contractor. Changing militarism will be difficult simply because there’s so much money involved, and the public likes its new shiny toys.

Special Relationships

After the Apocalypse dedicates a chapter to the U.S.’s special relationships with the U.K. and Israel. Bacevich argues that it’s time to demote these to relationships similar to other allied nations, such as France or Germany. It’s an interesting chapter, and I had already thought we needed to stop funding Israel’s weapons. To be clear, Israel has and should have the right and opportunity to buy weapons from the U.S. like any other allied country. However, I don’t think the American taxpayer should subsidize Israel’s military now that their economy is healthy, stable, and surpasses many of their neighbors. But when it came to removing the special from our relationship with the U.K., I didn’t buy it. At first.

But I reread that chapter, and reflecting upon it, I think Bacevich is correct. Our shared histories are only recently convivial. By necessity for World War 1, we had to be friends. Prior to that, we’d fought wars against each other. But why should an island off Europe’s coast be so important to us? Do we have outsize trade deals with each other? Not to my knowledge? Mostly, we have a special relationship because the U.K. political elite supports us in whatever military action we take. Bacevich makes a compelling argument that a special relationship with the two countries that have geographical borders with the U.S. makes more sense than for some island on the other side of an ocean. But ultimately Brexit itself convinced me that it’s time to focus on other nations. The U.K. rethought – disastrously, I might add – its relationship to its neighbors. Maybe the U.S. should do the same. We could focus on countries that border us, countries that we trade with, etc. A shared history that only recently, in the context of time, became friends doesn’t seem like a good idea. Bacevich won me over.

The Contemporary Social View of History

The penultimate chapter of the book disappointed me. The analysis preceding it was clear and nuanced. In my ARC, this chapter is called “The History That Matters,” and Bacevich takes this to mean the dominant social view of history in contemporary society. This began as quite the interesting dissection of what matters to society at different times and how revisionist history challenges the dominant narrative. He rightly notes that revisionism got put on steroids as Trump rose in political significance. The man who tried to resurrect America first and brought white supremacy out of the shadows caused a backlash of historical revisionism.

Bacevich targets the New York Time’s 1619 Project as the culprit. While in other parts of the book he does some decent analysis, when it comes to the 1619 Project, the analysis feels less objective and more “you kids get off my lawn.” What I mean is that he portrays the 1619 Project as something outside of academia, that it was a shock to academic historians. Except this is only partially correct because academic historians contributed to the project itself. In addition, many academic historians support the 1619 Project. The 1619 Project continues to be debated amongst historians, and it clearly upsets Mr. Bacevich that the Project seeks to begin the U.S.’s relevant past at 1619, the moment the first slaves arrived in the colonies. But he – like all 1619 detractors – doesn’t offer a reason why black Americans shouldn’t view it that way. The revolutionary war only freed white people from the British Empire. Slavery life didn’t change with U.S. independence. Whether slave under British rule or slave under American democracy, these people were still slaves. So, 1776 is a remarkable moment for white Americans, but it didn’t birth a new nation for black Americans in anything other than name.

His section on statue toppling is interesting, but again it lacks nuance. He compares statue toppling with Stalinist show trials, and that takes it entirely too far. This section makes it seem like he believes that removing statues whose purpose was to reinforce lost cause mythology in the Jim Crow era South is equivalent to ‘Maoist coerced self-criticism.’ While reasonable people can debate each statue removal on a case by case basis, the majority that were removed were traitors to the U.S. in the first place and do not belong in public squares. History exists even if the statues do not. To solidify this, he cites the ludicrous and widely disputed “Harper’s Letter.” Seeing Bacevich cite this without any scrutiny of the opposition bummed me out. Not once did he propose evidence to show how anyone was being silenced or harmed. Not once did he consider that it was not intellectual conformity but rather an intellectual consensus. It leans too close to traditional conservative fear of higher education as a place of indoctrination, and it is exactly in line with conservative rhetoric about climate change. To decry it as simple intellectual conformity assumes, in bad faith, that people disagree with it but are just going along due to peer pressure. Bacevitch fails to consider that people might actually agree with those views. As Bacevich sees climate change as a threat, I would have expected him to have more nuanced and generous views of his opposition. Because I’m sure conservatives call him out for saying that climate change is real.

Maybe this was just his contrarian nature coming out, but reading it just made me think it was lazy reasoning. I don’t think he did enough research and consideration to write a chapter on this. It was especially disheartening because just a few chapters earlier Bacevich did an excellent analysis of racism versus America’s claim to being freedom’s champion on earth. In this chapter, Bacevich looks with nuance at the roles black Americans played in the military, and he notes that we view ourselves as liberators during World War 2 without any irony that our military was segregated. The complexity and nuance of the earlier chapters disappears in this chapter, and it drags the rest of the book down. When I reread this book, I’ll be searching for more thinking as lazy like appeared in the penultimate chapter.

Action

After the Apocalypse ends the book with suggestions for moving the U.S. in the direction Bacevich would like it to go. I enjoyed the conclusion chapter because it gave definable steps toward a future. Too often books like this criticize fail to suggest solutions. Even if I disagree, solutions tell me that the author has thought beyond the criticism. Bacevich suggests solid steps to move the nation into a more stable future, and I think his proposals are innovative with a step in the right direction. Other than his approach to NATO and the 1619 Project, I agree with his proposals. They are positive steps that move the country forward into the 21st century. Unfortunately, the political will does not exist in our country to enact these sane proposals.

Conclusion

Andrew Bacevich's After the Apocalypse destroys the myth of American Exceptionalism. This book mostly succeeds by analyzing U.S. history with an eye towards the mistakes and misfortunes. After the Apocalypse should be read by U.S. politicians to break from a past that didn't exist in order to prepare for a future that will.

After the Apocalypse by Andrew Bacevich is available from Henry Holt & Co. on June 8th, 2021.

[Nils · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slim, focused, coldly furious book from a man who has earned the right by every measure to become America’s foremost organic critic of American Empire. A modern Niebuhr in his sense of tragic responsibility, Bacevich is a decorated Vietnam War veteran and the father of a son who died in Iraq — a family dedicated to military service that has paid the ultimate price, This is not the work of some knee jerk peacenik but rather someone who feels as if the dutiful project of national defense has been hijacked into an unacknowledged — and for that very reason, profoundly unstrategic — imperial mission.

Bacevich blames the turn to an all volunteer force after Vietnam as setting the stage for political non-accountability by warmongering civilian elites. With only volunteers dying and being maimed for the empire, pursuing these wars has inflicted low political costs, with the first proof point being George Bush’s reelection in 2004 despite having failed to catch bin Laden and instead embroiled the United States in two strategically unwinnable and morally indefensible wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bacevich is unsparing not just about the moral disaster of wars that killed hundreds of thousands in the same of a mendacious cause (America’s liberalizing global crusade) but also about the strategic idiocy of thinking these aims could be achieved with a small all volunteer force backed by the latest gee-whiz military kit. In fact, despite the trillions spent on military gadgetry, the soldiers fighting on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan the combat “Did not different material from the chaos and confusion that earlier generations of US troops had encountered one pursuing rebellious Filipino nationalists at the turn of the 20th century or fighting Vietnamese gorillas in the 1960s. At a certain level all dirty words are alike.” (76)

Why has the US pursued this imperial project that dare not speak its name? At the root of it is the narrative of American Exceptionalism, which told a story of a country both born perfect and blessed with endless improvement. This narrative is of course endlessly challenged by historical revisionists, but for Bacevich it survives because it serves a purpose: “When it comes to the use of US power to further the nations ambitions, Americans have long since made their piece with half-truths, untruths, and lies on a recognizably Trumpian scale.” (14)

The real setting for this book is in fact domestic politics. The eponymous apocalypse is the combination of the election of Donald trump, the onrushing climate change calamity, the pandemic and subsequent economic implosion, and the mass uprising against the legacy of racism and slavery and the white nationalist backlash it provoked, and finally the barely-thwarted effort of Trump to steal the election.

For Bacevich, all of this is the domestic blowback from the failure to come to terms with empire. While somewhat overstated, his basic point is true so far as it goes. In 2016, the Democrats nominated a warmongering neoliberal who had learned nothing and regretted nothing about her support for the Iraq War, proven by her promotion of regime change in Libya when she was Secretary of State. This failure to reckon with the catastrophe of empire, which no longer was serving the common American at all (Bacevich implies, dubiously, that maybe the empire did do Americans good during the 20th century, or at least that it didn’t cost them much, which is an odd thing for a Vietnam vet to say), opened the door to Donald Trump who shamelessly violated establishment foreign policy orthodoxy by saying that the empire was a bad deal. In this he was correct, Bacevich says, and his truth on that one point allowed him to prevail over the indefensible lies of Hillary about the nobility and blessings of American commitment to global primacy.

The problem of course is that Trump had no idea as to what should replace US global leadership as an organizing principle of policy: “Trump was a heretic who rejected received dogma while proposing to substitute in its place the where’s-my-cut ethics of New York City’s real estate scene. He was a Martin Luther intent on shaking down a Catholic Church awash with corruption in order to snag a share of Rome is ill gotten gains“ (146) — mainly for himself, Bacevich might have added. Trump was right about the moral and practical value of American empire, but he was alas also an utter incompetent who only further accelerated the trends toward apocalypse, ultimately having his incapacity to govern effectively exposed by his utter inability to lead the country effectively on the face of the pandemic, instead preferring to pander to his political base’s prejudice, thus likely costing hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives who might have been saved by more effective leadership.

For all his critique of both the Trumpism right, Clintonian liberalism, and foreign policy establishment (Obama is, curiously, almost absent from this book, which is a tell), Bacevich is also not enthusiastic about the recasting of America in the image of the cultural left, which he frames around the 1619 project. Bacevich intuits that the national narrative proposed by the 1619 Project, while rightly anti-empire, is so insistent on emphasizing the ineluctability of what might be called the internal empire — the project of domestic racial domination — that it is incapable of bringing the country together around an alternative project. (He might have also pointed out that in its own way, the project re-articulates the narrative of American exceptionalism, except this time with a black heart of unbridgeable racism, rather than a cheery story of endless liberal uplift and improvement.

So what is to be done? Well, Bacevich believes that bringing back conscription would be good. First because it would allow us, in fights we really need to take on, to actually deploy enough troops to win; but more importantly because the existence of a volunteer force would necessarily put political breaks on pursuing unnecessary wars. (It would also have the good effect of bringing together Americans on a shared project of national service, thus potentially lowering political polarization, if only because of greater familiarity with people from other parts of the country.)

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that every Canadian and American ought to read. Canadians, because this book makes the case that the most important foreign policy priority for the USA is its relations to Canada and Mexico; Americans because it explains why America's foreign policy (since at least WWII) is imperial, failed, and based on they myth of American exceptionalism. It's by a conservative author, but he avoids jingoistic America First policy (as well as liberal-elite moralism). It's time for America to stop running its empire, start focusing on domestic issues like race, economic opportunity, and the environment, while being a good neighbour like every country should be a good neighbour.

[Stan Prager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of: After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in the World Transformed,
by Andrew Bacevich
by Stan Prager (10-4-22)

I often suffer pangs of guilt when a volume received through an early reviewer program languishes on the shelf unread for an extended period. Such was the case with the “Advanced Reader’s Edition” of After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in the World Transformed, by Andrew Bacevich, that arrived in August 2021 and sat forsaken for an entire year until it finally fell off the top of my TBR (To-Be-Read) list and onto my lap. While hardly deliberate, my delay was no doubt neglectful. But sometimes neglect can foster unexpected opportunities for evaluation. More on that later.
First, a little about Andrew Bacevich. A West Point graduate and platoon leader in Vietnam 1970-71, he went on to an army career that spanned twenty-three years, including the Gulf War, retiring with the rank of Colonel. (It is said his early retirement was due to being passed over for promotion after taking responsibility for an accidental explosion at a camp he commanded in Kuwait.) He later became an academic, Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University, and one-time director of its Center for International Relations (1998-2005). He is now president and co-founder of the bipartisan think-tank, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Deeply influenced by the theologian and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr, Bacevich was once tagged as a conservative Catholic historian, but he defies simple categorization, most often serving as an unlikely voice in the wilderness decrying America’s “endless wars.” He has been a vocal, longtime critic of George W. Bush’s doctrine of preventative war, most prominently manifested in the Iraqi conflict, which he has rightly termed a “catastrophic failure.” He has also denounced the conceit of “American Exceptionalism,” and chillingly notes that the reliance on an all-volunteer military force translates into the ongoing, almost anonymous sacrifice of our men and women for a nation that largely has no skin in the game. His own son, a young army lieutenant, was killed in Iraq in 2007. I have previously read three other Bacevich works. As I noted in a review of one of these, his resumé attaches to Bacevich either enormous credibility or an axe to grind, or perhaps both. Still, as a scholar and gifted writer, he tends to be well worth the read.
The “apocalypse” central to the title of this book takes aim at the chaos that engulfed 2020, spawned by the sum total of the “toxic and divisive” Trump presidency, the increasing death toll of the pandemic, an economy in free fall, mass demonstrations by Black Lives Matter proponents seeking long-denied social justice, and rapidly spreading wildfires that dramatically underscored the looming catastrophe of global climate change. [p.1-3] Bacevich takes this armload of calamities as a flashing red signal that the country is not only headed in the wrong direction, but likely off a kind of cliff if we do not immediately take stock and change course. He draws odd parallels with the 1940 collapse of the French army under the Nazi onslaught, which—echoing French historian Marc Bloch—he lays to “utter incompetence” and “a failure of leadership” at the very top. [p.xiv] This then serves as a head-scratching segue into a long-winded polemic on national security and foreign policy that recycles familiar Bacevich themes but offers little in the way of fresh analysis. This trajectory strikes as especially incongruent given that the specific litany of woes besetting the nation that populate his opening narrative have—rarely indeed for the United States—almost nothing to do with the military or foreign affairs.
If ever history was to manufacture an example of a failure of leadership, of course, it would be hard-pressed to come up with a better model than Donald Trump, who drowned out the noise of a series of mounting crises with a deafening roar of self-serving, hateful rhetoric directed at enemies real and imaginary, deliberately ignoring the threat of both coronavirus and climate change, while stoking racial tensions. Bacevich gives him his due, noting that his “ascent to the White House exposed gaping flaws in the American political system, his manifest contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law placing in jeopardy our democratic traditions.” [p.2] But while he hardly masks his contempt for Trump, Bacevich makes plain that there’s plenty of blame to go around for political elites in both parties, and he takes no prisoners, landing a series of blows on George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and a host of other members of the Washington establishment that he holds accountable for fostering and maintaining the global post-Cold War “American Empire” responsible for the “endless wars” that he has long condemned. He credits Trump for urging a retreat from alliances and engagements, but faults the selfish motives of an “America First” predicated on isolationism. Bacevich instead envisions a more positive role for the United States in the international arena—one with its sword permanently sheathed.
All this is heady stuff, and regardless of your politics many readers will find themselves nodding their heads as Bacevich makes his case, outlining the many wrongheaded policy endeavors championed by Republicans and Democrats alike for a wobbly superpower clinging to an outdated and increasingly irrelevant sense of national identity that fails to align with the global realities of the twenty-first century. But then, as Bacevich looks to the future for alternatives, as he seeks to map out on paper the next new world order, he stumbles, and stumbles badly, something only truly evident in retrospect when viewing his point of view through the prism of the events that followed the release of After the Apocalypse in June 2021.
Bacevich has little to add here to his longstanding condemnation of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, which after two long decades of failed attempts at nation-building came to an end with our messy withdrawal in August 2021, just shortly after this book’s publication. President Biden was pilloried for the chaotic retreat, but while his administration could rightly be held to account for a failure to prepare for the worst, the elephant in that room in the Kabul airport where the ISIS-K suicide bomber blew himself up was certainly former president Trump, who brokered the deal to return Afghanistan to Taliban control. Biden, who plummeted in the polls due to outcomes he could do little to control, was disparaged much the same way Obama once was when he was held to blame for the subsequent turmoil in Iraq after effecting the withdrawal of U.S. forces agreed to by his predecessor, G.W. Bush. Once again, history rhymes. But the more salient point for those of us who share, as I do, Bacevich’s anti-imperialism, is that getting out is ever more difficult than going in.
But Bacevich has a great deal to say in After the Apocalypse about NATO, an alliance rooted in a past-tense Cold War stand-off that he pronounces counterproductive and obsolete. Bacevich disputes the long-held mythology of the so-called “West,” an artificial “sentiment” that has the United States and European nations bound together with common values of liberty, human rights, and democracy. Like Trump—who likely would have acted upon this had he been reelected—Bacevich calls for an end to US involvement with NATO. The United States and Europe have embarked on “divergent paths,” he argues, and that is as it should be. The Cold War is over. Relations with Russia and China are frosty, but entanglement in an alliance like NATO only fosters acrimony and fails to appropriately adapt our nation to the realities of the new millennium.
It is an interesting if academic argument that was abruptly crushed under the weight of the treads of Russian tanks in the premeditated invasion of Ukraine February 24, 2022. If some denied the echo of Hitler’s 1938 Austrian Anschluss to Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, there was no mistaking the similarity of unprovoked attacks on Kiev and sister cities to the Nazi war machine’s march on Poland in 1939. And yes, when Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron stood together to unite that so-called West against Russian belligerence, the memory of France’s 1940 defeat was hardly out of mind. All of a sudden, NATO became less a theoretical construct and somewhat more of a safe haven against brutal militarism, wanton aggression, and the unapologetic war crimes that livestream on twenty-first century social media of streets littered with the bodies of civilians, many of them children. All of a sudden, NATO is pretty goddamned relevant.
In all this, you could rightly argue against the wrong turns made after the dissolution of the USSR, of the failure of the West to allocate appropriate economic support for the heirs of the former Soviet Union, of how a pattern of NATO expansion both isolated and antagonized Russia. But there remains no legitimate defense for Putin’s attempt to invade, besiege, and absorb a weaker neighbor—or at least a neighbor he perceived to be weaker, a misstep that could lead to his own undoing. Either way, the institution we call NATO turned out to be something to celebrate rather than deprecate. The fact that it is working exactly the way it was designed to work could turn out to be the real road map to the new world order that emerges in the aftermath of this crisis. We can only imagine the horrific alternatives had Trump won re-election: the U.S. out of NATO, Europe divided, Ukraine overrun and annexed, and perhaps even Putin feted at a White House dinner. So far, without firing a shot, NATO has not only saved Ukraine; arguably, it has saved the world as we know it, a world that extends well beyond whatever we might want to consider the “West.”
As much as I respect Bacevich and admire his scholarship, his informed appraisal of our current foreign policy realities has turned out to be entirely incorrect. Yes, the United States should rein in the American Empire. Yes, we should turn away from imperialist tendencies. Yes, we should focus our defense budget solely on defense, not aggression, resisting the urge to try to remake the world in our own image for either altruism or advantage. But at the same time, we must be mindful—like other empires in the past—that retreat can create vacuums, and we must be ever vigilant of what kinds of powers may fill those vacuums. Because we can grow and evolve into a better nation, a better people, but that evolution may not be contagious to our adversaries. Because getting out remains ever more difficult than going in.
Finally, a word about the use of the term “apocalypse,” a characterization that is bandied about a bit too frequently these days. 2020 was a pretty bad year, indeed, but it was hardly apocalyptic. Not even close. Despite the twin horrors of Trump and the pandemic, we have had other years that were far worse. Think 1812, when the British burned Washington and sent the president fleeing for his life. And 1862, with tens of thousands already lying dead on Civil War battlefields as the Union army suffered a series of reverses. And 1942, still in the throes of economic depression, with Germany and Japan lined up against us. And 1968, marked by riots and assassinations, when it truly seemed that the nation was unraveling from within. Going forward, climate change may certainly breed apocalypse. So might a cornered Putin, equipped with an arsenal of nuclear weapons and diminishing options as Russian forces in the field teeter on collapse. But 2020 is already in the rear-view mirror. It will no doubt leave a mark upon us, but as we move on, it spins ever faster into our past. At the same time, predicting the future, even when armed with the best data, is fraught with unanticipated obstacles, and grand strategies almost always lead to failure. It remains our duty to study our history while we engage with our present. Apocalyptic or not, it’s all we’ve got …


I have reviewed other Bacevich books here:

Review of: Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, by Andrew J. Bacevich https://regarp.com/2015/12/20/review-...

Review of: America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History, by Andrew J. Bacevich https://regarp.com/2020/03/30/review-...

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Review of: After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in the World Transformed, by Andrew Bacevich https://regarp.com/2022/10/04/review-...

[Mark Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Apocalypse this book refers to is the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which upended several previously sacrosanct presuppositions about economics, society, and diplomacy. Andrew Bacevich addresses the history and condition of the United States and the role the US is likely to play in the 2020s and beyond. The author argues that the age of American empire is over—and that that's not a bad thing for the world, and especially the US. This book should help Americans discover that there is (good) life after learning that the world is not all about them.

Bacevich gores favorite oxes of both right and left—no matter who you are, you're likely to cheer some of the points made and find yourself re-evaluating others. The neoconservative insistence on prosecuting the Iraq war receives special skewering—Bacevich traces a common thread of this mindset with the excesses of philosophical assumptions throughout the past 100 years. The obstinate positions of the Best and Brightest and other wise men throughout this period played major roles in getting us where we are today—that is, far from the best of places we could have been. This book is full of chronicled opportunities lost.

In an artful exposé of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series of motivational propaganda films in the 1940s, Bacevich highlights the clever hypocrisy presented to entice African Americans to support a war defending a democracy in which Jim Crow restricted their participation. That sold for WWII—much less so in the Vietnam era.

Major media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post as societal influencers, are also called out for criticism about their hypocrisy. The Times for example in the 1990s celebrated the US in a "we are number one" manner—while later declaring in the 1619 project that the US democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. As such candor is necessary and refreshing (Americans, eat your historical spinach), the contradictory complexity of US history indicates that the truth is likely somewhere between the noble universal humanity of the Declaration of Independence and Jefferson's own ethnic chauvinism in his regression away from striving for racial and cultural liberalism in his later life.

Even as this book was written prior to the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, Bacevich leaves open the question of whether America's leadership (its ruling elites) can reform themselves (and the US) to establish a survivable direction. Whether America will re-calibrate its many erroneous readings and keep authoritarians (foreign and domestic) and its own advancing illiberalism safely contained remains unanswered—we must do all we can to influence the influencers to stay the (corrected) course and establish true justice for all.

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: https://www.ManOfLaBook.com

After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed by Andrew Bacevich is a book in which the author lays out his ideas for shifting American foreign policy to accommodate a changing world, and outdated ideology. Mr. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations, as well as a retired Colonel from the U.S. Army.

After reading After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed I’m altogether certain of one thing, Andrew Bacevich – he’s not happy with the leadership of the US, nor the direction it’s going. He does, however, gives the reader much to think about.

Although I always considered myself a centrist leaning right. These days, however, I am sometimes told that I am a liberal – all that without changing my positions. Nevertheless, I found myself agreeing on many points with the author in this short book. Mainly, that is, that we lost focus on what’s important, and worst, we keep lying to ourselves.

Mr. Bacevich is not talking about hot-button, divisive issues which are not really important such as gay marriage, gun rights, or abortion. He is talking about a true, reality based, vision of where American needs to strive towards, and lead.

The author analyzes the decisions made by recent Presidents (including Biden’s term as VP, and short time as President), in a clear and concise manner. He does not take sides, but is not afraid to assign blame, especially for lack of vision.

I specifically enjoyed the foreign policy aspects of this book. As someone who has the advantage of seeing policy from a different angle, it was a fascinating look into a different idea for international relations. Much of it, not to boast, I deducted myself over the years but was never able to put it with such eloquence.

My favorite part was the three basic tenants of “Effective Imperial Management”. Those are:

Don’t invade Russia
Share costs
Repatriate benefits

Mr. Bacevich goes on to analyze those tenets and the mistakes empires made, from Napoleon to the USA, breaking them. This book was a short, but fascinating read which gave me a lot to think about.

[Mario · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this scathing indictment of the U.S national security apparatus, Bacevich challenges the policy-making elites for relying on, and perpetuating, outdated assumptions and comforting-but-misleading principles. While many of Bacevich's are technically correct, they don't take into account the full picture; Bacevich's analysis is hindered by only viewing the past 70-80 years through a civ-mil lens, without taking other factors (such as demographic changes, domestic electoral politics, or economics) into account. Additionally, his analysis encounters the same problem that many critiques, even well-written ones, do: its analysis of the problems is more or less dead-on, but the solutions are cursory and incomplete. Despite these deficiencies, Bacevich's critique is valid and should be taken seriously.

[David Teachout · Rating 4 out of 5]

a Chomsky-lite analysis worth the read

Where Chomsky ignores the qualities of America that provide the space to express his hatred, Bacevich comes right up to that line and then doesn’t cross it. The analysis of myth here is excellent, disconcerting at times, and downright infuriating at other points, yet even when disagreement may exist with certain issues, a critical read will find that it’s largely a matter of emphasis than outright difference of opinion. Bacevich does what we all need to do, as citizens in a country who’s mythology has inspired greatness and also a narrowed vision to the wrongs actively and ignorantly committed, and that is reflect on what future we want to attempt building to future generations. This means stepping away from the primacy of feelings and into a world where facts matter, even the ones that don’t fit an easy story.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

My full review can be found here:
https://peacediplomacy.org/2021/10/05...

[Nathan Gilliatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't remember the last time I read a work on contemporary policy that was really non-partisan, and it's almost jarring to encounter. Bacevich takes down the founding myths of consensus American self-conception and foreign-policy assumptions to focus on real outcomes, and along the way, he shows where US leaders of both major parties have followed the dogma to unwise decisions. This isn't conventional realism, but perhaps realityism, which is aware that our conventional thinking tends to ignore by default the main issues we must address.

The apocalypse of the title is 2020, which somewhere missed the memo that it was supposed to have only four horsemen. As a shock to the system, it creates an opportunity to reconsider our assumptions, especially that the US can continue with its 1947 superpower vision indefinitely. The book ends with an extended conclusion in the form of policy recommendations that will be a hard sell in Washington. Sadly, we're more likely to see these dismissed than debated, but it's a helpful exercise to show those of us not in office that there are alternatives.

In his introduction, Bacevich writes that the book is not so much for his contemporaries as for later generations, but there's no reason to let the current generation of leaders off the hook like that. This book is full of points worth pondering for those who rise to the pulpit and preach to the choir from the book of common mythology. It's time to reconsider our assumptions, and this quick read has some excellent suggestions about where to start.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I interviewed the author for my podcast. Listen here:

http://historyasithappens.radio.washi...

Bacevich is an important voice in our country. A retired Army Lt. Col., West Point grad, historian, and now president of a DC think tank whose mission is to topple the foreign policy establishment’s hold on “national security” thinking.

Bacevich isn’t radical, but he understands the folly of empire. His is a hopeless cause, of course, through no fault of his own.

[Frederick Dotolo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointed- he argues that we should replace American Exceptionalism with the 1619 Project.
Swap out one myth for another? However, when Bacevich takes a dispassionate look at US foreign policy through the prism of Realism- particularly liked his discussion of Reinhold Niebuhr and the strategic blindness of the Pentagon prior to the invasion of Iraq- he provides a good and necessary revisionism. His reference to him being our Marc Bloch was off-putting and bit arrogant. Overall, he's as a utopian as those he criticizes.

[Steve's Book Stuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Bacevich is a retired US Army Colonel, an academic (he is Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University), an author of a number of books, and a persistent critic of "American Empire". After the Apocalypse is Bacevich's latest book urging America's foreign policy leaders to reflect and set a different course.

A bit more background on Bacevich will perhaps help to put his newest book in context. Since the publication of War Over Kosovo in 2002 Bacevich has authored, co-authored and contributed to a number of books and articles, and also appeared on cable news and opinion shows. In all of this work he has been consistently critical of America's foreign policy as practiced through "endless war". His son, Andrew Bacevich, Jr. died serving in the Iraq conflict. He calls himself a "Catholic conservative", yet he endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008 (though he was later critical of many of his administration's foreign policy decisions). Though he thinks Trump was on the right track in identifying a need to break from past policy, he is highly critical that Trump had nothing to offer in terms of a new direction. Nor was he a fan of George W. Bush and the War in Iraq. In short, he's been equally critical of foreign policy as practiced over both Republican and Democratic administrations. In 2019 he founded the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft whose mission statement is to "promote ideas that move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace".

Despite his prolific writing background this is the first book of his which I've read.

At the start of the book Bacevich terms 2020 the Year of Apocalypse. He calls out these "Four Horseman" of America's apocalyptic year - the ever increasing impacts of climate change; the "toxic and divisive presidency of Donald Trump"; a deadly pandemic; and rising anger and unrest at racial injustice. If the purpose of America's foreign policy is to keep Americans safe, Bacevich says, then 2020 shows us that, in a radically changing world, that policy has failed us. From this starting point he is off and running, providing his perspective on how America got to this place.

Through much of the rest of the book Bacevich builds a cogent argument that American leaders have consistently - at least since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and really for a long time before - misunderstood America's place in the world and the limits of American Power. Thus they have made the wrong decisions on multiple foreign and domestic fronts. It's an argument that is well drawn and one that, in 2021, many of America's citizens would consider almost self evident. Whether liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, you'll find much to agree with in this book, along with some things that will challenge your thinking.

As with many "policy" books aimed at a large audience this one falls into the trap of spending the bulk of it's time telling us what's wrong, and far to little on a prescription for what to do about it. In this slim book (the paperback is 172 pages plus notes), Bacevich spends just the last twelve pages outlining his ideas for how to right the American ship of State. At twelve pages it is necessarily only an outline. Given that it took a lot to get us into our current state, and understanding the entrenched interests at play (which Bacevich identifies), it's not a stretch to think that it will take a lot to get us out of it.

As an overview of the reasons why we need to think and do differently as a nation in relation to the rest of the world, and with some pointers for a way forward, I rate Andrew Bacevich's After the Apocalypse Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.

NOTE: My Advanced Reviewer's Copy of After the Apocalypse was provided at no cost by LibraryThing and Henry Holt & Co. in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. The book was published on June 8 of this year as part of the American Empire Project by Metropolitan Books, a division of Henry Holt & Co.

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Andrew Bacevich's newest attempt at introducing humility into American foreign policy, and perfectly suited for this year. I was overjoyed to receive a copy from the publisher and loved the book. In light of the insane year of 2020, Bacevich "focus[es] on underlying factors that perpetuate a patently defective status quo" in his efforts to dethrone the foreign policy blob. (9) Issues like imperialism, militarism, and the killing of non-combatants occupy his mind as he debunks various flawed presuppositions driving foreign policy. (23-24) These myths include the existence of a unified "west" led by the US (Chp. 2), special relationships with the UK and Israel (Chp. 3), the refusal to learn from defeats to lower-tech rivals in Afghanistan and Iraq (Chp. 4), disregard for the limits of nature (Chp. 5), racial oppression (Chp. 6), ignoring growing domestic discontent with empire (Chp. 7), and historical determinism (Chp. 8)

The basic problem is hubris, the notion that the US could achieve "absolute mastery over war itself" (71) and more broadly the idea that human mastery over the natural world could be taken for granted. (89) These faulty assumptions breed miscalculations and lost lives, both on our side and among civilians, as well as a climate crisis. Bacevich's strength is in recognizing the common ideological roots behind immodest policymaking; this has garnered him plaudits from both left and post-liberal right, but also criticism. Here is a conservative who talks about America's racial reckoning and climate change and rejects Donald Trump, while applauding the discursive opening emerging from his Presidency. (154)

Instead of policy guided by arrogance and a nebulous definition of national security (86), Bacevich seeks a return to self-sufficiency--AKA realism that prioritizes American needs while recognizing the US' economic and diplomatic potential. This is only part of a broader cultural solution, which requires that the excesses of the American way of life must be curbed if we seek to preserve it (102) and that we reject false conceptions of American Exceptionalist progress (148-50). On a tangible level, Bacevich's suggestion requires that the US confront domestic sins like racism (129) and address domestic crises instead of plundering abroad (165). He suggests lowering troop levels in the Middle East, withdrawing from NATO, focusing more on continental security, and collaborating with all countries on climate change. (169-71).

While "After the Apocalypse" is thoughtfully written and powerful, I disagree with Bacevich's argument against NATO, which is a bulwark against threats from Russia and China. As much as I appreciate him, it feels like the author sometimes underplays the threats posed by Russia and China, although he's decently compelling on why they pose less of a threat than neocons suggest. Moreover, I'm more pro-Israel than he is, but I feel like equating the strategic importance of the UK and Israel in Chapter 3 is off the mark.

These minor issues aside, as we emerge from a global pandemic, a racial reckoning, and an economic crisis, anybody interested in foreign affairs should read this book and disabuse themselves of erroneous establishment narratives. Andrew Bacevich hit the mark yet again.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the Apocalypse is a thought-provoking, though overly general, reflection on American foreign policy and its future. While I didn’t find any of Andrew Bacevich’s proposed reforms to be revolutionary, I nonetheless appreciated his sobering analysis of American worldview and hubris.

Bacevich spends most of the book relating the ways in which American dominance from 1917-1989 has engendered selective memory and over-militarization in our foreign policy. This has led, he argues, to a 21st century in which the US is deeply weakened by overseas adventurism and the world is no longer unipolar. And for the most part, I agree quite strongly with this perspective. While a lot of Bacevich’s opinions are typical for a think tank analyst or foreign affairs pundit, he’s unflinching in his criticism of American policymakers and society for valid reasons — for example, he cites the persistence of American exceptionalism throughout a century of regime change and imperial warfare, or the perception of America as a state committed to justice while Black Americans have been abused for our country’s entire existence. These points are under-discussed in the discourse of American foreign policy, and Bacevich’s most notable achievement is connecting such conceptual ideas to the concrete future of international politics.

At the same time, it’s certainly true that Bacevich thinks and talks like a standard think tank professional. He expounds on his ideas through obscure historical anecdotes and political theory that’s arcane to the average person, and he talks a lot about force posture and military strategy that’s on the dryer side. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it does mean that much of this book reads similarly to any one of the numerous political think-pieces published in recent years. His ideas also aren’t particularly groundbreaking. Some of them, like creating a North American Security Zone and bolstering our alliance with Mexico and Canada, are intelligent and clever. But others ring with an air of impracticality or outright folly, such as his claim that NATO is obsolete and that the US should withdraw entirely from Europe (proven false by recent events). So while this book is thought-provoking and provides some interesting analysis of modern politics, it falls short of being truly transformative.

Overall, After the Apocalypse is a short and fascinating exploration of America’s foreign policy in its past, present, and future. Andrew Bacevich explains well the current crises in American politics at home and abroad, and he posits some intriguing, if not groundbreaking, solutions. Though not an essential read, I would recommend this book to those interested in American or international politics.

[Kilburn Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Andrew J. Bacevich's After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed is a frustrating read that struggles to deliver a coherent critique of the American Empire. Presented as the work of a distinguished critic, the book falls flat with its narrow perspective and lack of original insight.

In examining the origins of American imperialism, Bacevich seems to skim over complex issues, opting for a linear interpretation of the transition from a voluntary force to a professional military. His portrayal of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as strategically unwinnable and morally indefensible, while having some truth, fails to grapple with the intricate political and social dynamics at play.

The book's core narrative, which blames the doctrine of American Exceptionalism for the country's imperial project, is hardly ground-breaking. Bacevich's assertion that this doctrine is perpetuated because it conveniently supports U.S. global ambitions, is frankly reductive. His exploration of this topic lacks nuance and fails to consider the multi-layered, deep-seated beliefs that underpin American Exceptionalism.

The glaring overemphasis on domestic politics is another flaw in After the Apocalypse. While there is an undeniable connection between domestic events and foreign policy, Bacevich's relentless insistence on this causality oversimplifies the complexities of international relations and American geopolitics.

Furthermore, the book offers a questionable analysis of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, casting Hillary Clinton as a warmongering neoliberal and praising Donald Trump's anti-imperial stance. It conveniently ignores Trump's lack of a viable alternative policy, his disastrous handling of the pandemic, and his contribution to the increasing political polarization in the U.S.

Finally, the book disappointingly refrains from an in-depth engagement with progressive movements that have emerged in response to the empire's legacy. Bacevich dismisses the '1619 Project' as insufficient to unite the nation around an alternative cause, revealing a distinct lack of openness to new perspectives.

The final suggestion of conscription as a solution to America's imperial problem is, frankly, an unimaginative and retrogressive proposition. It ignores the reality of modern warfare and overlooks the profound ethical issues surrounding forced military service.

After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed is a disappointment. Despite Bacevich's credentials and the book's ambitious title, it fails to offer a nuanced critique of the American Empire, making it a frustrating and underwhelming read.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version of this book. For those who remember Andy Rooney on the show 60 Minutes, this book was like listening to him complain for 6 hours. Luckily, the last 30 minutes of the book offer the author’s solutions to the problems he rants about.

The author’s focus is on America’s role in the world. He disdains the idea of “American Exceptionalism.” From my understanding, that term encompasses two thoughts, one being that America is unique in the world and the other that America has a mission to lead and transform the world. The author only addresses that second thought, and disagrees with it.

He portrays an America where like-minded elites occupy the areas of government dealing with foreign and military policy, and this elite cadre has sold us a myth about our country, that we’re the leaders of the free world, that we must project power, that we must be a superpower, etc. Further, this cadre is so entrenched that they will fight any attempt to dislodge them.

The book presents an interesting view of the Iraq War as being racist, a war conceived by white men and fought by black men. The author explains General Collin Powell’s role as that of a loyal soldier obeying orders, a soldier in no way responsible. That picture seemed odd to me.

I won’t spoil the book by detailing the author’s prescriptions for future U.S. foreign policy, which he saves to the very end. I’m in agreement with many of his recommendations. However, I’m amused that among the things he complains about is the ballooning U.S. National Debt, and though he does call for some spending cuts in his prescriptions, he proposes corresponding budget increases in other areas, thus continuing the deficit spending he earlier derided.

It's an interesting book, but I recommend skipping to the end.

[Justin Goldman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume is an interesting critique from Professor Bacevich, a long-time detractor of Post 9/11 American foreign policy and as he describes it the "militarism" that has been its hallmark. I've read some of his previous work and his life experience is one reason I find his contrarian perspective a useful read. He is a West Point graduate who served a Platoon Leader in Vietnam, made the Army a career, and earned PhD in American Diplomatic History from Princeton. The Army is a family tradition and he tragically lost his son, 1st Lt Andrew Bacevich, to a roadside bomb in Iraq in May 2007. First published in June 2021, this book is written at a moment that calls for reflection coming out just ahead of the humiliating final withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan. Professor Bacevich describes the current moment in America "as being on the edge of catastrophic destruction." He makes clear the substantial influence the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr has on his thinking and he makes mention of the conservative Catholic faith that helped shape his viewpoint. He also draws upon French historian Marc Bloch who fought in two World Wars, helping to create the influential Annales school which argued in favor of the study of “history from below" of people in everyday life, but studied in the context of geography, the social environment and over the long term. Professor Bacevich decries the resurgent populism that is increasingly found in nearly all aspects of our current political environment which undermines governance at all levels, crippling America's ability handle threats to the wellbeing of Americans including such as disease, climate change, and our insecure borders. There is a lot to consider in this brief, but full volume.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a scathing and piecing analysis of the US foreign policy, and should be a must read, especially for those in power. However, given what's happening since the previous administration, it's far from clear that they've learned the necessary lessons. The basic assumption for those in power, even a big portion of the population, is that US has the god-given right to be a hegemony forever.

I remember a small story in 2003, when Collin Powell didn't get the authorization to invade Iraq, France and Germany were against it. The next day, a colleague cut the front page of New York Post, the German and French representatives were pictured as weasels. Apparently he was completely for the war. Two years later his attitude toward the Iraqi War was opposite. I was thinking: Why would it take him this long to realize?

AUKUS was just formed, apparently against China. From the angle of Australia, the attitude seems funny. On surface, the rational is to protect its shipping lines. Australia's biggest trade partner is China, does Australia need to protect those lines against China? It doesn't make sense to me.

Back to US, is China an existential threat? I don't see it. China doesn't pose such a threat at all to US militarily. To me, the biggest problem is internal. As I talked to some colleagues and friends that I'm a big fan of getting one's own house in order. Apparently this is extraordinarily difficult. US is in another Gilded Age, but it doesn't look like it'll end any time soon. Obama missed a great opportunity to do something about it, but turned out he's not a transformational figure.

[Stephen Morrissey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Andrew Bacevich is like taking the proverbial red pill in America's foreign policy world: it upsets your sense of things in the foreign policy realm and leads you to question many basic assumptions underpinning American exceptionalism.

In "After the Apocalypse," Bacevich makes a crisp and vigorous attack on American exceptionalism and how dangerous it is for America to operate in the world without any limits. Both Democrats and Republicans come in for scrutiny, as America's descent into endless wars, high military spending, and a world still rife with "terrorism" has been a bipartisan enterprise during the 20th and 21st Centuries.

Bacevich is at his best when putting together a sound plan for future American foreign policy: a more circumspect Pentagon budget; prioritizing domestic needs over nation-building abroad; and re-orienting the US away from legacy alliances and towards a new Indo-Pacific tilt.

However, Bacevich takes a different tack on Trump: a bull in a china shop persona for sure, but also a sort of manifestation of past foreign policy misadventures, and a dangerous resurrection of America First. Bacevich does not address, in any thorough way, the anti-democratic legacy of Trump and how the authoritarian tendencies of the Trump Era will erode America's standing in the world and potentially bring to the fore more anti-democratic forces in Europe, South America and North America.

"After the Apocalypse" deserves a read by all. Take the red pill - you won't regret it!

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the Apocalypse by Andrew J Bacevich is an engaging and accessible book that tries to show how our current miserable situation didn't just suddenly happen and that by looking at how we got here we can work toward changing the system(s) that are so broken.

Some readers will claim the ideas are utopian. When you read that, just substitute them saying "I love my unearned privilege and entitlement and don't so much want change as I want the appearance of change." Yes, Bacevich's ideas and suggestions do work toward making society better. In a perfect world, such solutions would lead to a utopia (of sorts, since someone's utopia is usually someone else's dystopia) but neither Bacevich nor an engaged active open reader believes this is a perfect world, so these are not utopian ideas, these are ideas aimed at making actual change and not just pretending to make change "within the system." You know, like all those compassionate and community minded business leaders and politicians.

I recommend this book and also will warn readers, even ones like myself who will agree with the big picture here, that you will disagree with some things. That is what debate and discussion is for. Those who dismiss as "leftist" or "utopian" don't want change and are incapable of debate or discussion, debate for them is yelling louder, even if what they yell stinks.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

[Daniel]

Andrew Bacevich is a fine writer who has managed to write a book that I find unpersuasive even as I agree with his basic outlook. Why unpersuasive? For one thing, the tone is arrogant, impatient, complaining, and dismissive. For another, Bacevich, whose writing I first came across in National Review, has had a conversion to a liberal, woke worldview. (Regarding the latter, one sentence will give you a feel for his newfound pieties: "As the first Black JCS chairman, Colin Powell had embraced a white definition of America's role in the world.") You might argue-with considerable fairness- that tone should not have a huge impact on the logic of argument, but what Bacevich has written is not so much a nuanced argument as a screed that publishes his accumulated grievances. Here is a paragraph from page 100 that gives you a feel for what I mean:

When I lie awake at night worrying about the planet that my grandchildren will inherit, it's not terrorism that prevents me from sleeping. Nor is it Iran or North Korea or Russia or even China. It's the puerile witlessness of a national security apparatus oblivious to real and proximate dangers that, if ignored, will only worsen with time and ultimately jeopardize the American way of life. It's non-Pentagon-preferred threats typically treated as addenda that demand our attention.

Sure, Professor, whatever you say.