The Foreign Service Journal, May 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2017 67 down, centered on great- power diplomacy. Part II covers the last quarter-century, which Haass convincingly portrays as “a break with the past.” He does a workmanlike job with his summaries of major foreign policy challenges and how George H.W. Bush, Bill Clin- ton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama each (mis)handled them. In Chapter 6, “Regional Realities,” for example, he dismisses the Obama administration’s entire Middle East policy as dangerously weak in most cases (Syria), too forceful in others (Israel and Palestine) or—in the case of Egypt and the Arab Spring—embodying both fail- ings at once. To back up his generally harsh assess- ment of U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks, Haass approvingly quotes John F. Kennedy’s warning: “There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.” Yet most of the examples he adduces here, including his appropriately dev- astating takedown of George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and the Obama administration’s Libya debacle, suggest that more caution, not less, is warranted when it comes to foreign interventions. In Part III, Haass at last gives us his big reveal, calling for an updated global operating system—which he calls World Order 2.0—that reflects the reality that power is widely distributed and borders World Order 2.0? A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order Richard Haass, Penguin Press, 2017, $28/ hardcover, $14.99/Kindle, 352 pages. Reviewed By Steven Alan Honley Rarely have I had such high hopes for a foreign policy book as this latest volume by the prolific Richard Haass, the long- time president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a diplomatic adviser to the administrations of both Presidents Bush. Surely, I thought, if anyone has the wisdom and the government experience to explain A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order , then offer practical guidance for navigating it, it is Mr. Haass. The first part of this catchily titled book traces the history of international relations from the rise of the modern state system in the mid-17th century through the two world wars of the 20th, and on to the end of the Cold War. He covers that vast terrain expeditiously, though I daresay most Foreign Service personnel will already be familiar with the main points he makes. His premise is that during that long stretch of history, which in his telling feels at times like a lost golden age, “there was considerable continuity in how the world worked (think of it as World Order 1.0), even though the history itself varied dramatically, both for good and very much for ill.” That last phrase, by the way, is about as close as Haass comes to acknowledg- ing the heinous legacy of colonialism. (In a later chapter, he compresses the past 25 years’ worth of developments in Africa and Latin America into just three pages!) Rather, his perspective throughout the book is very much Olympian and top- BOOKS count for less. He offers the con- cept of “sovereign obligation” as the basis for this approach, under which each nation embraces its obligations and responsibilities, as well as its rights and protections. It is an elegant construct, to be sure, and certainly plausible, at least in terms of multilateral diplomacy. On the bilateral front, though, par- ticularly when Haass tries to apply it to relations with China and Russia, it comes across as minimally updated realpolitik. Here, for instance, is his advice con- cerning human rights and democratiza- tion: “Focusing on their internal behavior would be unlikely to meaningfully affect it for the better, but would almost cer- tainly affect and conceivably poison their view of the United States and the way they see their relationship.” Haass does graciously concede that “The United States can have preferences for how [China and Russia] evolve, and criticize them when they violate human rights on any scale, but it has neither the influence with them nor the luxury of placing such concerns at the center of the relationship.” Left unanswered is what good it would do then for us to express such concerns when the recipients will shrug it off—or what happens when the rest of the world follows suit. Such shortcomings aside, I would give A World in Disarray high marks—if only the author had wrapped up the book here. Instead, he inexplicably felt the need to append a chapter titled “A Country in Disarray,” which he uses to urge Washington to balance the budget, Haass calls for an updated global operating system— which he calls World Order 2.0—that reflects the reality that power is widely distributed and borders count for less.