68 JUNE 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL In trying to pinpoint what sort of activity crosses the red line, he notes: “Making partisan calculation the primary consideration is a perversion of the constructive role of political parties in articulating competing interests and grand strategies.” At times, Pillar employs the word “corruption.” He explains that, in line with the views of political philosophers like Niccolo Machiavelli and David Hume, he uses the term to mean “factionalism run amok.” But given that modern usages mainly focus on financial malfeasance, throwing in the word “corruption” to describe instances of excessive partisanship only seems to obfuscate the complicated matters under discussion. In making his argument, Pillar highlights a clutch of episodes where hyperpolarization has inhibited the making of sound foreign policy. He cogently relates how the bitter Federalist and DemocraticRepublican rivalry undercut the U.S. government’s ability to deal with fallout from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Thrown unprepared into conflict with Britain, the American polity was riven with discord, and U.S. military forces were placed on the defensive. The new nation was lucky to emerge from the War of 1812 fully intact. Fast-forwarding through U.S. history, Beyond the Water’s Edge skillfully reviews how John F. Kennedy’s oft-repeated claim that there was a “missile gap” helped skew the 1960 presidential campaign. The issue was a vote-winner for Kennedy, but the Soviet Union had not in fact pulled ahead with respect to ballistic missile development and deployment. Richard Nixon, the losing candidate, felt badly burned by Kennedy’s tactics. assignments. That was followed by an investigation by USAGM’s inspector general, and then Pack’s referral to the Office of Special Counsel for possible violations of the Hatch Act. Herman’s efforts played a major role in saving his agency and its journalism from these partisan threats. He is now chief national correspondent for VOA and continues to give VOA’s listeners a nuanced, nonpartisan, and timely look at our country and both its challenges and its successes. Having traveled as a journalist to more than 75 countries, and having lived overseas in multiple foreign postings, Herman continues to draw on his passion for journalism and a deep understanding of what it takes to deliver solid reporting to a global audience. At a time when objective, fact-based and nonpartisan reporting overseas is under serious assault, while our country struggles to get its messages to the global audience, Steve Herman’s book provides a primer on how we can tackle those challenges in a very uncertain world. Eric Rubin was president of AFSA from 2019 to 2023 and U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria from 2016 to 2019. He retired last year after 38 years in the Foreign Service. A Warning on Toxic Partisanship Beyond the Water’s Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy Paul R. Pillar, Columbia University Press, 2023, $35.00/hardcover, e-book available, 328 pages. R J L. N We are currently in the early stages of a hard-fought presidential election campaign that will decide the direction of U.S. diplomacy for the next four years. Paul Pillar’s well-timed new book, Beyond the Water’s Edge, sends up a flare on the threat posed to U.S. national security by extreme political polarization. The arc of Pillar’s narrative sketches how domestic dynamics have affected the conduct of U.S. foreign relations through history. His book’s title is based in part on a statement made by Daniel Webster, the eminent 19th-century statesman and two-time Secretary of State, who memorably proclaimed: “Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water’s edge.” The author, by way of introduction, is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and a nonresident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He has written several well-received books, including Why America Misunderstands the World: National Experience and Roots of Misperception (2016). Pillar also worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for 28 years before retiring in 2005. His senior positions at Langley included service as executive assistant to the CIA director and national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia. In Beyond the Water’s Edge, Pillar underscores that he fully understands that foreign policy is an appropriate matter of public debate. What concerns him is unrestrained, corrosive partisanship.
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