The Foreign Service Journal, September 2003

B OOKS 74 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 3 Point-Counterpoint America and The World: Debating the New Shape of International Politics James F. Hoge Jr. and Gideon Rose, editors; Council on Foreign Relations, 2003, $19.95, paperback, 389 pages. R EVIEWED BY T HOMAS M C N AMARA America and The World: Debating the New Shape of International Politics is a gem of a collection for busy readers who either missed or wish to reread many of the last decade’s attempts to define the cen- tral issues of post-Cold War interna- tional politics. Given that many of these essays are now available on the Internet, the book is a bit pricey. But the advantage of having a good cross- section of this ongoing debate in one volume is worth the expense. The book rightly begins with an essay published during the first flush of Cold War victory, Francis Fukuy- ama’s “The End of History?” — writ- ten as the Berlin Wall fell, but before the Soviet Union did. The trouble with firing the first shot, even a good one, is that everyone else gets to return fire — an activity at which aca- demics are particularly fierce. Neither those salvos nor the events of the past decade have been kind to Fukuyama and his victory proclamation. The debate is lively, and some- times personal, as the 19 theoreticians presented try to intellectually order the new international disorder. Samuel P. Huntington (“The Clash of Civilizations?”) is rebuked by Fouad Ajami (“The Summoning”), while G. John Ikenberry (“The Myth of Post- Cold War Chaos”) clashes with Robert D. Kaplan (“The Coming Anarchy”). Then Fareed Zakaria and Marc F. Plattner mix it up over liberal vs. illiberal democracy, and Robert Kagan (“Power and Weakness”) faces a contrary thesis by Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth (“American Primacy in Perspective”). The most striking of the book’s many “point-counterpoint” pairings is the final one: President Bush’s 2002 West Point commencement speech declar- ing his pre-emption doctrine, and G. John Ikenberry’s refutation, “Amer- ica’s Imperial Ambition.” These efforts to highlight and define the main themes facing the international community are all well- written and well-reasoned. Yet each inevitably comes up short, for no essay can present a meaningful thesis about the complex challenges the U.S. faces, and deal with counter- arguments. (Indeed, several of these authors have since written books to flesh out their initial historical theses.) In addition, as these essayists would be the first to concede, the real world is more complex and subtle than each picture painted here. Even so, each sketch is part of an overall canvas, and gives a useful perspective that, in the collective, educates and informs the reader in ways no one author could. Not only is America and the World a good book for policy wonks, but it is also helpful for the student trying to understand the main historical cur- rents and underlying motivations shaping current events. It is undeni- able, for example, that Huntington was on to something in 1992 when he described the “clash of civilizations.” The heartlands of Islam and the West are engaged in a struggle to advance different philosophical, institutional, and social objectives. Yet it is more clear than ever, as Ajami writes, that civilizations are not unitary forces, and are not even actors in history. The diversity of objectives and tendencies on all sides is too great to be fitted into Huntington’s small frame. So perhaps the greatest benefit of reading these essays is to understand the complexity of events and to appreciate how hard it is for historians to make sense of histo- ry’s contradictory themes. ■ During his Foreign Service career, Thomas McNamara was assistant sec- retary of State for political-military affairs, ambassador to Colombia, and ambassador-at-large for counterter- rorism, among many other positions. He now teaches at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. America and the World is useful for the student trying to understand underlying motivations shaping current events.