The Foreign Service Journal, November 2015

50 NOVEMBER 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World Ian Bremmer, Portfolio, 2015, $27.95/hardcover; $17/paperback; $14.99/Kindle, 240 pages. In Superpower , Ian Bremmer writes about the imperative to define a foreign policy strat- egy, which, he maintains, the United States has lacked since the end of the ColdWar. As a result, U.S. foreign policy has been characterized by inconsistency, timidity and an inability to respond effectively to increasingly expensive and dangerous crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere. Predicting the United States will remain a superpower for the foreseeable future, Bremmer presents three alternatives to the current aimlessness. He describes the options— “Indispensable,” “Moneyball” and “Independent America”— as “going with your heart, wallet and head,” respectively. Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of the global politi- cal risk research and consulting firm Eurasia Group. He has pub- lished nine books, including The End of the Free Market and Every Nation for Itself . He lectures widely and writes a weekly foreign affairs column for Time magazine. Mission Creep: The Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy? Gordon Adams and Shoon Murray, editors, Georgetown University Press, 2014, $34.95/paperback; $22.33/Kindle, 256 pages. After the Cold War, and especially since 9/11, the United States has increasingly relied on the resources of the Department of Defense to deal with a changing global environment and the rise of ter- rorism, Islamic radicalism, ethnic conflict and failed states. The term “militarization” in this title refers to a subtle phenomenon in which the military has increasingly become the primary actor and factor of U.S. policy abroad. Editors Gordon Adams and Shoon Murray have assembled a set of essays by Senior Foreign Service officers and other officials examining the causes and implications of this and offering rec- ommendations for rebalancing the civilian-military equation in foreign policy decision-making and implementation. Mission Creep is “an excellent starting point for the national OF RELATED INTEREST debate that is long overdue,” says Ambassador (ret.) Charles Ray in his review in the October FSJ . The Fog of Peace: A Memoir of International Peacekeeping in the 21st Century Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Brookings Institution Press, 2015, $25/paperback, 330 pages. The Fog of Peace is a telling memoir by Jean-Marie Guéhenno, under secretary of the United Nations for peacekeeping opera- tions from 2000 to 2008. Its pages are filled with case studies from the author’s time at the helm of U.N. peacekeeping operations in places such as Darfur, Kosovo, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Haiti and Lebanon. Guéhenno’s stories illustrate how deep divisions in the international community have been overcome to save lives and create stability in conflict settings. The key, he argues, is accepting that outcomes will be imperfect and that comprises must be made. Why the world is seemingly paralyzed by inaction in Syria is one of the major questions explored in the book. After leaving his peacekeeping post in 2008, Jean-Marie Guéhenno served as an aide to then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. He is currently the head of the International Crisis Group in Washington, D.C. Saved for a Purpose: A Journey from Private Virtues to Public Values James A. Joseph, Duke University Press, 2015, $29.95/hardcover; $20.75/Kindle, 330 pages. After surviving a harrowing airplane crash in the South Pacific in 1978, James Joseph was inspired to redouble his efforts to integrate values into America’s public, private and independent sectors. In this autobiography, he chronicles his life’s journey to serve others. The son of a minister in the segregated South, Joseph navi- gated the turbulence of the 1960s and supported an end to apart- heid in South Africa—a country to which President Bill Clinton later named himU.S. ambassador. He’s spent the years since in academia, seeking to build a culture of ethical leadership across all disciplines. James A. Joseph is a professor emeritus at Duke University. He has served as under secretary of the Department of the Interior in