Surprise, Security, and the American Experience

Abstract

SURPRISE, SECURITY, AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE John Lewis Gaddis Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. x, 150pp, US$18.95 cloth (ISBN 0-674-01174-0)John Lewis Gaddis's short but highly ambitious book aims to place of Bush administration-most notably summed up with national security strategy of United States (NSS) of September 2002 and decision to invade Iraq in March 2003-within context of nearly two centuries of American foreign policy supposedly laid groundwork for decision-making in Washington in 2002-2003. The first grand strategy was authored, we are told, by John Quincy Adams (when he was secretary of state), and was followed later in 19th century by presidents James Polk and William McKinley. It combined and unilateralism with goal of achieving continental and hemispheric hegemony. The second grand strategy, one practiced in 20th century, was authored by Woodrow Wilson (although much more successfully practiced by Franklin D. Roosevelt). In contrast to first tradition, second combined relative with multilateralism and decision to promote democratic governments for others-but like first, it aimed at achieving hegemony, this time with a global reach. And if these two traditions themselves do not provide elements enough to establish an authentically American policy for early 21st century, Gaddis throws in for good measure Thomas Jefferson's notion of of liberty, in which imperialism and freedom are processes may be fruitfully linked.According to Gaddis, each of these grand strategies has features have resurfaced in on terror, as Bush White House grafted unilateral preemption of Adams onto democracy promotion of Wilson in a contemporary determination to reshape Muslim Middle East by combining empire with liberty. Thus the Bush administration, whether intentionally or not, has been drawing upon a set of traditions. . .embedded within our national consciousness (31), whose end result is conviction expressed for some two centuries now and again today that for United States safety comes from enlarging, rather than from contracting, its sphere of responsibility' (13, italics in original).The result of Gaddis's breathtaking effort is to anoint war on Iraq with sacred oil of virtually entire American foreign policy tradition. Posturing as Clio, muse of history, a well-known American diplomatic historian tries to make both intelligible and legitimate doctrine espoused in NSS and Iraq War followed. To be sure, Gaddis hedges his argument. He acknowledges uniqueness of Bush administration's thinking in certain respects; he warns winning a war may be less difficult and less important than winning a peace to follow; he speculates liberal autocracy may be more appropriate for Middle East than democratic government (105); he reminds us of the sin of pride (117); and he recognizes his assessment (dated as being concluded in September 2003) must be tentative in extreme (95). These allowances made, Gaddis nonetheless emerges a clear-eyed supporter of Iraq War.For this reviewer, most successful part of book is clarity of a complex argument wherein Gaddis identifies, contrasts, and then combines two predominant traditions of statecraft in American foreign policy (Adams's realism and Wilson's liberalism). However, clarity in complex argumentation does not necessarily mean case presented is persuasive. On a factual level, one may object to many of Gaddis's conclusions. Thus, as Gaddis himself recognizes, Adams was quite aware of need for restraint in American engagements abroad, while FDR's decision to promote democracy in Japan and Germany after their defeat did not mean he was reluctant to work with dictators in Latin America, China, and elsewhere, recognizing as he did limits of America's power. …