Why peace can be as difficult as war

Abstract

The book under review fills an important gap in examining American foreign policy during the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the events of September 11, 2001. It documents American reactions to the events during and after 1989 and explains some of the difficult foreign policy choices facing the US during the 1990s. It also describes how the mid-1990s came to be seen by some as ‘an age of anxiety’. The book largely focuses on the thinking of the foreign policy elites and, in the opinion of this reviewer, might have said more about American domestic politics at this time. The rise of the conservative movement, the belief in the unfettered free market, and the seemingly unconditional support for Israel were largely rooted in domestic politics but had important foreign policy implications. One paradox, so this reviewer argues, was the way in which some in the West—the Cold War victors—seemed disorientated or even demoralized by their own victory. One underlying problem, implicit in this book, is that of achieving cohesion in the absence of a common enemy. For that reason peace can sometimes be as difficult as war.