Just Finished Reading: A World in Disarray – American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order by Richard Haass (FP: 2017) [328pp] 

Typically, I’m VERY late to the party. Maybe if I had read this book soon after I picked it up, rather than almost 10 years later, I might have been ahead of the news cycle! However, we’re here eventually. 

The world was born refreshed (although birthed in both fire and blood) with the end of World War Two and the beginnings of the Cold War. For a significant part of the world and for a significant period of time things were, generally, stable. This meant than long-term planning and long-term profits were possible and the world entered, somewhat briefly, an era of rapid and persistent growth. As we know now this came to a grinding halt with the 1970’s oil crisis (which feels very familiar right now) and we entered a period of growing instability. When the Berlin Wall fell and, shortly after, the Soviet Union followed some expected things to calm down permanently. They did in fact (quoting Teal’c from Stargate) calm up. The orderly world many of us had been born into or grown up in started to break down. Part of this was to do with the instability in the ex-Soviet states and Russia itself. Part was caused by the rise of China and the slow (relative) decline of the US accelerated by foreign wars and other adventures. Part was caused by economic shocks and the revolutions across the Middle East and South America. Part was caused by the inability of the existing nuclear powers to prevent their proliferation to others like India, Pakistan, North Korea or Israel. Seemingly, without the military and ideological binding of the Cold War things began to spiral out of control. 

The author argues, and I somewhat agree, that at least some of the blame for this state of affairs can be laid at the feet of the United States. Without the Cold War to focus minds the US has struggled to define or decide on its place in the world. Is it enough to be a ‘shinning beacon’ to the rest? Do they need to ‘bang heads’ when other countries step out of line (as in the First Gulf War) or is it OK to support tyrants for the ‘greater’ good (which all too often aligned with American good). More to the point, with shifting political ideals and changes of party at the top could America keep a consistent policy over decades? His central argument (which I disputed) was that the world cannot achieve stability or prosperity WITHOUT US involvement. The question, as always, is what that involvement would look like.  

This was by no means a perfect book. As we know, a GREAT deal has changed in the last 10 years. As I was reading through this, I was more than a little surprised that Trump was not mentioned at all. He did eventually show up in the afterword and the author explained that the original hardback version went to his publishers as the election that Trump (unexpectedly) won was underway. What he did say was that the disarray he saw coming was accelerated in the first year or so of the first Trump administration. I do wonder what he would think now! I did find the text a little boring to be honest. Part of that was the fact that most of what he talked about I was mostly familiar with and that I (mostly) agreed with his analysis – so it contained little new information or ideas. I also thought that, despite his insider knowledge and wide experience, he was rather naive and had the all too usual American blind spots where the world is concerned (in that the rest of the world isn’t America nor does most of it want to be). Overall, though this is a pretty good, high-level, general introduction to global politics post-WW2 and especially post-Cold War as well as a sobering assessment of the future we’re pushing in to. It’s a little out of date at this point but by reading it you’ll have a fair idea of how we got ourselves into this mess. Reasonable and more on this subject to come.