ISBN: 1403971749
List Price: $24.95
Amazon Price: $15.72
Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy this book
from amazon.com
or from
amazon.co.uk
|
Avg Cusomer Rating: 4
Reviews:
Summary: A Very Reasoned and Rational Look at The Purpose and Abilities of the U.S. Military
In General Tony Zinni's "The Battle for Peace," the retired Marine general tries to present an alternative vision of the national interest than the one espoused by President Bush. It's a less ambitious, more incremental vision. If adopted by the Democrats, his dry, bureaucratic approach may lack popular appeal...yet it might bring about a more rational alignment of our national purpose with our fiscal and military resources. An area where the current administration has seriously dropped the ball.
Before retiring, Zinni served as chief of the military's Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East and South Asia, a post that brought him into direct contact with many of the region's leading political and military figures and a firsthand experience in the most challenging foreign policy questions facing the United States. He was one of several former generals who endorsed Bush for president in 2000, but he has since broken with the administration over what he sees as its ill-thought-out adventures in Iraq. Zinni was also against the war before it was popular to be so.
However, those hoping for a screed against Bush's policies will be disappointed. Zinni writes soberly and without invective. Although, he obviously disapproves of what he considers Bush's excessive faith in military power and the rush into the Iraq invasion, he does not actually attack the administration. But by the end of this book, it is clear Zinni would have us move into a radically different direction on national security matters.
Zinni believes far too little thought and attention are being paid to the management of what, as he describes it, is the most urgent issue facing the country...how to manage the problems posed by dysfunctional countries or those that are in danger of becoming dysfunctional. Those countries, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, are the breeding grounds for the radicals and terrorists who hate the United States and want to attack us.
Yet as Zinni tells it, we have expertise in only one tool, military force, for dealing with these countries, and we too often use our power in ways that alienate other societies. He offers a variety of proposals to better organize U.S. agencies to respond to droughts, famines, civil wars and other sources of instability before they turn into situations that require military force. He wants an interdepartmental team drawn from several agencies to watch for tensions and other signs of instability and a deployable force of civilians to handle recovery and reconstruction in war zones. Something that, surprisingly, our country lacks right now.
This is not a very easy book to read. There is a fair amount of jargon in here, and the structure of the book is a bit odd. Zinni veers between interesting accounts of his involvement in various crises, such as the effort to aid the Iraqi Kurds after the Persian Gulf War, and his analysis of the shortcomings in U.S. grand strategy and how we are organized to deal with the threats of the 21st century. It's hard to judge whether his proposals would amount to more than a reshuffling of the bureaucratic deck, but he definitely raises some very interesting ideas.
Zinni is an interesting and knowledgeable man, and he has a lot of interesting things to say about the dangers of pursuing our current course in foreign policy. He is a fairly non-ideological man in an era when ideology is running rampant both home and abroad, this is actually very refreshing. He seems to be saying that the world is full of problems that can be better managed if only we had more competent U.S. leadership, different bureaucracies and less idealism from our leaders. The premise is debatable, but the next president is well advised to take a look at some of the ideas that Zinni proposes here.
Tony Koltz helped Zinni write this book, but it would have been nice it Koltz had toned down the jargon and kept the focus on the individual issues a little better. It would have made for a more cohesive read. As it is, the book tends to veer wildly from time to time between actual situations and policy discussions, which can be a bit jarring at times. Also, the foreword by author Tom Clancy was entirely unnecessary (and I'm sure was simply done as a marketing ploy).
Still, this was a fairly quick read, and the subject matter held my attention throughout.
Final grade: B-
Summary: Thinking Outside the Box
The Battle for Peace is a short book with big print, but it's the content that counts. And General Zinni provides a compelling case for changes in our diplomacy, military, organizational structure, and decision-making, and actions.
The general tells us that most of our structures such as FBI and CIA and Homeland Security are based on a WW II model that worked well against belligerant states, but is ineffective against NGO's or non-governmental organizations. For this, Zinni says that we must restructure and share information rather than fight turf wars within our governmental agencies. He provides numerous examples of how this might succeed.
General Zinni also sees a different role for the military which is also based on a WW II model of battalions, squadrons and air wings built to fight conventional forces of nation states. He sees the military becoming more involved in attempting to understand the history, culture, geography, and "material traits" of societies who are our potential enemies--or allies. By doing this, the general contends, our military will win the battles for peace rather than have to win a battle of war.
Using his model he compares the actions of the Bush administration's policies and diplomacy. Without rancor, but lacking in subtlty, he is critical of the administration's policy, planning, lack of containment and stabilization, and doctored intelligence.
In reviewing this easy-to-understand primer of international relations and diplomacy, it was difficult not to make comparisons with other books I've read where "Americanist" authors ridiculed the third world as the "turd world," or the author who suggested that we "convert all the Muslims to Christianity," or the one who wants us delivered from evil. The scholarship between Zinni and these authors I have alluded to is breathtakingly wide. Next to his thinking, their pronouncements seem childish, even a bit zanny compared to Zinny. (Sorry.) And none of these authors can resort to name-calling or questioning the patriotism of a general who is highly decorated, achieved four stars in a rank-stingy service, and has more time in the "chow line" than all of them put together have in the military, which is zero.
General Zinni is crystal clear that his understanding for his potential or actual enemies is not an appeasement. "That is not to say that knowing is forgiving. I don't buy that fallacy. Understanding may bring revulsion, and contempt. Knowing evil doesn't make evil less evil. Sitting down at a table with insurgents doesn't gurarantee my sympathy for them or for their cause. Some of them perform acts that we can never accept. Some evil is absolute; it puts the evildoer beyond the pale. We absolutely can't deal with some people."
In order to survive and lead, we must revise our infrastructure, share information laterally, eliminate "stovepipe" or top-down structures, understand our allies and enemies, negotiate, assist, plan, listen, learn about other cultures, and attack instability whereever it appears. This, Zinni contends will benefit all Americans at home. He also believes that truth, justice, and the American way are good for Americans. But the American way is not the way for everybody. Some will not embrace a democratic form of government.
Too bad no one read this book before we jumped into Iraq. Maybe we would have learned something more profound than that our enemies hate us because they hate our freedoms.
Maybe it's time we start to think outside the box.
Summary: Ultimately disappointing
I'm a big fan of GEN Zinni, having first heard him speak during a video presentation about Somalia in 1998. I had high hopes for this book, and expected to learn something new about the security environment of the United States in the 21st Century. Instead, the book reads like a summation of Thomas Barnett's "The Pentagon's New Map" and "A Blueprint for Action". War in the context of everything else, new rule sets, the Leviathan Force/Sys Admin concept, Functioning Core/Non-integrated Gap comparisons, all these concepts are presented in "The Battle for Peace", just under different names. The concepts are made particularly relevant by the breadth and depth of GEN Zinni's experience as a Marine, Joint Warrior, and diplomat, but the content is basically the same. I found myself wanting something more.
Summary:
|
,
amazon.co.uk
,
google.com
