Another Century of War?

Military Review,  Sept-Oct, 2003  by John H. Barnhill

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Gabriel Kolko, The New Press, New York, 2002, 176 pages, $15.95.

Another Century of War? If so, says Gabriel Kolko, it is almost assured that it will be another century of dashed hopes and unanticipated negative consequences, a century that is either the same as, or worse than, the 20th century. As Kolko notes in his earlier book, Century of War: Politics, Conflict, and Society Since 1914 (New Press, New York, 1994), the United States won the Cold War but in so doing fell victim to unintended consequences. The century of war was a time of mutually assured destruction and a balance of terror. But despite its extreme violence, the 20th century was a time of balanced powers. Now the United States stands alone. In the absence of countervailing forces, wrongheaded U.S. policies are destabilizing a world already rife with unsettled regions and easily obtained fire-power.

Kolko's basic premise is that for 50 years the United States has fumbled around, being consistent only in its policies of being anticommunist and pro-oil. He feels that the United States holds a consistent over-optimism about the efficacy of its technology and firepower, and that it consistently fails to recognize that the world is a subtle, complex place that requires finesse, flexibility, and receptivity to the needs and wants of others. Inadvertently or perhaps knowingly, the United States has disrupted regions of the world by its support of anticommunist tyrannies. Because of its blunders, the U.S. weakened democratic movements throughout the world, generally making a world where the events of 11 September 2001 were the consequence.

Kolko thinks it is time to bring the troops home from the over 200 overseas bases, stop supplying half the world's arms, and accept that there are circumstances in the world that the United States cannot fix or should not be concerned with because they are peripheral to U.S. interests.

A prominent new-left historian, Kolko has made a career of being critical of U.S, foreign and domestic policies, and as he has aged, he has abandoned subtlety and nuance. In this small book on the follies of U.S. foreign policy, he uses words such as "inept," "immoral," and "dishonest." Most people will probably dismiss this book without a hearing, but it is familiar territory to his fans. Still, it will be alien--if not unpatriotic-to his critics, and in these limes, it will be deemed unfashionable.

John H. Barnhill, Ph.D., Yukon, Oklahoma

COPYRIGHT 2003 U.S. Army CGSC
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