Diplomacy Books - Page 6

34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah, and the War in Lebanon

Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff

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This is the first comprehensive account of the progression of the Second Lebanese War, from the border abduction of an Israeli soldier on the morning of July 12, 2006, through the hasty decision for an aggressive response; the fateful discussions in the Cabinet and the senior Israeli command; to the heavy fighting in south Lebanon and the raging diplomatic battles in Paris, Washington and New York.  

The book answers the following questions: has Israel learned the right lessons from this failed military confrontation? What can Western countries learn from the IDF's failure against a fundamentalist Islamic terror organization?  And what role did Iran and Syria play in this affair?

34 Days delivers the first blow-by-blow account of the Lebanon war and new insights for the future of the region and its effects on the West. 

Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations

Michael W. Doyle, Nicholas Sambanis

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Making War and Building Peace examines how well United Nations peacekeeping missions work after civil war. Statistically analyzing all civil wars since 1945, the book compares peace processes that had UN involvement to those that didn't. Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis argue that each mission must be designed to fit the conflict, with the right authority and adequate resources. UN missions can be effective by supporting new actors committed to the peace, building governing institutions, and monitoring and policing implementation of peace settlements. But the UN is not good at intervening in ongoing wars. If the conflict is controlled by spoilers or if the parties are not ready to make peace, the UN cannot play an effective enforcement role. It can, however, offer its technical expertise in multidimensional peacekeeping operations that follow enforcement missions undertaken by states or regional organizations such as NATO. Finding that UN missions are most effective in the first few years after the end of war, and that economic development is the best way to decrease the risk of new fighting in the long run, the authors also argue that the UN's role in launching development projects after civil war should be expanded.

The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation

Marwan Muasher

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Marwan Muasher, a prominent Jordanian diplomat, has been instrumental in shaping Middle East peace efforts for nearly twenty years. He served as Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel and was also ambassador to the United States, spokesperson at peace talks in Madrid and Washington, minister of foreign affairs, and deputy prime minister in charge of reform. Here he recounts the behind-the-scenes details of diplomatic ventures over the past two decades, including such recent undertakings as the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East Road Map.

 

Muasher’s insights into internal Arab politics and the successes and failures of the Arab Center are uniquely informed and deeply felt. He assesses how the middle road approach to reform is faring and explains why current tactics used by the West to deal with Islamic groups are doomed to failure. He examines why the Arab Center has made so little progress and which Arab, Israeli, and American policies need rethinking. Part memoir and part analysis, this book reveals the human side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is essential reading for all who share the hope that moderate, pragmatic Arab voices will be heard in today’s vitriolic debates over how to achieve an enduring peace in the Middle East.

 

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The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity

Joseph Wilson

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Total reviews: 97 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

With a new investigative epilogue by a prominent Washington journalist and a new foreword by the author. Ambassador Joseph Wilson recounts more than two decades of foreign service to our country in this unprecedented look at the life of an American diplomat and an unabashed account of policies that sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed. As the last American official to meet with Saddam before Desert Storm, Wilson successfully parried the dictator's threats to use American hostages as human shields against U.S. bombing. Yet today he finds himself battling threats from his own government because he called a lie a lie. When President Bush alleged that Iraq had pursued uranium from Africa for its nuclear weapons program, Wilson could not stand silent. He had traveled to Niger the previous year and found no evidence to support the president's claim. To intimidate Wilson, senior administration officials disclosed the undercover status of Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, to the press, putting her life in danger. Rather than backing down, Wilson persistently criticized the way the administration misled the nation into war. Now he continues his fight in this groundbreaking book by revealing the perils bred by the war-hungry regime in the White House.

The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency

James Naughtie

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An award-winning political journalist shows what the passionate and puzzling relationship between Tony Blair and America reveals about our two countries and our disordered world Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is the most popular foreign leader in the United States, and one whose support for America has made him widely reviled at home. Why did Blair become such an object of fascination here? What are Democrats to make of their old friend's attachment to Bush? In a Europe profoundly skeptical about a new American imperialism, why did Blair decide to face resolutely west across the Atlantic? To James Naughtie, a renowned British journalist with unparalleled knowledge of Blair and a deep understanding of American politics, the story of our love affair with Blair provides a fascinating mirror on the troubles facing Western democracies, and on America itself. In The Accidental American, the first book about Blair written specifically for American readers, he explores how a politician swept to power by a party once avowedly socialist came to make common cause with American neo-conservatives; and became the gatekeeper between America and Western Europe. Though Blair has been feted by Congress and is beloved by the White House, his real beliefs about America remain almost unknown. Naughtie has watched Blair close-up for many years and has many contacts inside his circle of friends and advisors. In the tumult of a presidential election year, this book provides a revelatory portrait of a master politician and revelatory insights into the politics and character of our own country.

The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations (Vintage)

Paul Kennedy

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Kennedy could have done better! 1 out of 5 stars.
7 of 9 people found this review helpful.

There's probably no better qualified writer for a history of the UN and assessment of its prospects. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers was an important and influential book, and the formation of the UN around the alliance of the victorious Allies really was the last collaboration among them. As the driver of the Great Powers School of geopolitical thinking, Kennedy was the right author for an analysis of the UN. Having a strong interest in the UN, I looked for a good history of analysis a few years back, and discovered the last one, by an LA Times reporter, was a decade old and out of print. It was wonderful to learn that a seminal historian would tackle the subject.

But at a time when most organizations are undergoing serious scrutiny for their roles in failing to capture the peace dividend, or serious lapses of intelligence and execution, in Kennedy's book the UN hardly gets any tough analysis. It is truly inexplicable that Srebrenica not get reviewed, or even Oil-for-Food Scandal.

The book not only overlooks what's important, it's boring. Yes, instead of looking at the organization from the ground up, he peers at it through a stack of paper. He wades through the verbiage of its self-definition, then bogs down in all its silly acronyms.

Here's what he should have written about: The UN is as DOA as the League of Nations unless it can rebalance membership in the Permanent Security Council to reflect the latent military clout of the current world. At heart, all the UN is an alliance between nations that were victorious 60-years ago. It will lose all purchase unless it can reflect probable military realities. Either it will change, or disappear. Hey, that would be a bad thing.

Reading the acknowledgements after the long boring platitudinous slog, I realized the problem. The UN commissioned Kennedy to write about the UN's situation. That explains how boring and polite this book is, purged of all drama. And that's duplicitous on Kennedy's part - especially if he got paid for his analysis, and then used the same material for a supposedly unbiased book.

Rewrite it with some teeth!

Editorial Review:

The Parliament of Man is the first definitive history of the United Nations, from one of America's greatest living historians.

Distinguished scholar Paul Kennedy, author of the bestselling The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, gives us a thorough and timely account that explains the UN's roots and functions while also casting an objective eye on its effectiveness and its prospects for success in meeting the challenges that lie ahead. Kennedy shows the UN for what it is: fallible, human-based, often dependent on the whims of powerful national governments or the foibles of individual administrators—yet also utterly indispensable. With his insightful grasp of six decades of global history, Kennedy convincingly argues that "it is difficult to imagine how much more riven and ruinous our world of six billion people would be if there had been no UN."

An Insider's Guide to the UN

Linda Fasulo

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Horribly biased towards the United States, but does, sometimes, offer some useful information. 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Though initially overjoyed at finding a book which I thought would give me a balanced account of the UN with which to supplemant my knowledge, after reading the first thrity pages my joy changed to regret for buying this book. With chapter labels such as "The American Ambassadors" and with phrases such as "The UN cannot succed if the US does not support it","A strong coherant US lead at the UN is nearly always followed by UN member states","Yet, can we ignore it?" ("It" being the UN, and "we" being Americans, with Mrs. Fasulo ungraciously asumming that the readers of her books with inevitably be Americans), and "I'm struck by how relevant the work that i've had to do at the UN has ben to the US national security and foreing policy agenda"(quoting John Negroponte), this book generally ignores anything non-American. Try another book if you'd prefer a more international and balanced account of the UN.

Editorial Review:

The United Nations increasingly finds itself at the center of world events in an age of rapid globalization. Now, more than ever, it is imperative that we understand its structure and functions. In this highly readable book, a prominent news correspondent at the UN provides a colorful introduction to its activities and goals.
UN correspondent Linda Fasulo draws on her own observations as well as on the insights of other individuals who have been active in the UN, including US ambassadors Richard Holbrooke, Madeleine Albright, and John Negroponte. She explains how the UN came into existence, what governing principles guide its operation, and what it is like to be a participant. She describes the organization, responsibilities, and often-tense politics of the Security Council. Surveying the many humanitarian, crime-fighting, and peacekeeping programs of the UN, Fasulo concludes that there are important reasons for Americans to give the United Nations their support.

Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Norman G. Finkelstein

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Total reviews: 48 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Selective Bias and Speculation 1 out of 5 stars.
5 of 17 people found this review helpful.

I just read chapter 1, pages 12-16 and Chapter 3, pages 51-68 of Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Norman G. Finkelstein (1995 edition). The first thing I noticed was that it was published by Verso Books, a far left publishing house not known for the academic standards that one would expect from Osprey Publishing (Efraim Karsh's publisher), Cambridge University Press (Benny Morris's publisher), or even John Wiley & Sons (Alan Dershowitz's publisher). Of course, this fact doesn't necessarily disqualify Image and Reality as a reliable source, but it should lead to doubts.

The second thing I noticed was how much of the book seems to be based on a selection of certain sources and facts and complete omission of other sources and facts. Just as I expected, all of the arguments that Finkelstein brings up are from selected secondary sources. He never quotes primary sources unless they are the same quoted in a secondary source. This leads me to think that Finkelstein never examined any primary sources for himself and perhaps does not know how to read or speak Arabic or Hebrew (the "Acknowledgements" page supports this hypothesis).

The third thing I found was that many of his arguments (indeed, the entire "Evidence" section comprised of pages 53-56) is argued from pure speculation. Finkelstein takes the stance that anything that a Zionist leader or publication has ever said "cannot be trusted" unless, of course, that Zionist leader or publication is saying something damning to the pro-Israel argument. This is illogical and goes against the historical method. Finkelstein is correct in saying that official Zionist documents must be evaluated with a critical eye, but it is downright arrogant to say that Morris doesn't know or didn't practice this basic tenent of the historical method.

Other things I found were instances of creating false dichotomies (pg. 58), putting words into Morris's mouth (59-60, 62), comparisons of the Palestinian exodus to the Holocaust (59), conclusions that do not follow from Finkelstein's stated premises (60), oddly placing events that happened in the 1920s and 1930s in the context of the 1948 Palestinian exodus (12-16), treating the Zionists (and especially Ben-Gurion) as though they were a homogeneous group of fascists (15), and what seems to me to be purely inventing things out of thin air or at least talking about something he doesn't really understand (176, footnote 18).

Anyway, my low opinion of Finkelstein has not changed after reading passages from this book. Everything I've read by him begs the question. His scholarship amounts to, "I know Israel is bad, now let's see if I can prove it," when the correct attitude, the attitude Morris and other serious historians have taken, is publish whatever conclusion all of the evidence lead to. To me, Finkelstein's criticisms of Morris is like a D student in algebra class telling a calculus professor that he doesn't do derivatives correctly. He doesn't walk the walk and, in the opinion of most experts in the field and the tenure committee at DePaul Univeristy, he doesn't talk the talk.

Editorial Review:

First published in 1995, this polemical study challenges generally accepted truths of the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as much of the revisionist literature. This new edition critically re-examines dominant popular and scholarly images in the light of the current failures of the peace process.

The Tragedy of American Diplomacy

William Appleman Williams

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The Tragedy of American Diplomacy 5 out of 5 stars.
24 of 25 people found this review helpful.

In the Tragedy of American Diplomacy, William Appleman Williams illustrates how America fails to honor its own principles when it approaches foreign policy. America believes in self-determination and the right to develop its own brand of democracy. Unfortunately, no other nation is afforded the luxury of self discovery. Other nations must conform to America's vision of democracy or face the terror of America?s military might. This, to Williams, is the tragedy.

Cuba is his first case. America wanted Cuba to adhere to American visions which meant wealth for the sugar planters and their American backers. When Cuba sought its own course and threw off a repressive regime, America objected. The rift has existed ever since as no American administration will ever acknowledge Cuba's right to govern its own affairs so long as Castro is in power.

Williams then systematically follows the years from 1898 through 1961 and paints a similar picture. It does not take the reader long to get the idea and carry the argument beyond Williams' parameters and show that everything from Grenada to Lebanon to Afghanistan to Iraq can be shown in the same light. American puppet governments are not granting freedom and democracy to their constituents as much as they are part of a ruling class dominated by the business interests that exploit their workforce and deny requests for reform until the entire population is ripe for rebellion (remember the Shah of Iran). One wonders if the Saudi government is the next great western ally to fall victim to a popular revolt of Muslim fundamentalists.

Williams is a master of detail and works his arguments creatively in an entertaining fashion. Neoconservatives of today will have the same objections as their predecessors from the 1950s in acknowledging Williams as a valid author. But Williams makes a strong case and if more people were exposed to his writing, our country might even find a way to avoid the same pitfalls. A Saudi revolution would disrupt oil markets and jeopardize world economies. Perhaps if some thought is put into policy such a scenario is avoidable and preventable. If people are willing to give Williams a chance American foreign policy might eventually reflect a broader American vision rather than the interests of a few.

China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia

James R. Lilley, Jeffrey Lilley

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

James Lilley's life and family have been entwined with China's fate since his father moved to the country to work for Standard Oil in 1916. Lilley spent much of his childhood in China and after a Yale professor took him aside and suggested a career in intelligence, it became clear that he would spend his adult life returning to China again and again.

Lilley served for twenty-five years in the CIA in Laos, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Taiwan before moving to the State Department in the early 1980s to begin a distinguished career as the U.S.'s top-ranking diplomat in Taiwan, ambassador to South Korea, and finally, ambassador to China. From helping Laotian insurgent forces assist the American efforts in Vietnam to his posting in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square crackdown, he was in a remarkable number of crucial places during challenging times as he spent his life tending to America's interests in Asia. In China Hands, he includes three generations of stories from an American family in the Far East, all of them absorbing, some of them exciting, and one, the loss of Lilley's much loved and admired brother, Frank, unremittingly tragic.

China Hands is a fascinating memoir of America in Asia, Asia itself, and one especially capable American's personal history.