the citizen-viewer

Andrew Bacevich’s The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (Metropolitan Books, 2008).

If you’re looking for a well-written interpretive account of the dangerous continuity in U.S. national security policy since the 1940s, this is a great place to start. I’ve been reading it since the election, and it brings out the real challenge facing Barack Obama.

Getting rid of Bush is much easier than getting rid of a national security establishment that operates beyond the reach of elected officials.

Indeed, Obama, like all other 2008 presidential candidates, indicated that he agreed with the “national security” thesis that America is surrounded by threats, must always be ready to use military force, and therefore should keep spending dollars, sending soldiers and making policy on the premise that the U.S. has to be a global imperial power in order to survive.

Bacevich makes the case better than I’m making it. He’s an academic, but he has written this with a broad reading public in mind. The notes are light and the argument provocative.

At 223 pages, The Limits of Power is worth the effort.