From Publishers Weekly
Surveying American foreign policy since the 1890s, New Republic senior editor Judis argues that when conservatives compare George W. Bush's post-9/11 speech to Congress with Roosevelt's "The Strenuous Life" (a speech that endorsed U.S. expansionism), they leave out Roosevelt's later doubts about expansionism and his support for international law and organization. While adopting Woodrow Wilson's goal of global democracy, conservatives, Judis says, have disregarded Wilson's recognition, through the example of Mexico, that the U.S. will stumble when trying to impose a government in the manner of McKinley and early Teddy Roosevelt: unilaterally. Where Judis identifies imperialist activity over the decades, he finds it grounded in America's sense of mission. But he also finds American torture in Iraq echoing American conduct toward Native Americans and in the Philippines and Vietnam: treatment meted out to "savages," not equals. He praises Bill Clinton for using NATO as not merely a military alliance but an "association of interest." While Judis makes a strong case that Bush's repudiation of Clinton's support for numerous treaties and pacts is shortsighted, he fails to criticize international institutions systematically, such as the United Nations' failure in Rwanda or the curious presence of nondemocratic countries on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Finding lessons in the past is easy; finding the right lessons in the past is hard. Seventeen months ago, the United States went to war in Iraq. The advocates of war argued that American troops would be welcomed as liberators by the people of Iraq in much the way American troops were welcomed as liberators by the people of France in 1944. Critics contended that the more accurate analogy was the American occupation of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War of 1898, an occupation that quickly degenerated into a bloody and demoralizing struggle against a nationalist insurgency.John B. Judis, a senior editor for the New Republic, takes the critical view and argues that if the current administration had paid more attention to the experiences of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, it wouldn't have gotten America into the mess Iraq is proving to be. More precisely, if George W. Bush had drawn the right conclusions from the experiences of Roosevelt and Wilson, the United States wouldn't find itself facing a growing insurgency in Iraq, with few (and ever fewer) allies.In point of fact -- though this isn't Judis's argument -- Bush is both a Rooseveltian and a Wilsonian, after his own fashion. He is a Rooseveltian in his willingness to use American power unilaterally to secure American interests. He is a Wilsonian in his desire to promote democracy overseas. Bush's contribution to the theory and practice of American diplomacy is to employ Rooseveltian means for Wilsonian ends: to attempt to democratize the world by American unilateral force.Judis wishes Bush were a different kind of Rooseveltian and a different Wilsonian. In slightly more than 200 pages, Judis races through 200 years of American history, but he devotes greatest attention to the two decades at the beginning of the 20th century. He depicts Roosevelt as learning a hard truth in the Philippines. Roosevelt agitated for war against Spain and for the annexation of the Philippines, only to discover that the Filipinos bitterly resented the American takeover. The Americans eventually prevailed, but not before losing more lives than were lost in the war against Spain, and not before committing atrocities that made the American public shudder. Ultimately Roosevelt came to question the imperial project; before the end of his presidency he declared the Philippines to be America's "heel of Achilles." The lesson Judis draws for Bush is the obvious one: that imperialism is much more difficult and dangerous than it seems.The lesson Judis would have Bush learn from Wilson is the need to enlist the cooperation of other countries in the pursuit of American goals. Wilson became an internationalist as a result of World War I, which convinced him that the nationalistic approach to foreign affairs had run its suicidal course. His alternative was embodied in the Treaty of Versailles and particularly the League of Nations. Nor were Wilson's views idiosyncratic: Judis correctly points out that Wilson's failure to win approval of the treaty in the United States signaled not popular disapproval of the League of Nations but the constitutional capacity of a minority in the Senate to block international commitments.Judis's historical argument is persuasive. Or maybe it's recent reality that is persuasive. There's no question by now that the neo-imperialists of the Bush administration have been chastened by the events in Iraq, much as Roosevelt was chastened by the events in the Philippines. Calls for expanding the Iraq intervention to Syria or Iran haven't been heard for many months. And the president's decision to turn to the United Nations and NATO for help in Iraq signals a shift toward Wilsonian internationalism, for appearance's sake at least.If Judis gets the big historical issues right, his grasp of detail sometimes slips. Like many other authors on the period, he misses the intended irony in John Hay's remark that the conflict with Spain was a "splendid little war." Hay worked for Roosevelt but was hardly of the same cast of mind. To claim, as Judis does, that William McKinley's policies toward Cuba and its neighbors "destabilized the Caribbean for much of the next century" presumes that stability was the inherent condition in the region. This isn't demonstrated in the text and is probably wrong. When Judis asserts that "with Wilson, America became understood as a multiethnic nation," he ignores the fact that the country was about to alter its immigration laws in ways that would rigorously limit diversity. But it is Judis's subtle misunderstanding of Roosevelt's change of heart regarding the Philippines that is most significant. Roosevelt recognized that he had misjudged the Filipinos, but, more to the point, he recognized that he had misjudged the American people. He had thought Americans would become as enamored of their country's civilizing mission as he was; only when he realized that they hadn't, and wouldn't, did he throw in the towel on American imperialism. And this is the crucial lesson of history for the present. George W. Bush can be as resolute as he wants regarding Iraq, vowing to finish the job the United States started there. But the fundamental constraint on policy is, and always has been, the resolve of the American people. Americans followed the lead of the imperialists in 1898 only to turn back when they discovered that empire was more expensive and less rewarding than the imperialists had told them it would be. Iraq isn't the Philippines, but the American people are the American people, and there is little reason to think they'll bear the cost of empire more patiently now than they did then. The clock is ticking for Bush; his "heel of Achilles" moment awaits.Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


George F. Will, The Washington Post
"A sobering read during Iraq’s current wallow."


The New York Sun
"Judis has done a valuable service in reminding us that we have been in—and through—this ‘quagmire’ before."


The New York Times Book Review
"An enlightening interpretation of American history."


The New York Times
"[A] valuable appraisal of the Bush presidency, bringing to bear the weight of U.S. history to make a convincing case."


Book Description
The New York Times hailed John B. Judis's The Emerging Democratic Majority as "indispensable." Now this brilliant political writer compares the failure of American imperialism a century ago with the potential failure of the current administration's imperialistic policies. One hundred years ago, Theodore Roosevelt believed that the only way the United States could achieve peace, prosperity, and national greatness was by joining Europe in a struggle to add colonies. But Roosevelt became disillusioned with this imperialist strategy after a long war in the Philippines. Woodrow Wilson, shocked by nationalist backlash to American intervention in Mexico and by the outbreak of World War I, began to see imperialism not as an instrument of peace and democracy, but of war and tyranny. Wilson advocated that the United States lead the nations of the world in eliminating colonialism and by creating a "community of power" to replace the unstable "balance of power." Wilson's efforts were frustrated, but decades later they led to the creation of the United Nations, NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank. The prosperity and relative peace in the United States of the past fifty years confirmed the wisdom of Wilson's approach. Despite the proven success of Wilson's strategy, George W. Bush has repudiated it. He has revived the narrow nationalism of the Republicans who rejected the League of Nations in the 1920s. And at the urging of his neoconservative supporters, he has revived the old, discredited imperialist strategy of attempting to unilaterally overthrow regimes deemed unfriendly by his administration. Bush rejects the role of international institutions and agreements in curbing terrorists, slowing global pollution, and containing potential threats. In The Folly of Empire, John B. Judis convincingly pits Wilson's arguments against those of George W. Bush and the neoconservatives. Judis draws sharp contrasts between the Bush administration's policies, especially with regard to Iraq, and those of every administration from Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman through George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The result is a concise, thought-provoking look at America's position in the world -- then and now -- and how it has been formed, that will spark debate and controversy in Washington and beyond. The Folly of Empire raises crucial questions about why the Bush administration has embarked on a foreign policy that has been proven unsuccessful and presents damning evidence that its failure is already imminent. The final message is a sobering one: Leaders ignore history's lessons at their peril.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"George W. Bush has revived the narrow nationalism of the Republicans who rejected the League of Nations in the 1920s. At the urging of his neoconservative supporters, he has revived the old, discredited imperialist strategy of attempting to unilaterally overthrow regimes deemed unfriendly by his administration. Bush rejects the role of international institutions and agreements in curbing terrorists, slowing global pollution, and containing potential threats. In The Folly of Empire, John B. Judis pits Woodrow Wilson's arguments against those of George W. Bush and the neoconservatives." Judis draws contrasts between the Bush administration's policies, especially with regard to Iraq, and those of every administration from Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman through George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The final message is a sobering one: Leaders ignore history's lessons at their peril.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly