Military Review English Edition May-June 2014 | Page 85

BOOK REVIEWS
A M E R IC A N FOR E I GN POLI C Y
I N R E GI ONS O F CONFLI C T:
A Global Perspective

F E AT UR E D R E V IE W

Howard J. Wiarda, Palgrave MacMillan,
New York, 2012, 194 pages, $16.50

I

N T E R N AT I O N A L
RELATIONS PROFESSOR Howard J. Wiarda
argues that academia has
become so scientific in its
approach to the study of
international relations that
mathematical models with
presumed universal applicability are usurping the
humanistic and environmental models of U.S. engagement. Wiarda views
this development as the proximate cause of a broken
link between the study of international relations and
the practice of U.S. foreign policy. He illustrates and
addresses this problem through a succinct historical examination of U.S. foreign policy across all
regions of the world. He argues that a re-infusion of
comparative politics and international relations into
the thought processes of foreign policymakers will
make all the difference in their effectiveness. However, the strength of his argument waxes and wanes
in the context of some of his regional analyses.
Starting in western Europe, Wiarda reaches some
contradictory and naïve conclusions. He claims
that our “cultural, language, family origins, and
political institutions that were derived from and
tie us to our European allies are weakening in the
face of our increasingly multicultural American
demographics.” Yet, on the same page, he asserts
that our economic and cultural ties to western
Europe will remain strong. He also claims that the
demise of the Soviet Union made the NATO alliance obsolete. Yet, if one considers all that NATO
has done in the Balkans, Afghanistan (establishment
of the International Security Assistance Force), and
most recently in Libya, Wiarda’s argument falters.
Wiarda also underestimates the influence of a

MILITARY REVIEW May-June 2014

resurgent Russia, whose national interests are largely
at odds with those of NATO.
Most dismaying is Wiarda’s lack of objectivity
in assessing the military as an instrument of foreign
policy. He highlights U.S. conquest of the Philippines
in 1898, the use of atomic weapons against Japan in
World War II, and the failure of United Nations forces
to reunify the Korean peninsula as being detrimental to
America’s relationship with Asian nations. Moreover,
he ignores other facts such as Japan’s treacherous attack
on Pearl Harbor, the risk of a nuclear exchange with
the Soviet Union, and the risk of a third world war
because of the Korean issue. Wiarda incorrectly cites
the Korean War’s duration from 1950-1952, when, in
fact, the armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. He also
erroneously cites the “defeat of U.S. forces in Vietnam” as they attempted to aid and prop up the South
Vietnamese government. In fact, U.S. political will
succumbed to North Vietnamese strategy rather than
U.S. troops succumbing to defeat. Clearly, Wiarda fails
to comprehend the use of the military as an instrument
of foreign policy.
Wiarda is at his best in advocating greater cultural,
historical, geographical, and demographic empathy
while understanding that democratic nation building takes generations, not decades. He recommends
increased immersion of students and diplomats in
troubled regions to gain and apply greater expertise in
the study and practice of foreign policymaking. This
recommendation is of limited utility while the military
must stabilize contentious regions and compensate
for the dearth of qualified diplomats. After all, when
U.S. lives are at stake, U.S. political will to build other
nations is a steadily emptying hourglass.
Lt. Col. Peter G. Knight, Ph.D., U.S. Army,
Princeton, New Jersey

THE BOXER REBELLION
AND THE GREAT GAME IN CHINA
David L. Silbey, Hill and Wang, New York,
2012, 273 pages, $26.95

T

HE BOXER REBELLION was simultaneously a
display of colonial power politics and early 20th
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