Synopses & Reviews
For nearly eight years, the American people have struggled to understand George W. Bushs approach to the world. Many analysts, lacking a frame of reference, have simply dubbed it revolutionary. But in
U.S. Vs. Them, J. Peter Scoblic provocatively argues that the best way to understand Bushs foreign policy is to recognize that it is not radical, but rather the most recent expression of conservatism, an often misunderstood ideology whose national security instincts are rooted in Americas eighteenth-century view of itself and whose modern form has percolated for more than a half century, reaching full strength in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Scoblic persuasively shows that the foreign policy of the American Right has been stuck for decades on a binary setting that allows it to see the world only in terms of us versus them or good versus evil. During the Cold War, that approach fostered an unwillingness to negotiate with the Soviet Union, a distrust of apolitical intelligence, and an insistence on military dominance even as the advent of nuclear weapons rendered the traditional notion of victory in war obsolete. Today, what conservatives often present as moral clarity is in fact nothing more than a continued failure to recognize that American security depends on our ability to think outside our bordersto stop seeing the United States in unavoidable opposition to the rest of the world.
Tracing the history of Cold War conservatism from its development by William F. Buckley to its manifestation in Barry Goldwater through its implementation by Ronald Reagan and its culmination in the Bush administration, Scoblic weaves an intellectual history that reveals how the Rights belligerence, intransigence, and disinclination for diplomacy not only brought us to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, but also failed to meet the grave post-9/11 challenges posed by Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and especially by the most serious danger that looms before us: that of nuclear terrorism. Whats more, although the Bush administration is nearing its end, conservatism is certainly not, as this years Republican presidential candidates clearly demonstrated.
U.S. Vs. Them is a revealing and sometimes alarming analysis, but in diagnosing the origins of Bushs foreign policy, it illuminates the path to renewed American leadership in the twenty-first century.
Review
Along with its analysis of Bush foreign policy,
U.S. vs. Them doubles as an incisive intellectual history of conservatism. He provides a useful corrective to the conservative myths about
foreign policy. Scoblic argues convincingly that conservative foreign policy in the years since has increasingly undermined American security, most strikingly in the area of nuclear proliferation, where the Bush administrations bellicosity has spurred a new arms race among nonnuclear powers.
New York Times
Scoblics book offers a terrifying glimpse of the persistent tendency of one militant strand of conservatism to pursue conflict over peace, arms races over arms control, and ideology over pragmatism. His analytic history is particularly strong in revealing how, in a world of uncontrolled forces, conservatives sought to impose complete control, whether by pursuing technological fixes (like a nuclear missile shield) or treating US security as if it were something that could simply be willed. Samantha Powers, The New York Review
"This cogent first book from the executive editor of the New Republic forcefully argues that 50 years of American conservatism have undermined U.S. security and pushed the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. Scoblic illustrates how and why conservatism shaped the current administration and explains how it guided Bush's good vs. evil morality. This is an important book, well researched and well reasoned in its assessment of conservatism and mandatory reading for anyone concerned with America's security and future."
STARRED Publishers Weekly
This cogent first book from the executive editor of the New Republic forcefully argues that 50 years of American conservatism have undermined U.S. security and pushed the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. Scoblic charts the course of American conservatism, from its development by William F. Buckley Jr. through the disastrous Cold War to Bush's failure to safeguard the United States after 9/11: in stark, often frightening detail, Scoblic examines how Bush embraced regime change as a means of fighting evil and neglected to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, failed to prevent North Korea from reprocessing plutonium, rebuffed requests for negotiations from an Iranian regime that was, in 2003, willing to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency, repeatedly ignored U.S. intelligence and pursued the war in Iraq. Scoblic illustrates how and why conservatism shaped the current administration and explains how it guided Bush's good vs. evil morality. This is an important book, well researched and well reasoned in its assessment of conservatism and mandatory reading for anyone concerned with America's security and future.
Publishers Weekly (starred)
J. Peter Scoblics rollicking indictment of how conservatives have undermined Americas security since the dawn of the nuclear era is intellectual history at its best. Scoblic shows us that a ship of fools is afloat, still navigating us all toward catastrophe. It is a shocking and even sordid tale told with calm logic and clear prose. Every informed citizen should pick up this bookbut the next president should not occupy the Oval Office without first reading U.S. Vs. Them.
Kai Bird, coauthor with Martin J. Sherwin of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
In this highly original study, part history, part current analysis, J. Peter Scoblic reveals the deep fear disguised as uncompromising idealism that has propelled the American conservative movement to promote its disastrous foreign policies. Us Vs. Them is a clear, succinct guidebook to the troubled first decade of the twenty-first century.
Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb and author of Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Atomic Arms Race
J. Peter Scoblic is one of the freshest voices on U.S. foreign policy, and hes addressing a subject of existential importance. His distinctive take on the origins of George Bushs arms control policiesand why theyve produced catastrophic resultsbelongs on the reading list of anyone trying to understand why a zero-sum approach to the world wont work in the twenty-first century.
Robert Wright, author of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
A penetrating and provocative critique of a worldview that has brought the United States a world of trouble.
Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state, and author of The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation
In U.S. Vs. Them, Peter Scoblic challenges the assumptions and policies of the Bush administration on nuclear strategy. The book describes the contrasting views of conservatives and liberals on arms control as they have evolved over the past several decades. To understand todays news stories about North Korea and Iran, one must understand the policy battles and the history that Scoblic lays out in this book.
James Mann, author of Rise of the Vulcans: A History of Bushs War Cabinet and The China Fantasy
J. Peter Scoblics new book superbly dispels nostalgia in favor of history. Since 1989, pernicious myths have abounded about how cranky, right-wing ideas on foreign policy and nuclear supremacy won the Cold War. In fact, those ideas came all too close to destroying the worldwhich makes their comeback in recent years extremely alarming. Scoblics unpolemical, deeply informed account offers urgent warnings about the present as well as a reasoned and persuasive rendering of the past.
Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln
Review
"Intellectual history at its best. . . . A shocking and even sordid tale told with calm logic and clear prose. Every informed citizen should pick up this book-but the next president should not occupy the Oval Office without first reading
U.S. vs. Them."
-Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winner American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
"...an incisive intellectual history of conservatism...Scoblic argues convincingly that conservative foreign policy...has increasingly undermined American security, most strikingly in the area of nuclear proliferation, where the Bush administration's bellicosity has spurred a new arms race among nonnuclear powers."
--The New York Times
"A terrifying glimpse of the persistent tendency of one militant strand of conservatism to pursue conflict over peace, arms race over arms control, and ideology over pragmatism. His analytic history is particularly strong in revealing how, in a world of uncontrolled forces, conservatives sought to impose complete control, whether by pursuing technological fixes (like a nuclear missile shield) or treating U.S. security as if it were something that could simply be willed."
--Samantha Power, The New York Review of Books
"Scoblic has written a deeply researched, highly readable, and compellingly argued account of strategic debates and foreign policy decision-making from the 1950s to the present. Even arms control veterans will find fresh insights and provocative interpretations. U.S. vs Them should be read not only by those unaware of our nuclear history, but by the new cadre of policymakers who will soon take the helm in Washington."
--Arms Control Today
"The shelves are already bulging with books about George W. Bush's disastrous foreign policy-- where it went wrong, how to steer things right. Yet space should be made for J. Peter Scoblic's U.S. vs Them."
--The Washington Post
Synopsis
How American foreign policy has been formed by conservative ideals that pose a catastrophic threat to our future
In U.S. Versus Them, J. Peter Scoblic argues that the Bush administrationas belief in amoral clarityaaits insistence that our foreign policy be based on a fight to the death between America and the forces of evilahas put us at grave risk. Although this worldview may have appealed to many voters in the 2004 election, it has in fact exacerbated the greatest threat to our country: nuclear terrorism. U.S. Versus Them reveals that the seeds of current foreign policy were planted fifty years ago, at the beginning of the Cold War, when conservatism was just beginning to take root, defining itself in opposition to Soviet communism. Scoblic shows how conservative ideology itselfafrom its development by William F. Buckley, Jr., through its implementation by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan to its culmination in the current administrationahas endangered Americans and will continue to do so long after this president has left the Oval Office.
As James Mann does in Rise of the Vulcans, Scoblic does more than simply describe or deride Bushas foreign policy; he explains it, showing how and why the president has failed the greatest challenges to American security in the post-9/11 worldaindeed, why he was destined to make those mistakes from the moment he took office. U.S. Versus Them is an intellectual history that also answers the question: How can we defend ourselves while restoring Americaas place in the world?
Synopsis
A challenging, clear-eyed, and authoritative history of American conservatism and its grave effect on our country's foreign policy In this compelling and sometimes alarming analysis, J. Peter Scoblic, executive editor of The New Republic, traces the history of American foreign policy and how it has evolved from the Cold War conservatism of the 1950s to today. The belligerence, intransigence, and disinclination for diplomacy that mars the right wing once brought us to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. More recently it has failed to meet the post-9/11 challenges posed by Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Scoblic argues forcefully that the only way to face these new threats practically and seriously is by adopting an approach exactly opposite to that suggested by conservatism. By diagnosing the origins of Bush's foreign policy, U.S. vs. Them illuminates the path to renewed American leadership in the twenty-first century as the most serious danger ever faced looms before us: nuclear terrorism.
About the Author
J. Peter Scoblic is the executive editor of The New Republic. Formerly the editor of Arms Control Today, he wrote this book while a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting researcher at Georgetown Universitys Center for Peace and Security Studies.