A Republic, Not an Empire Reclaiming America's Destiny

This is such a refreshing view of American foreign policy. This book completely reaffirmed my views on the cause of September 11 and the overcommitment of the United States. My favorite quote is a relatively simple analysis: "We are not hated for what we believe; we are hated for what we do... the terrorists were over here because we are over there." Thus, he refutes the Bush Administration's explanation for the terrorist attacks, an explanation which most Americans accept without question. This is a must-read for every American citizen; it provides a solid historical base and analysis of every important historical event and its contribution to American hegemony. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK! you cannot honestly say you know about American foreign policy until you do.

Pat Buchanan goes through America's foreign policy from the early days of the republic to the present. The history covers gives detailed information about our smaller conflicts that aren't usually covered much in general history and in the media. Buchanan says that isolationism is about isolating the country from wars that do not serve our country's purpose, it is not about isolating ourselves from the world. He says that foreign policy was isolationist until President Wilson's era when it became more interventionist. Isolationists like George Washington believed that we should avoid foreign entanglements that are not in our self-interest as a country and that we should avoid passionate and permanent attachments to allies especially when promising to help fight their battles. With this in mind, Buchanan suggests that we needn't have fought World War I or II, because it did not serve our interests and the two wars did not end up being any country's gain, but only everyone's detriment. He says that our interventionist policies in the past and present in which we issue guarantees that we will defend about any ally in case of attack is a bad policy that we may not be able to come through on anyway or if we do come through may be to our nation's detriment. Another interesting point about America's history of foreign policy that he makes is about our pursuing what we considered our manifest destiny to expand westwards as a country. He says we did it to defeat hostile foreign imperialist countries and their Indian allies so that we would not be taken over by them when we were a weak country. He says the west was sparsely populated and it was never our foreign policy's intention to rule over foreign people like the British empire did. He says the time we took over the Phillipines was a bad move since this was a legimately imperialist move that went against our traditional foreign policy. This interpretation of history goes against the history of genocide against the American Indians; it says that the Indians were our enemies since they were allied with France and Britain.Buchanan makes suggestions about how to change our present interventionist policy such as getting Germany and Japan to raise a larger military to defend themselves and staying out of the hornet's nest of the Middle East. We should end aid to Israel and Egypt and preside over a just peace for the Palestinians and Israelis while providing Israel access to our weapons for defensive purposes. We should get out of some our agreements to defend our allies militarily if it does not serve our national interest. He does not believe in a moralistic interventionist policy of moving in militarily when a certain ethnic group is being slaughtered. We should practice instead a policy of realpolitick that eschews the role of world policeman. He warns that our interventionist policies may be our downfall as a nation. This is good book for finding out about foreign policy and its history from a conservat

This book is an intelligent and knowledgeable assessment of America's past and current foreign policy. Pat is clearly the sharpest and most knowledgeable on all candidates running for President. Current administrations have clearly been on the wrong path by continuing to make commitments and expand our role in areas of the world where American interests do not lie. Recent news bears out the crux of Pat's book: this week, the U.S. Army stated it is 80,000 troops short of its quota. This, as President Clinton warns Yeltsin on Chechnyan involvement. As Pat statess, not getting involved in the past has actually helped the U.S. prosper. For example, World War I raged for three years before the U.S. got involved. Would it have made sense for Woodrow Wilson to have sent our troops into the European slaughter machine any sooner? It was only when U.S. interests were at stake, that under great duress Wilson agreed to send American troops into the conflict.This book doesn't so much present a case for isolationism, as the popular media suggests - it advocates a well thought out foreign policy in place of a "shoot from the hip" stance.

I just finished reading this powerful, 390 page masterpiece covering American foreign policy.If you read this book, you will find the truth behind the media attacks-namely that Buchanan's enemies are fairly good at lying.Read this book to understand American foreign policy, and also to learn some interesting facts along the way. For example, who knew that John F Kennedy and Gerald Ford were both involved with the famous anti-war America First commitee, with the first contributing $100, and the second being a member.This is a broad call for Americans to reject imperialism, and instead stay strong. This book follows the development of the American empire, and shows that the time to expand is not now, that the time is to keep what we have, and not march towards a "New World Order" as George Bush Sr., its biggest cheerleader, called the "Pax Americana." And this book argues strongly against the mask of "Globalism" a absurd way to hoodwink people into giving in to transnational corporations.A Must-Read for the Presidential campaign in 2000.A Must-Read for any student of history or foreign policy.Trust me, unlike Bush who doesn't know who the "Greeks" are, Buchanan shows his impressive grasp of foreign policy.In 2000, Buchanan is the only candidate that is for a strong American nation united in peace, defending our vital interests.As for the media lies, this book shows Hitler, Stalin, the Nazis, and the Soviet Communists to be "killers" and this book is a rude reminder of the truth to those of his Establishment enemies who smear him with "Holocaust denier" (I counted at least 9 times in the book in the brief 50 page discussion of World War 2 of the evils of the Holocaust).So read the book, and find just how far some Establishment enemies of Buchanan will go to lie about a masterpiece of a book.