America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy

Based on a series of lectures Fukuyama delivered at Yale University in 2005, this learned but accessible book presents an even-handed account of why the Bush administration's foreign policy vision of America as a "benevolent hegemon" has proven both practically and ideologically disastrous. A precise thinker and careful writer, Fukuyama is not merely concerned to demonstrate why this administration's foreign policy has failed (although he does this admirably well); he also posits illuminating suggestions for how America might reframe its hegemony toward more realizable ideals in the post-9/11 world. By breaking ranks with the Bush-neoconservative consensus on the war in Iraq, Fukuyama is afforded that rare quality of insight: a cast-off who can no longer identify with the brand of neoconservatism that has been used to justify this war as part of America's mission to spread democracy the world over. This unique perspective allows Fukuyama to think through the implications of the Bush doctrine not by reverting to tried-and-true "critical" sound bytes (of which Democrats are particularly guilty) but by actually revisiting the neoconservative legacy in its most robust and coherent form. Fukuyama engages the intellectual history and philosophical roots of neoconservatism (Kristol, Strauss, Wohlstetter) to show that the Bush doctrine has consistently violated the neoconservative tenet that a state power must "distrust...ambitious social engineering programs" (49). Fukuyama then links this sound intellectual critique to policy analysis of the making of a twenty-first century world order. In this second part of the book, Fukuyama's contention is that the "benevolent hegemon" theory of American power is fundamentally flawed in its ignorance of policy matters of institutional, political, and economic development in modernizing countries. Fukuyama ultimately suggests it's *these* matters that constitute the decisive elements in both the spread and containment of global jihadism. Without attending to such matters, any U.S.-led intervention will not only fail to attract immediate supporters but may even breed its own self-fulfilling prophecy, where more people become attracted to the types of extremism that take root in local disaffection. In this sense, the continuing failure of the Iraqi reconstruction has been the failure of the Bush administration to account for the kind of ground-up institution-building that is the essence of so-called "regime change." Even if you disagree (as I do), politically or intellectually, with the "traditional" neoconservative points that Fukuyama comes to embrace *against* the Bush-neoconservative consensus, it's the quality and precision of his analysis--the deep insights that his beliefs allow him to make--that one should respect as an open-minded reader. This book also deserves top billing for surveying the key topics in our political world--uni- vs. multilateralism, development discourse, and sundry geopolitical

Chapter 7 begins with these words: "It seems very doubtful at this juncture that history will judge the Iraq war kindly." Such words from one of the more impressive conservative voices in the United States, Francis Fukuyama, make this an important work. Perhaps I am biased, since I have co-authored a recent volume that comes to the same conclusion. Nonetheless, this is a powerful volume--and it builds on a slender work that is a genuine treasure in the debate over democratic nation building--his 2004 volume, State-Building. Indeed, these two works should probably be considered together. The former lays out the prerequisites for any effort at democratic nation-building. It is a hard-headed work that complements a large literature--and is one that neocons in the Bush administration should have taken seriously. This work attempts to show how the neoconservatives "lost their way." Fukuyama, once a player in this movement, reflected upon where the movement was going and has concluded that it has taken a wrong turn. Other revieweers accuse him of apostasy, opportunism, and so on. But this is a work from a leading intellectual that must be confronted and taken seriously.

Fukuyama has produced one of the most thoughtful responses to current U.S. foreign policy that exists today. America at the Crossroads is a wonderful collection of several different topics, woven together to give us an idea of what the U.S. is and should be doing in the world. The first sections of the book deals with the idea of neoconservatives. Fukuyama argues that the neocons in the Bush administration have moved far beyond what the ideology originally stood for. Since this group's interpretation and behavior has overtaken the original intent, the word "neoconservative" is largely useless...at least to Fukuyama. There have been many discussions of this topic as well as accounts of neoconservatism, but I found Fukuyama's to be the most thoughtful and well-written that I have come across. The following sections of the book deal with issues such as preventive war, development (economic and political), international institutions, and American exceptionalism. In each of these areas, Fukuyama discusses where the U.S. has made mistakes, and offers recommendations as to how the U.S. can alter its behavior in order to bring about a more peaceful and developed world that will benefit everyone. He talks specifically about the Iraq war as well. Personally, I don't think he should be faulted simply because his thinking about the war has evolved since the war was launched. He's upfront about the fact he supported the original idea...is it an intellectual crime to alter your thinking as events change? I would like to think it isn't. Fukuyama has evaluated what happened since the war was launched and produced a very valuable critique of how the U.S. handled it. I believe his approach to this issue is much more helpful than those that supported the war, but refuse to admit mistakes in its execution. This book is a wonderful resource for students and scholars of U.S. foreign policy alike. I feel that Fukuyama has presented a vision of what U.S. policy should be that deserves to be read and considered by all, regardless of your political ideologies. I don't agree with everything in this book, but I feel as if I have a better grasp of the debate now that I've read it.

Anyone approaching Fukuyama's latest work expecting a head-on bashing of the war won't be disappointed. The author seems to wade into his critique of the war in stages, leaving it to his summary to hammer home the magnitude of the mistake the current Administration is leaving as its legacy. You can read the first several pages of Fukuyama's last chapter to see where he stands on the war and then spend some quiet time poring through his suggestions involving the rebuilding of "soft power" agencies in Washington and the creation of a working club of democracies outside of NATO (first theorized during the Clinton Administration) which would sift through and come to terms with a variety of legitimate global threats and opportunities. Right now, it appears the Bush Administration is trying to "right the ship" through a combination of unilateralism (pursue the war), soft power (back door overtures to Iran) and state-silo Realism (for example, its recent accord on nuclear power with India, increasingly viewed as a counterbalance to China and Russia in the region). It'll be up to a future Administration to give Fukuyama's suggestions a shot. For merely proposing them in a thoughtful and convincing way at this momentous moment in our history, he deserves our thanks.

When Francis Fukyama writes a book critiquing the war in Iraq and the neo conservatives who backed the policy, one must sit up and take notice. His previous book, "The End of History," with its positivist view and thesis that history is inexorably marching towards liberal democracy and capitalism formed a central text in describing the neo conservative world view. Given his background, Fukuyama's decision to write a book attacking the Bush administration's Iraq policy will surely not be easily lumped with many other books opposing the war, nor will he make as easy a target for lambasting by the White House press office. Fukayama's book focuses on two critiques of the war, on practical and the other philosophical. The first offers no real surprises as it simply states facts now widely published and generally accepted by all but the most ardent supporters of the Iraq War. These include the lack of troops on the ground, the absurd idea that all Iraqis would welcome the US as liberators, failure to quickly quell looting and lawlessness after the fall of Saddam, general lack of interest in the specifics of Iraqi culture and history, bureaucratic sidelining of experts from the state department, and the list goes on. Again, the only thing that makes this particularly interesting is that this author cannot be simply dismissed with hollow phrases like "leftist" or "Bush Basher." In the second category, Fukuyama's book truly stands out for both a unique approach and perspective. Yes, the author does believe that world history moves towards democracy, but he looks wearily at the idea that American power can hasten that march through military power. However, the neo cons at the White House believed exactly that idea; that if one simply removed the stones of totalitarianism in Iraq, democracy would blossom. Accepting this given as an almost religious truism, the authors of the Iraq policy could simply ignore the cultural and historic realities that made it failure so tragically predictable. In an interesting connection, Fukuyama points to the simplistic idea held by many neo cons that the fall of the Soviet Union is almost entirely the result of the American military buildup in the 1980s, instead of one factor in a complex historical matrix. The author argues persuasively that, once having accepted the idea that military might led to this great historic sea change, one can easily conclude that military might can accomplish anything. Fukuyama is not one who believes in shrinking from the use of American power. Instead, he argues it must be used judiciously or else risk a backlash. In particular, he examines the idea that American hegemony should not frighten the world because American policy is conducted with a high degree of morality, a concept near and dear to the hearts of the neo conservative movement. Fukuyama does not reject this premise, but rightly points out that it only can be meaningful if the rest of the world believes the US is m