Advice to War Presidents: A Remedial Course in Statecraft

by Angelo Codevilla

Overview

“War presidents” are hardly exceptional in modern American history. To a greater or lesser extent, every president since Wilson has been a War President. Each has committed our country to the pursuit of peace, yet involved us in a seemingly endless series of wars—conflicts that the American foreign policy establishment has generally made worse. The chief reason, argues Angelo Codevilla in Advice to War Presidents, is that America's leaders have habitually imagined the world as they wished it to be rather than as it is: They acted under the assumptions that war is not a normal tool of statecraft but a curable disease, and that all the world's peoples wish to live as Americans do. As a result, our leaders have committed America to the grandest of ends while constantly subverting their own goals.

Employing many negative examples from the Bush II administration but also ranging widely over the last century, Advice to War Presidents offers a primer on the unchanging principles of foreign policy. Codevilla explains the essentials—focusing on realities such as diplomacy, alliances, war, economic statecraft, intelligence, and prestige, rather than on meaningless phrases like “international community,” “peacekeeping” and “collective security.” Not a realist, neoconservative, or a liberal internationalist, Codevilla follows an older tradition: that of historians like Thucydides, Herodotus, and Winston Churchill—writers who analyzed international affairs without imposing false categories.

Advice to War Presidents is an effort to talk our future presidents down from their rhetorical highs and get them to practice statecraft rather than wishful thinking, lest they give us further violence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786744398
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	03/24/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	512 KB

About the Author

Angelo M. Codevilla has taught political theory and international relations at Stanford, Princeton, and Georgetown University and is presently a professor of international relations at Boston University. He is the author of nine books, including The Character of Nations, The Arms Control Delusion, and a new translation of Machiavelli's The Prince. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Editorial Reviews

Writing explicitly for an audience that is already familiar with international affairs, Codevilla (The Character of Nations) draws on examples from ancient Greece through the Iraq War to provide a road map for future foreign policy in this accessible but didactic book. In a series of chapters arranged thematically around concepts that include the language of politics and the effectiveness of diplomacy, the author takes issue with the realist, liberal nationalist and neoconservative schools of thought and their "ruinous counsel" that dominates contemporary international politics, instead advocating a commonsense approach that emphasizes mastering the basic skills of diplomacy and statecraft. Codevilla appeals to the Monroe Doctrine and 19th-century American approaches to foreign affairs while condemning contemporary policy that he believes has failed to secure a lasting peace. Codevilla writes intelligently on topics as diverse as the affect of economic sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s and contemporary relations between Russia and Georgia, but his highly critical style can sometimes be abrasive. (Feb.)

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Publishers Weekly

Veteran international relations author Codevilla (international relations, Boston Univ.; No Victory, No Peace) questions basic assumptions that have guided U.S. foreign policy since Woodrow Wilson tried to make the world safe for democracy, including the idea of an "international community" that speaks with a unified voice, that all peoples want to live in an America-like democracy, and that nations are willing to engage in exercises of collective security. He is equally critical of three prevalent schools of thought in international relations: liberal internationalism, neoconservatism, and realism. Instead of following one of these, he urges policy makers to rely on the judicious use of proven tools, including diplomacy, economic sanctions, war, intelligence, security, and winning the peace following a period of conflict. The many examples of theories that failed, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and economic sanctions against Iraq, provide strong support for his approach. Although the ideas expressed here are currently out of favor, they are worth consideration by anyone with an interest in world affairs. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
—Marcia L. Sprules

Library Journal

Publishers Weekly
“Accessible… Codevilla writes intelligently on topics as diverse as the affect of economic sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s and contemporary relations between Russia and Georgia.”

Library Journal
“Veteran international relations author Codevilla…questions basic assumptions that have guided U.S. foreign policy since Woodrow Wilson tried to make the world safe for democracy… Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.”

American Spectator
“Machiavelli could not have written a better book to give advice to ‘war presidents.'”

Claremont Review
“Compelling reading… bracing and intelligent.”

FamilySecurityMatters.org
“[An] expansive and important work…[Advice to War Presidents] should be required reading for Senators and their staff as an essential primer to the arcane world of arms control.”

First Principals
“A refreshingly unashamed conservative critique of twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy, especially with regard to war and the use of force.

From the Publisher