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How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy
Harper
March 2009
On Sale: March 17, 2009
352 pages
ISBN: 0061714542
EAN: 9780061714542
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
From one of the nation's leading foreign-policy minds comes
a provocative new account of how to think about—and
use—America's power in the twenty-first century. Inspired
by Machiavelli's classic The Prince, Leslie H. Gelb offers
illuminating guidelines on how American power actually works
and should be wielded in today's tumultuous world, writing
with the perspective of four decades of extraordinary access
and influence in government, think tanks, and journalism. He argues that Washington risks losing the essential
lifeblood of its national security—its power—unless American
leaders relearn the lessons of how to use that power.
Contrary to runaway fashion, Gelb argues that the world is
not flat, power is not soft, and that we have not entered a
post-American era in global affairs. The United States
remains far and away the most powerful country in a world
where power remains sharply pyramidal. But the U.S. is not
the dominant power, and it can't dictate to others. Gelb persuasively shows that America's future power must be
based on the principle of mutual indispensability:
Washington is the indispensable leader because it alone can
galvanize coalitions to solve major international problems
(and all nations know this), while other key nations are
indispensable partners in getting the job done. The reality
is this: succeed together or fail apart. Washington will
also fail if it forgets that power is still, as in the days
of Machiavelli, about pressure and coercion, carrots and
sticks. Reason, values, and understanding are foreplay, but
not the real thing. Gelb provides an incisive look at the major U.S.
foreign-policy triumphs and tragedies of the last half
century, and offers practical rules on how to effectively
exercise power today. Power Rules is an impassioned
challenge to both liberals and conservatives and a plea to
reclaim the true meaning of power and the essential role of
common sense in solving global problems.
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