Politics Books

Actually,I can say Chinese know nothing about Taiwanese traits and personailty. China would never be willing to understand it and communicate with us Taiwan,for Chinese is very self-focus arrogant people. So,to be nearset neighbor with China is the sadest fate for Taiwan. The book revealed the differences of Taiwanese and Chinese,focus on what is the life-experiecnce(historical)reasons of forming the "Taiwanese" identity. Readers can sense the logic a little from this book.

The Scrapbook is pleased to report the publication of a fine new book by Weekly Standard contributor and weapons-technology expert Henry Sokolski. Best of Intentions is a significant work of scholarship: the first comprehensive history of American efforts to stop the global spread of strategic weapons capabilities since World War II. Any self-respecting grown-up will want to buy a copy immediately.

As reviewed in ORBIS Summer 2001, By Mark T. Clark,Ph.D., Director of National Security Studies, California State University at San Bernardino.

Henry Sokolski, in his Best of Intentions, expressly eschews the search for the causes of proliferation and instead prefers to evaluate efforts to prevent proliferation in the first place. A former military legislative analyst in the Senate and an official in the Department of Defense during the first Bush administration, he currently heads the nonprofit Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C. His interests, therefore, lie in the search for practical answers to policy questions, not in the development of theory per se. He proposes to determine how effective U.S. and international efforts have been in curbing proliferation, and specifically intends to "identify and weigh the premises of U.S. nonproliferation policies (p. xii).

His book is divided into seven chapters, the first and last of which deal with the history and future of nonproliferation. The five central chapters are analytic histories of the major nonproliferation policies: the Baruch Plan, the Atoms for Peace Program, the NPT, proliferation technology control regimes, and the U.S. Counterproliferation Initiative. According to Sokolski, each of the initiatives had distinct assumptions that were built upon an assessment of the strategic dangers that needed to be avoided at the time, and each was designed to correct the failures of its precursors. He further argues that "[t]o the extent each characterized the strategic threat properly, they produced nonproliferation measures that were sound. To the extent that they did not, they encouraged measures that were impractical or that actually compounded the proliferation threats they were supposed to reduce" (p. xii).

How U.S. leaders characterized the strategic threat makes for an interesting approach to the periods under examination. It also reminds the reader that there is always a strategic context to policy, and favored solution to perceived problems. In other words, policymakers' assumptions about the world tend to influence their responses to it. For example, after World War II, American policy makers worried that the spread of nuclear weapons would inevitably generate undeterrable wars against which no defense was possible. Since the United States would not be able to deflect potential offensive nuclear wars, it sought to retain sole ownership of nuclear weapons. The Baruch Plan that was offered to the United Nations in 1946 provided, among other things, that anything critical to nuclear bomb making be turned over to the control of an international atomic energy authority, a meritorious proposal in itself. However, the United States' exaggerated fears of undeterrable offensive nuclear wars made it crucial for the country to maintain it sole nuclear monopoly until thorough safeguards were in place - and that condition alone provided the Soviets with the reason to reject it.

The drafters of the Nonproliferation Treaty of l968 had their own strategic assumptions, which continue to fuel debate over nonproliferation policies today. At the heart of the first three articles of the NPT are concerns about the horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons, that is, the spread of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear states. The original Irish proposal in l958 reflected the early fears that the addition of new nuclear powers would lead to international instability, making nuclear war more likely. Before the NPT was finished, however, negotiators began fearing the effects of vertical proliferation, that is, the accumulation of nuclear weapons by the superpowers targets against one another, which could lead to accidental or unauthorized nuclear war. Today some states refuse to sign the NPT unless and until the major powers move more drastically toward disarmament. In the meantime, the dangers of horizontal proliferation continue to grow.

Sokolski's history and analysis would seem to be premised on political realism. In the concluding chapter, however, his prescriptions for new nonproliferation policies reflect a different theoretical bent. Since there are limits and weakness to all the previous policies, he argues, new initiatives must focus on issues more lasting than technological or military contingencies. The next counterproliferation campaign must be anchored in larger policies that distinguish between liberal and hostile illiberal regimes in an effort to broaden, over the long run, the "zones of peace" and shrink "zones of conflict." In other words, Sokolski relies on a form of the "democratic peace theory," which suggests that democracies do not wage war against other democracies. This idea has broad acceptance among American political leaders, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.

"...informed and trenchant...offers valuable insights and presents important challenges - not only to those who have advocated prior non-proliferation initiatives, but to those who contend that there are better options..."
Alton Frye, Vice President, Council on Foreign Relations

"Henry Sokolski has done us all a great service by parsing, briefly and succinctly, the tangled history of nonproliferation, and relating it to the problems we face today."
James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency

"This is an outstanding survey, analysis and critique ...a vitally important addition to the reading lists and libraries of scholars, policymakers, and others having an interest in U.S. national security strategy, technology transfer, arms control and proliferation."
Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

"For any Democrat or Republican wishing to rethink what our nonproliferation policies should be, Best of Intentions is the place to begin."
William Kristol, Editor, The Weekly Standard

"...an indispensable primer on a long and crucial battle we may now be losing."
Peter W. Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

"A fascinating history and penetrating critique of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy."
Frank Von Hippel, Princeton University, former arms control advisor to the Clinton Administration

"...raises fundamental strategic questions that must be addressed...a thoughtful, welcome provocation."
George Perkovich, author, India's Nuclear Bomb, director of the Alton Jones Foundation

"The Scrapbook is pleased to report the publication of a fine new book by Weekly Standard contributor and weapons-technology expert Henry Sokolski. Best of Intentions is a significant work of scholarship: the first comprehensive history of American efforts to stop the global spread of strategic weapons capabilities since World War II. Any self respecting grown-up will want to buy a copy immediately."
The Weekly Standard

"...This sobering analysis is must reading for scholars and policy makers alike."
Henry Rowen, Stanford University, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

"...a reference work no serious student of these matters should be without."
Gordon C. Oehler, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Nonproliferation Center

Best of Intentions is intended, it appears, for undergraduate and early graduate-level students, though policy analysts would do well to read its treatment of arms control doc-trines and instruments-both carrots and sticks. Sokolski has a certain under statement manifest both in succinctness and, occasionally, in subtlety, which may leave the not so nimble behind.

Sokolski draws lessons from five cases: the Baruch Plan rejected by the Soviet Union; Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative, which paved the way for the inadequate" safeguards" regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency; the1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) based on bargaining with nuclear have-nots; proliferation technology control regimes such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the Australia Group on Chemical and biological weapons; and counterproliferation policy in the1990s, which prepared military means to eliminate emerging weapons of mass destruction (WMD) arsenals.

Sokolski draws three lessons from these cases. First, strategic assumptions shape initiatives. For instance, he attributes the NPT's effort to reward nations promising to desist from acquiring nuclear arms with access to ostensibly civilian nuclear technology to 1960s ideas on "finite deterrence" and an attendant right to acquire civilian nuclear technology. He offers a unique critique of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, which he demonstrates shares the premises of the NPT, hatched a quarter-century earlier. Second, Sokolski highlights the risks of basing nonproliferation initiatives on wrongheaded assumptions about the sources and nature of future wars. Finally, he suggests that horizontal proliferation can only be reduced when the nuclear "haves" reduce their vertical proliferation-but only "without increasing the world's access to ever larger and more uncertain amounts of strategic materials and capabilities."

Sokolski offers corrective prescriptions for the future. He insists that quid pro quo for nonproliferation promises must be banished because they encourage efforts to acquire WMDs to get a reward. Also, he calls for a centrist position on export controls between existing voluntary consultation regimes and a new version of the Cold War COCOM, whereby nations "could deny any export (listed or not) to Any destination and expect this denial to be upheld (i.e., not undercut) By other members until they met to learn why the denial was made . . . [so that] incremental agreement might be reached on a substantial number of items and destinations."

The book has several particular strengths. It offers rich portraits of doctrines, such as the Mutual Assured Destruction balance of terror and the early Clinton Administration paradigm of "cooperative security," as alternatives to either export controls or missile defense. Sokolski brilliantly shows how the premises of initiatives like Atoms for Peace led to perverse results. Also, his critique of "carrots" is quite convincing. For instance, he asks about one incentives-based policy of the 1990s:"Wouldn't including both proliferation suppliers and consumers into organizations that had relatively free trade in sensitive technology simply turn existing proliferation technology denial regimes into proliferation breeding grounds?"

Indeed, in style, the book's objective and balanced tone is welcome, despite strong normative implications. For instance, Sokolski writes, "Atoms for Peace may have gotten the relationship between vertical and horizontal proliferation wrong but at least it recognized that there was a connection." And once again, conciseness is a strength of this veritable primer -- including informative documentary appendices on the cases.

The best insight the book offers, though, is emphasized in the last Chapter of the text. The "intentions" highlighted in the title are important when it comes to countries the United States is seeking to constrain from acquiring WMDs. What really matters is not so much the deadly capability of other nations, but their intent in acquiring that capability. As such, regime-type is all-important. Authoritarian states that take the lives of their own citizens lightly typically take the use of supremely deadly force against other countries lightly as well. Therefore, the United States should seek a world filled with more benign neighbors, because "a world of Canadas is a world not at war." Democratic states either forego WMD arsenals, or pose no danger if they do acquire them.

By implication, non-proliferation policy must focus on the demand side, not just the supply side. Sokolski observes that "in the 1980sand very early 1990s, Taiwan, South Korea, Ukraine, Argentina, South Africa, and Brazil all foreswore or dismantled their nuclear weapons or long-range missile programs." Why? He believes that it is because they became more democratic-typically with a little push from the United States. Going beyond reliance on globalized trade to inevitably yield political liberalization, the author asserts that active democracy-promotion is the best nonproliferation policy.

Hence, Best of Intentions contributes to multiple sets of literature. It belongs to the rich literature on nuclear doctrines, but breaks new ground in dissecting U.S. nonproliferation policy initiatives. In particular, the work belongs to an under developed literature critiquing prevailing deterrence and arms control theory by emphasizing how intent, rather than capability, matters most to nuclear peace.

More generally, Best of Intentions contributes to the literature on ideas, and not just books dealing exclusively with nuclear doctrines. It adds to the literature on U.S. foreign policy doctrines. Finally, the work links nonproliferation to the literature on the democratic peace and the importance of democracy-promotion. This final contribution may be even more crucial than Sokolski intended.

This observation is important because it helps the reader understand the importance of nationalism in the revolution. The Algerians did not fight with a detailed governance plan in their back pocket. Rather, they fought for a chance to establish themselves as independent people.
After discussing the Revolution and its rhetorical emphasis on unity, Quandt moves into the Boumedience Era. He notes that Algeria's first president, Ben Bella, lacked an institutional base of support and spent much of his time in office manipulating factions against each other. Ben Bella quietly faded into the background and Boumediene arose as the stable and rather "faceless" leader. He downgraded the FLN (the party credited with winning independence) in importance and suppressed any emerging opposition to his regime. Indeed, after 1968, there was very little internal opposition. During the 1970s, his regime had an Islamic cultural orientation but functioned in a secular socialist manner. There was definitely not much emphasis on a transition to democracy, but "Boumedience, at least, had brought stability to a country that had known far too much political violence" (29).
In the next chapter, Quandt explains that there was inevitable pressure to change, and Boumediene, as an authoritarian ruler, was unable to enact it. Chadli Benjedid became president in 1979, and long-suppressed demands for change came with the Berber spring of 1980. This initial movement for the rights of Berber-speaking people gave rise to other political movements, the most significant being the Algerian Islamic Movement. Beginning in 1982, the Islamic Movement took up arms and gained momentum, though for the most part the stability of the existing order kept protestors at bay. This all changed in 1988, when "the bottom fell out of the oil market." The rentier state was in trouble.
Quandt writes, "the mass protests of October 1988 proved to be one of those turning points that define a country's political trajectory for years to come. It was a nationwide youth revolt, but Islamic activists soon took charge. The military was called in and violence ensued. Hundreds of young Algerians were killed in the first use of the Algerian military against its own people.
As disturbing as this scene was, Quandt notes that it could have been a dramatic turn toward political expression and eventually democracy. Indeed, in 1989 reform-minded allies of Chadli drafted a new constitution. At least on paper, it created three distinct branches of government and guaranteed individual liberties--including what was to soon become a very significant free press. The army was supposed to now be above politics, and a significant new political party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) challenged the government on a plethora of issues. Many young unemployed and disillusioned men joined this group. Through political mediums such as strikes and the 1991 elections (in which the FIS received about twice the number of votes as the FLN in the first round), the FIS established itself as the new power in Algeria. In June of 1991, however, the army stepped in yet again (it had stepped in during the strike and arrested FIS leaders) and showed itself to be right in the middle of politics-certainly not above it.
In 1991 the army cancelled the constitutionally mandated second round of elections and forcefully removed both Chadli and the FIS from power. Quandt explains the army's motives well:

Many in the military had fought for Algeria's independence and genuinely felt that they had a legitimate role to play in the political life of the country. The FIS was a threat to all that they had fought for and, like the Turkish military, they would not stand by and watch the principles of the state be trampled. (60-61).

Thus, the military took over the state and political violence and terrorism was the norm for most of the nineties. Within months, the FIS was declared illegal. The leader appointed by the military, Boudiaf, was assassinated, and thousands of ordinary Algerians lost their lives in the chaos. Quandt writes, "The inability-or unwillingess-of the state to provide basic security was shocking" (75). Many Algerians emigrated to other nations.
Thus, the political history of Algeria is a complex and sometimes sad one. Quandt's book covers it so well because he understands that there is hope for the country. It has experimented with liberalization and might just be able to make it work. After all, nobody really expected Algeria to rebel against France in the first place, much less win a war of independence. Quandt's book is good because it presents this history in a very detailed fashion (Part I), and then it presents various perspectives to clarify the events and give insight to the future (Part II). An alternate format, like an interwoven mixture of history and analysis, might be very confusing to the average reader.

Wishard states that the next three decades may be the most decisive 30 year period in the history of mankind. He's offering a perspective on the meaning of our times, trying to understand how all the monumental changes of science, psychology, technology and culture are affecting how we live and how nations live. And he asks how we can find new inner meaning amidst this "soul-crushing change". That's a huge chunk to bite off and I wasn't sure he'd make it. The satisfying thing about this book is just how well he fulfills his goal. In broad strokes he moves from the picture of a present interregnum period where change is bringing the birth of a whole new civilization, to a decade by decade historical recap of those 20th century changes in science and technology, economics, social and politcal life, and global events. I found this a well paced and fascinating historical ride. (An appendix at the book's end neatly summarizes this data and is worthy in itself.) He doesn't stop with mere diagnosis, lucid as it is. His analysis, deeply rooted in a moral and ethical context, gives modern man a corageous challenge to "rethink what is the very purpose of human beings in a world of total technological possibility." Between Two Ages ends up being a book of hope based on reality and a dose of vision.

The forecasts of technology for the next two decades are quite amazing, well researched, and not a little scary. But, of course, look how far we've "advanced" in the last twenty years! He writes about C.G. Jung and the "psychological interpretation of history." That analysis is an excellent framework for the elements he brings into the book. Very worth reading.

I've been in and out of this book over the past couple of months and I would sum up my reactions in three ways: 1) I will never be able to sum this book up or feel I have gotten all I could out of it--it would be on my list of books to take to a desert island and read over and over again; 2) it is, together with Will and Ariel Durant's "The Lessons of History", a remarkable short-hand survey of the past two centuries; and 3) at the end it cuts to the chase and agrees with Zbigniew Brzezinski--the big global challenge today is about moral, ethical, cross-cultural, philosophical *grounding*.

I don't see the author's vision happening in any sort of structured officially-sanctioned way. And I don't see this book impacting on people the way "IMAGINE" or "Cultural Creatives" can impact--but if you have the time and the intellectual curiosity to go deep, this is a very engaging book that will take a long time to fully appreciate.

The second half of the book summarizes his findings and creates a context that helps us inderstand this critical period by asking the question,"what is the meaning of our new century and where are we going?" It offers a bold and original approach for the next 30 years as technology exerts an ever more powerful hold on our lives.

Wishard explores these questions in a way that is both unexpected and profound, going to the very root of the nature and makeup of the human individual. His conclusions suggest ways of raising the level of human consciousness that could enable us to live in an ever more complex and integrated world.

Quite a read.

I did not examine the readers' comments on Black Looks until completing the book, but I too would like to take the opportunity to give the book my whole-hearted endorsement for everyone's perusal.

Unlike the reader who began a review highlighting his leftist political affiliation and interracial marriage/family, I DO believe that this book was intended for that individual reader, as it was intended for me, a white female -- and for all men and women of all colors, backgrounds, and sexual orientations. One's skin color, (marriage) partner, children, class status, political affiliation, sexual orientation, and gender, among many other characteristics, do not determine one's dedication to overcoming the racist, heterosexist, capitalist patriarchy. Indeed, I think that this idea is a theme running throughout Black Looks, as evidenced in bell hooks' essays on Clarence Thomas and Madonna.

I do not find incivility in bell hooks' thoughtful expressions and critiques. Rather, I find a much-needed naming of the incivilities that happen to people in this world, due to various "-ism"s and those who espouse them.

Complaints of "bias" or "slant" in bell hooks' essays and other works seem nonsensical to me, when I recall that no human being's thoughts, feelings, and perspective are "objective." Moreover, "objectivity" is not a quality that one desires in cultural criticism, which functions to set forth an alternative point of view that is so often silenced. An individual who feels the need for "objectivity" in Black Looks might seriously question whether any book, television program, song, or other form of media is "objective," including those forms of communication that comprise mass media.

I think that an individual who can accept that this book is for him/her can also begin to look at mass media with a more critical gaze, an activity that is sorely needed after the hours of unquestioning consumption of TV/movies that fills the evenings and weekends of many Americans.

Since it is told from the vantage point of a Black American, it stands as one of the essential missing voices in an otherwise neatly politicized and racially sanitized periods of American history and areas of American historical scholarship.

DuBois, writing with an impressive flair, is not bashful about giving credit where it is due, whether to noble and humane slave owners or to the vastly underrated and seldom reported contributions of Negroes during this period. This emphasis alone is a display of courage unlikely to be found except in very rare instances in other books on this subject.

Despite its flair, the book is still dense with details that only a first rate historian could uncover and organize so well. And although the book has been criticized for being too much of a Marxist economic analysis, it is nevertheless accurate, has the full ring of truth and remains relatively non-polemical. And for one partial to non-Marxist economic analyses, I find rather strangely that DuBois' Marxist analysis seems the appropriate tool uniquely suited for analyzing the circumstances of this particular era of American history.

In short, the book is not just another oblique harangue against the American system of racism as it was practiced during the reconstruction era--or as it has been practiced during any era for that matter.

Along side Eric Froner's book, "Reconstruction," this is another tour de force. For essential reading on one of the most important periods in American history, one is unlikely to find in print a better book on this subject. Amen.

Du Bois was a very compelling writer, he cuts through the layers of history to reveal the soul of the persons most greatly affected by Reconstruction. He charts the troubled waters of the Civil War, and the Presidential attempts at Reconstruction which followed the Union victories in the South. He provides a candid view of Lincoln, who struggled with his own prejudices, but eventually came to accept the black man because of the pivotal role he played in the war. Ironically, Du Bois noted a black did not become a man until he showed he could hold a gun in battle.

Du Bois felt Lincoln really did alter his views during the course of the war, no longer favoring the colonist view held by many that blacks should be repatriated to Africa. However, Du Bois felt that Lincoln lacked the convictions to really push forward Reconstruction, that his principal concern remained in reclaiming the Southern states in the Union.

The mighty task of Reconstruction was left up to the Radical Republicans in Congress and the "Black" legislatures that emerges in the South during this time. Du Bois refutes the Dunning-Bowers view that blacks were incapable of forming governments, by providing a chapter on "The Black Proletariat in South Carolina." Here, he shows that blacks fully recognized the enormity of this most propitious moment, but that they ran up against a set of state and federal courts, which refused to hold up their decisions. While blacks were now members of state legislatures and of the US Congress, they did not take over the South, as is often described. Even in South Carolina, where blacks outnumbered whites, blacks were only temporarily able to seize control of the legislature, and force a new state constitution.

This is the book that forms the basis for Foner's excellent book, Reconstruction. Du Bois was the first to realize that Reconstruction was more than just an epilog to the Civil War, but the beginning of the long road to freedom, which took nearly 100 years in the making for blacks in America.