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The Return of History and the End of Dreams | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Kagan
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 1803
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 030726923X
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.1
EAN: 9780307269232
ASIN: 030726923X
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
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Product Description
Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities: Great powers are once again competing for honor and influence. Nation-states remain as strong as ever, as do the old, explosive forces of ambitious nationalism. The world remains “unipolar,” but international competition among the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raise new threats of regional conflict. Communism is dead, but a new contest between western liberalism and the great eastern autocracies of Russia and China has reinjected ideology into geopolitics. Finally, radical Islamists are waging a violent struggle against the modern secular cultures and powers that, in their view, have dominated, penetrated, and polluted their Islamic world. The grand expectation that after the Cold War the world would enter an era of international geopolitical convergence has proven wrong.
For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. Now, in The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the most important questions facing the liberal democratic countries, challenging them to choose whether they want to shape history or let others shape it for them.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
The Malignity of Multipolarity July 18, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a perceptive and far-sighted examination on the state of global politics as the decade approaches its end, in the form of an extended essay. A new axis of evil is rising in opposition to the West, one not guided by a shared ideology except in so far as hostility to the rule of law and democracy might be considered ideological. Kagan predicts that the future will see the return of nationalism, growing tensions and confrontation between the forces of democracy and autocracy. What matters is a nation's nature of government, he observes, not its culture, religion or geographic location; and this will determine its international alignment. While not dismissing the terrorist threat, he does not consider it a primary menace as history proves that modernity has never lost against the traditionalism represented by the Islamists. True, but terrorism might have unintended consequences in the formation of alliances and the development of state structures.
It is interesting to compare Kagan's analysis with Margaret Thatcher's Statecraft, published in 2002, in which she assessed the state of the world and possible future trajectories. In chapters 3 and 4 of her book Thatcher looks at Russia and the Asian Giants China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) and India. Rogue states, religion and terrorism are discussed in chapter 6, with particular reference to North Korea, Islam, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Iran. Another must-read: The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West by Edward Lucas, already confirms Kagan's view. Russia is pursuing policies that threaten its own citizens, neighboring states and the world at large. Lucas takes a hard look at the ruling elite which emerged almost entirely from the ranks of the old KGB. This dominant class harbors resentment against the West as a whole in an interesting parallel to the hostility of the Brussels Eurocracy towards the USA and Israel. The Russian government now openly competes with the West on the economic and political fronts.
Freedom of expression and the rule of law exist in name only; the state controls all the economic activity, political institutions and media that matter. Putin's term "managed" or "sovereign" democracy really means a malignant form of Czarism. Despite Russia's demographic implosion, pervasive corruption and widespread lawlessness, a new cold war is being waged. Not only has the country displayed thuggish behavior against Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia, Georgia and the UK in the Litvinenko case, it is supplying arms to rogue states Iran and Syria and their terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Anna Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia exposes the mentality and incompetence of the ruling class.
The geopolitical implications are staggering, as the Putin gang eagerly befriends all enemies of the West. Evidence is accumulating that Russia seeks an alliance with the Islamic world and a partial restoration of the Soviet Empire through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) of which China is a member. The Kremlin ignores the long-term threat from China despite the particularly drastic demographic and infrastructural implosion in Russia's Far East. Whatever other evils follow from Russia's abandonment of Western values, it is sure to become a more barbaric society for its citizens and a considerably more dangerous international player. One may confidently expect it to supply Iran with nuclear weapons technology and to support every loathsome thugocracy that defiles the planet.
Russia is pursuing an energy policy aimed at strangling the liberal democracies by e.g. establishing a gas cartel. An expanded SCO that includes Iran, other Middle Eastern and African states like Libya and Sudan, plus Venezuela is a real possibility. Kagan correctly identifies it as a revived Warsaw Pact. The SCO will lock the Turkic speaking states of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (plus Persian Tajikistan) firmly in the bear's embrace. The future role of Turkey will be crucial; it remains to be seen how its current pro-religious government will adapt its foreign policy as reaction to the country's certain exclusion from the European inner core. Economic ties to Europe are of course assured but the country might significantly upgrade relations with the Central Asian states and the SCO.
Kagan foresees closer future ties between the USA, India and Japan, rather than a larger role for NATO. Echoing the idea expressed in The UN and Beyond: United Democratic Nations (edited by Anne Bayefsky), Kagan proposes the same type of international organization consisting of democratic states co-coordinating their policies. Perhaps he underestimates the ambition of the Brussels Eurocracy and its resentment of the US. The likelihood of all 27 states uniting is slim, but prospects for closer union of a core group including Germany, France, the Benelux countries, Italy, Spain and a few others are bright. Such a restructuring could be triggered by many factors like the refusal of current member states to relinquish further sovereignty, economic problems or security concerns. While retaining nominal autonomy, the other countries of Europe will undoubtedly accept the Superstate's foreign policy. The loss of the UK will diminish the Anglosphere whilst an alliance with India and Japan might formidably enhance its influence and assure its strategic advantage of continued dominance over three of the world's oceans.
One fact is certain: the USA follows the siren calls of isolationism at its great peril. And the paranoids that tried to demonize the "Hyperpower" will look back on the period of American "hegemony" with affection and nostalgia once the dynamics of the new multipolar world become clear. What distinguishes Kagan's conclusions from the discredited popular notions of the 90s - Fukuyama's fatuous futurology and Huntington's culturally based theory - is that elements of it have already begun to unfold. How comfortable the decade of the Clintons now seems in comparison to contemporary trends. Kagan's book is alarming and unsettling but a much needed tonic for identifying, and preparing for, the coming challenges.
 Has History Returned? July 17, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Yes, history has returned according to Kagan. This is an even handed, concise discussion of the geopolitical struggle today between the democratic world (the west etc) and the autocratic world (China, Russia, etc). I am not a fan of Kagan and the neocons, however this is a book that is well worth the read from any political persuasion. Authors would be well advised to indeed give us more of these concise, yet thoughtful books.
American Power and Purpose July 17, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Kagan's Book represents an important addition to the academic literature on American grand strategy and the emerging contest between democracies and authoritarian states. What is most striking is how clearly Kagan illistrates that our present era has many parralells with past world orders. Whilst it may be startling to a generation reared on the end of history thesis, which Kagan plays off, this conflict would be readily apparent to statesman and political leaders in the 19th century. This sobering and at times painful account, painful because it implicitly sets out the missed opportuntites of the 1990s and leaves one wondering how things could have been different (see Donald and Frederick Kagan). What is most striking is that Kagan eloquently illuminates an essential truth, which is increasingly drowned out: Those who espouse an American grand strategy absent moral considerations and without regard to regime type dont seem to understand the country they live in, because America is a country dedicated to certain universal values that empowers and obliges us to intervene and act in regard to our ideology and beliefs since the founding of the Republic.
All in all a great read that eloquently sets out the preeminent challenge of our generation: The marriage of national interest and our deepest beliefs: spreading democracy- because the survival of democracy at home implicitly rests, as Kagan argues on the success of freedom abraod. A must read for those who believe unilateral American disarmament, detente, arms limitation agreements, diplomacy (without regard for cost or morality), and failure in Iraq is without broader and devastating consquences for American diplomacy.
What a strange time to doubt the justice of our regime and cause.
 The return of the military-industrial complex July 15, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
After reading the book/pamphlet, the military industrial complex must be preparing to walk laughing all the way to the back. They could not have written a better book to support their business.
First of all, take Russia. With a rapidly declining population and low life expectations due to perennial alcoholism and rising drug addiction, Russia will never be a serious threat. It is blessed with huge resources including the best agricultural land, but it does not have the population to take advantage of this bonanza.
As always, Russia will have to rely on foreign technical assistance to stay rich - remember Peter the Great. Russia's tough attitude will go away if America stops being arrogant and shows respect. It certainly does not require a military build-up. And Mr Kagan should know that demographics are a key element in predicting the future.
Second, take China and Asia. To be worried that China could threaten America is to ignore the drastic consequences of CLIMATE CHANGE in this part of the world. China is the most vulnerable to climate change. You can be sure that it will have no time for foreign adventures. China will have to spend all its resources in fighting climate change. India is in the same situation. Any reasonably well informed observer of China knows that China will be deeply impacted by climate change and therefore, it is surprising that Mr Kagan does not consider climate change in his forecast... Even more than Russia, China wants RESPECT, that's all...
So, Mr Kagan's book is quite irrelevant.
It should concentrate on the real issues. Of course, climate change is the critical issue. And America's refusal to take even minimum steps will turn into a disaster for the world. Mr. Thomas Friedman recommends a gas tax and he is very right, but America says no. The rest of the world wonders why they manage to drive in small cars while Americans cannot...
Another serious issue is the disastrous state of the US economy.When he wrote his book, this was already obvious. In 1945, all the gold of the world was in America. Today, America owes trillions to the Chinese, the Arabs, Russia etc... The real question is how America will reimburse all this debt?
American rockets and bombs are useless in solving these issues. Only sensible diplomacy and making the effort to be a team player are the true answers. If the world needs America, to-day America needs the world even more.
May be Mr. Kagan's next book...
Jean-Paul Delorme
Chateauneuf, France
July 16, 2008
Endgame for "war on terror" and now we have to look for the next Kaiser who will challenge the world peace! June 25, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I found the central argument of this book very convincing. Forget your fears about the terrible Islamic threat to the modern world and start looking to the old 19th century power games that now repeat themselves between great states. Al Qaeda shot its bolt after all and its war is already a thing of the past. Kagan argues that the world is not divided by religion or race as Samuel Huntingdon's "clash of civilizations" theory suggests and the modern trouble with Islam/West seems to vindicate. Rather he argues the real division in modern geopolitics is between democracies and autocracies, with places like the USA, Europe and Japan on one side, and countries like China, Russia and Iran on the other. As he explicitly states in the book, "But in today's world, a nation's form of government, not its `civilization' or its geographic location, maybe the best predictor of its geopolitical alignment". For example, China and Japan may have a shared Asian culture, but one is a democracy and the other is an autocracy, therefore, Japan will have more in common with another democracy, even if it is not culturally similar, that it will with China. He argues that the autocracies are dangerous, not just because of their oppressive internal policies, but because they typically are experiencing rapid economic growth. This allows them to fund a more powerful and threatening military with which to threaten democracies. Kagan acknowledges that one autocracy can have friction with another autocracy: for example, Russia and China may distrust each other over their mutual ambitions in Siberia. Kagan's book supports my view that a great war between major powers is not a too distant possibility and that "Fourth Generation" warfare is as old as man and does not substitute or, even more, erase the old kind of warfare between massive conventional armies. Thus, the USAF leadership may have been right when it planned for new, extremely expensive stealth jets. Although accused for accute "next-waritis" by the current DoD head, may be proved in the future that it was perfectly right in its long view.
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