Book Review: After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed by Andrew Bacevich

About:

After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed by Andrew Bacevich is a book in which the author lays out his ideas for shifting American foreign policy to accommodate a changing world, and outdated ideology. Mr. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations, as well as a retired Colonel from the U.S. Army.

• 224 pages
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Metropolitan Books
  
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250795990

My rat­ing for After the Apocalypse — 5
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Thoughts:

After reading After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed I’m altogether certain of one thing, Andrew Bacevich – he’s not happy with the leadership of the US, nor the direction it’s going. He does, however, gives the reader much to think about.

Although I always considered myself a centrist leaning right. These days, however, I am sometimes told that I am a liberal – all that without changing my positions.  Nevertheless, I found myself agreeing on many points with the author in this short book. Mainly, that is, that we lost focus on what’s important, and worst, we keep lying to ourselves.

Mr. Bacevich is not talking about hot-button, divisive issues which are not really important such as gay marriage, gun rights, or abortion. He is talking about a true, reality based, vision of where American needs to strive towards, and lead.

The author analyzes the decisions made by recent Presidents (including Biden’s term as VP, and short time as President), in a clear and concise manner. He does not take sides, but is not afraid to assign blame, especially for lack of vision.

I specifically enjoyed the foreign policy aspects of this book. As someone who has the advantage of seeing policy from a different angle, it was a fascinating look into a different idea for international relations. Much of it, not to boast, I deducted myself over the years but was never able to put it with such eloquence.

My favorite part was the three basic tenants of “Effective Imperial Management”. Those are:

1. Don’t invade Russia
2. Share costs
3. Repatriate benefits

Mr. Bacevich goes on to analyze those tenets and the mistakes empires made, from Napoleon to the USA, breaking them. This book was a short, but fascinating read which gave me a lot to think about.

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More Books by Andrew Bacevich*

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewer Program.
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