War in A Time of Peace [Paperback]

Halberstam's intention is to 'look at America through our decisions on foreign policy'. He principally considers party politics (there are some wonderful mini-biographies of Bush, Clinton and other Administration members) and its intersection with military culture and personnel, with sideways glances at technological developments in warfare - especially in the air force - and the media, whose increasing preference for fluffy, throwaway, home grown stories is blamed for foreign policy’s slide down the political and media agenda at the end of the Cold War.

Halberstam writes very well, reminding me a little of Alistair Cooke, with an ear for a well-turned phrase, editorialising little and gently, dropping nuggets of wisdom throughout the book. This could easily have been a rambling marathon; at over 500 pages, it charts the lives and times of the major players in American Government and military circles in the 90's. That your attention is held throughout and you are not only engaged with the characters but are able to see the threads running between them is due to the deftness of the writing. Halberstam develops his themes without ever boring you with them. This isn't Tolstoy, but the scale and nature of the project is similar - it is no dry history.

Many European readers, particularly from the Left, will wonder where the critique of corporate influence on American foreign policy is. In truth Halberstam focuses on conflicts where the US had no or very little economic interest – Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo. What unfolds is a fascinating account of a country coming to terms with being the only superpower, in a world where the major issue was probably not going to be armed conflict between states, but terrorism and genocide in the developing world.

Halberstam possibly overplays the ghost of Vietnam slightly – his account of Holbrooke and Lake (two senior members of the Clinton administration) offers more detail of their early careers and experiences of that conflict than I personally cared for, but this is only a minor criticism of a fascinating and highly informative book.

If you are interested at all in US culture and politics, this book will repay your efforts.

This book is Halberstam's study of leadership failure: in the Post-Cold War world older, he argues, Bush and then Clinton did not want to pay attention to the disintegration of Yugoslavia until it reached murderous proportions; instead they let the overly confident Europeans of the early 1990s dawdle. According to Halberstam, not only were there new (untested, i.e. risky) technologies available ' precision bombs and the B-2 stealth aircraft that could quickly take out the infrastructure with virtually no collateral civilian damage ' but there was a new crop of remarkable young leaders who were willing, indeed who felt personally compelled, to take the task on and were not allowed to do so. Furthermore, the author claims, there was a crusty layer of (often mediocre) leadership below Bush and Clinton, who were wary of entering a new Vietnam (or Somalia), throwing up political barriers and misleading them as to America's strengths.
I was astonished at Halberstam's descriptions of the technological advances that had taken place and how Pentagon doctrine had tended to lag far behind: we can, he says, now deliver powerful explosive devices within a few feet (!) of their targets, a gain in accuracy over earlier bombs that surpasses several orders of magnitude. After many doubts and false claims, apparently we are entering the era of 'smart bombs' and Halberstam dissects the debates they engender at the top levels of the military. This is very powerful stuff and will change our lives.
According to Halberstam, the younger leaders, in particular the diplomat Richard Holbrooke and the army commander Wes Clark, had unusual skills and phenomenal brainpower. They were interesting and very difficult characters ' Holbrooke an arrogant, pushy type with too many enemies and Clarke your prototypical Rhodes Scholar super-preppie ' who in the end were able to accomplish a great deal, though only after the political fallout of the disaster had become so great that Clinton finally recognized the necessity of action. As they pursued their policies, both of them set fundamentally important precedents: Holbrooke helped to expand the role of the US beyond the Weinberger doctrine, according to which only vital threats to the US alone called for serious diplomatico-military commitments; he also negotiated the Dayton accords and helped to bring Milosevic down after the Kosovo bombing destroyed his political base in Serbia. Under extremely challenging political pressures, Halberstam writes, Clarke's operation was a turning point in the history of warfare, that is, a victory with airpower alone, which ranks with the introduction of tank warfare as a revolution in military strategy. Clarke and Holbrooke changed forever the way the US could wage war as well as demonstrated what types of diplomacy were possible.

As Halberstam points out a bit pedantically, lessons would include: lack of clear leadership can hinder talented teams from coming together. Not only are goals undefined, but people cannot gain the mandate and clout to oppose the hidebound bureaucrats who failed to recognize radically changed conditions in the Post Cold War era. However, Halberstam relates, once Clinton paid attention and accepted the risks involved as unavoidable, Holbrooke, Clarke and others were allowed to do their thing with extraordinary results. After it was all over, the author notes, bitter Pentagon bureaucrats took their revenge on Clark, getting him fired by subterfuge and ending a remarkable career prematurely. Halberstam goes into fascinating detail on the politics and clashing cultures of the US military and civilian leaders, both of whom regard eachother warily for many legitimate reasons.

Halberstam also goes into great detail about the situations in Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Haiti. While I had seen the breakup of Yugoslavia as inevitable and full of such deep hatreds that none of the actors came out clean, Halberstam argues that the Serbians were indeed the worst aggressors and needed to be stopped before perpetrating the worst genocide in Europe since WWII. Here, the reader is treated to the depth of his moral qualms as well as his penetrating questions about what America should do with its preeminent power. This is not a simple repeat of his Vietnam questions on the inevitability of local revolution, but a far more mature look at a different world, in which the US is the undisputed superpower yet reluctant to use its might. It leaves readers with many questions to resolve on their own, which is one of the most fruitful things that a great political book can accomplish.

One of the marvels of Halberstam's reporting talent is that the reader sees policymakers and warriors as real people who are making decisions as best they can and within the limits of their education and outlook. It is too easy for us to ignore that there are many possible courses of action and many ways that things can turn out. As a close reader of the political scene, Halberstam's view is consistently trustworthy in my opinion. He seems to me to have a perfect pitch regarding politics, at least in the many areas I followed closely: I found myself agreeing with his slant on things and hence believing him when he reported on the things I knew less about. It is an ideal book to start a debate rather than the simplistic ideological diatribes that we have come to expect from the so-called pundits. While this book does not develop the narrative momentum and eloquence that Best and the Brightest does, the author still sets the highest standard for political reporting, an example to which all writers should aspire. He is, simply, one of the best.

A must-read for anyone interested in foreign policy.

Very pleaded with its good binding. Pages are intact and easy to write on - sorry, my bad reading habit never fades away.