An expert looks at the interconnected foreign policies of the United States, Europe, and Turkey in 2019.
With opinion pieces published in the New York Times and articles featured in leading academic journals, in addition to her diplomatic career at the United Nations, Cherneva has established herself as a leading voice of a new generation of foreign relations experts. In this book, she eschews a traditional analysis of bilateral diplomacy and instead looks at the myriad calculations made by U.S. President Donald Trump, European leaders, and Turkish officials in 2019 and early 2020. Trump astonished the world, including fellow Republicans, in 2019 when he allowed Turkey to enter Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria that was previously protected by American troops. This reversal of nearly a half-century of U.S. support for the Kurds presaged a new era of international relations in the Near East. Moreover, Trump’s 2019 impeachment proceedings released private telephone calls and other materials related to the administration’s relationship with Ukraine that signaled to Europe the president’s foreign policy priorities. Now, more than ever, many European leaders understood that they “first need to appeal to the US President’s private business or political interests before they can get on the US foreign policy agenda.” Moreover, given Britain’s internal preoccupation with Brexit and Trump’s “hostility” to the European Union, Cherneva argues that French President Emmanuel Macron used the chaos of 2019 to his personal advantage in his quest to become the most powerful figure in Europe. Though she is an open supporter of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and a critic of Turkey’s political regime, the author’s analysis is that of a skilled diplomat. Her study of the past year is nuanced and fair to all sides even when critical. The book also features an intriguing case study of the interconnection of human rights and global trade in her appraisal of German opposition to a proposed Volkswagen plant in Turkey. More historical context would have been helpful for general readers. But experts will gladly welcome Cherneva’s insights into an unprecedented year in international diplomacy.
A thorough, illuminating overview of major geopolitical shifts in 2019 involving America, Europe, and Turkey.Pub Date: Feb. 29, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS | U.S. GOVERNMENT | PUBLIC POLICY | POLITICS
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Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."
Pub Date: June 18, 1974
ISBN: 0671894412
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974
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A cleareyed, concise look at current and future affairs offering pertinent points to reflect and debate.
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Examining issues both obvious and subtler, Zakaria sets out how and why the world has changed forever. The speed with which the Covid-19 virus spread around the world was shocking, and the fallout has been staggering. In fact, writes the author, “it may well turn out that this viral speck will cause the greatest economic, political, and social damage to humankind since World War II.” The U.S., in particular, was exposed as woefully unprepared, as government leadership failed to deliver a clear, practical message, and the nation’s vaunted medical institutions were caught flat-footed: "Before the pandemic…Americans might have taken solace in the country’s great research facilities or the huge amounts of money spent on health care, while forgetting about the waste, complexity and deeply unequal access that mark it as well." While American leaders wasted months denying the seriousness of Covid-19 and ignoring the advice of medical experts, other countries—e.g., South Korea, New Zealand, and Taiwan—acted swiftly and decisively, underscoring one of the author's main themes and second lesson: "What matters is not the quantity of government but the quality.” Discussing how “markets are not enough,” the author astutely shoots down the myth that throwing money at the problem can fix the situation; as such, he predicts a swing toward more socialist-friendly policies. Zakaria also delves into the significance of the digital economy, the resilience of cities (see the success of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei in suppressing the virus), the deepening of economic inequality around the world, how the pandemic has exacerbated the rift between China and the U.S. (and will continue to do so), and why “people should listen to the experts—and experts should listen to the people."
A cleareyed, concise look at current and future affairs offering pertinent points to reflect and debate.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-393-54213-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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