A pragmatic and prescriptive critique that details what the US can do over the next dozen years to ensure peace, prosperity, and related blessings in the 21st century. Glasnost notwithstanding, former President Nixon (who misses few chances to remind readers of his wide acquaintanceship among world leaders past and present) harbors few illusions about the adversarial nature of relations between the US and the USSR. Within this persistently parlous context, he offers Washington a comprehensive, activist agenda for dealing—and competing with the Kremlin. Its cardinal points include: strengthening NATO; encouraging Japan to play a larger role on the global stage; fostering mainland China's economic development; and "showing the way" to so-called Third World countries. America, the author warns, call flinch from its mortal rivalry and yield to the lure of nco-isolationism only at the risk of making the world unsafe for flee nations. Nixon also counsels distinguishing vital national interests from peripheral concerns and defining foreign-policy objectives so that appropriately measured responses may be made to crises. Without shying from big-stick persuasion, he advises future Chief Executives to speak softly, tempering inflammatory Cold War rhetoric (which makes allies fear US recklessness rather than doubt Soviet intentions) and foregoing crowd-pleasing sentiments like "eliminating nuclear weapons from the face of the earth" that confuse public debate or raise unrealistic hopes. At the same time, Nixon points out that a reduction in tensions between the superpowers need not lessen vigilance; indeed, he asserts, dÉtente must be coupled with deterrence at the conventional-forces as well as nuclear level. On the political front, Nixon argues that genuinely creative initiatives must originate in the White House, because the bureaucracies—Defense, State, et al.—invariably rely on "standard school solution [s]." In like vein, he charges that diplomats "have a pervasive tendency to negotiate with themselves on behalf of the Soviets," i.e., by rejecting hard-line options as unacceptable to the Russians before talks begin. In the event, Nixon cautions, the goal of bargaining on any issue—arms control or otherwise—is security, not a treaty. A geopolitical briefing that's as worldly-wise as it is provocative and instructive.
Pub Date: April 29, 1988
ISBN: 0671678345
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1988
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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