My Short Reading List - Foreign Policy

As you might have guessed, I am a bibliophile.  I collect not only physical books but also lists of them: favorite books of various genres, books I recommend, books I'd like to read.  At one point my Amazon Wish List fulfilled this last function.  In some sense it still does.  But over the last several years this Amazon list has grown far faster than I could possibly keep up with.  It has been subdivided into various daughter lists, each of which now grows at a similarly impossible pace.  It is no longer primarily a collection of titles I would like to own or even read any time soon; rather, it is home to various titles I would like to remember for various reasons, mostly because they come strongly recommended by authorities I trust (though, admittedly, often very diverse authorities).

Hoping that perhaps others could make use of this conglomeration, even if I can do so only rarely, I have decided to share these lists here, for your perusing pleasure, in several installments, beginning with foreign policy.  I think you'll find them a far-flung bunch.  Perhaps you'll see something of interest to you and pick it up.  If you do, please, let me know what you thought.  And if you've already read some of these titles, likewise, please, share a short review.


Military History, pre-1900.  So vast is my interest in military history that I eventually had to bifurcate it.  This list runs the gammut from the ancient world, through the medieval period, all the way to the likes of the American Civil War.  It includes Michael Decker's The Byzantine Art of War, William Dalrymple's Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42, Robert Tonsetic's Special Operations in the American Revolution, and others.

Military History, 1900-present.  This list is my natural intellectual home.  My dissertation on the origins of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) included discussions of conflicts in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia in the four decades preceding the Second World War and how lessons from those conflicts were applied by the Allies.  This list covers similar ground.  It's heavy on the Second World War and the British Empire in the 20th century (yes, including decolonization).  It includes a look at the Polish-Soviet War, studies of the role of the US Navy in the Allied Intervention against the Bolsheviks and on the Yangtze in the 1930s, several works on Japan and its war in China, and a history of the Stauffenberg family, one member of which tried to assassinate Hitler (about whom I have written).  Other intriguing reads on this list include David French's The British Way of Counter-Insurgency and an account of Karen rebels in Burma (for whom I have a soft spot).  The list also includes works on the Global War on Terror.

Diplomacy & International Affairs.  This list includes theoretical works (such as The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security), books on historical case studies (including Foreign Affairs and the Founding Fathers and The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Treaty of Berlin), and biographies of both American and foreign statesmen (among them Castlereagh, T. E. Lawrence, and the little-known Frank McCoy).  You'll see that, among other topics, I'm intrigued by Southeast Asia.

Intelligence.  Much of this list's potential material is covered in the above categories, but it includes a few intriguing titles, some critical (e.g. The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture), some historical (The Archaeologist Was a Spy), others decidedly non-Western (Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere).

America's Place in the World - Learning from History

Andrew Bacevich gave the 2012 George C. Marshall Lecture in Military History, and as one would expect from Bacevich, it was scathing, insightful, and a joy to read.

I would strongly recommend you simply click on the link above and read his comments, titled "The Revisionist Imperative: Rethinking Twentieth Century Wars." They are well worth the time. But for the sake of the discussion here, let me give the very brief summary: Bacevich argues that the US drew the wrong lessons from the 20th century because we look at the wrong bit of history. We focus major attention on the Second World War, and conclude that massive applications of American military power can defeat tyranny and restore justice. While Bacevich quibbles somewhat with this interpretation of World War II, his larger argument is that we forget lots of history which teaches different lessons.

I'd like to suggest that greater knowledge of the period prior to America's entry into the war might lend lessons which better suit the present day. America had only a limited presence in the wider world, much of it characterized by businessmen, journalists, and diplomats. Our power was far short of omnipotent. What could we do in Manchuria or Sudetenland? Very little.

This situation is well attested in that most popular of media: Hollywood. Think of Rick in Casablanca or, more recently, Mr. Jackson in The White Countess. From watching films such as these - rather than The Sands of Iwo Jima or the like - one learns that Americans are in constant danger of being overwhelmed by the complexity of foreign locales and the pace of events that happen there. Our American protagonists are not powerless to effect change, but their power is considerably circumscribed by events beyond their control. Moreover, men like Rick and Mr. Jackson bring about change only rarely through the power of the gun; more often their American dollars or their intimate knowledge of local cultures and politics carried the day.

A foreign policy based on this set of historical memories - rather than on the Second World War - would not simply retreat from the world, but would choose its battles wisely. It would not abolish the use of military force, but rather than seeking to build fleets of aircraft, it would focus on diplomacy, intelligence, and the application of soft power, particularly through NGOs and businesses. It strikes me as precisely the kind of foreign policy the present age demands.