".. they do power projection."...Colonel Bacevich.

http://www.amazon.com/Limits-Power-End-American-Exceptionalism/dp/0805088156

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
by Colonel Andrew Bacevich

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Review:
Cliche or not, this is a "Must Read" book, August 15, 2008
By David R. Cook "Dave Cook"

This is the bluntest, toughest, most scathing critique of American
imperialism as it has become totally unmoored after the demise of the
Soviet Communist empire and taken to a new level by the Bush
administration. Even the brevity of this book - 182 pages - gives it a
particular wallop since every page "concentrates the mind".

In the event a reader knows of the prophetic work of the American
theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, you will further appreciate this book.
Bacevich is a Niebuhr scholar and this book essentially channels
Niebuhr's prophetic warnings from his 1952 book, "The Irony of
American History". The latter has just been reissued by University of
Chicago Press thanks to Andrew Bacevich who also contributed an
introduction.

In essence, American idealism as particularly reflected in Bush's
illusory goal to "rid the world of evil" and to bring freedom and
democracy to the Middle East or wherever people are being tyrannized,
is doomed to failure by the tides of history. Niebuhr warned against
this and Bacevich updates the history from the Cold War to the
present. Now our problems have reached crisis proportions and Bacevich
focuses on the three essential elements of the crisis: American
profligacy; the political debasing of government; and the crisis in
the military.

What renders Bacevich's critique particularly stinging, aside from the
historical context he gives it (Bush has simply taken an enduring
American exceptionalism to a new level), is that he lays these
problems on the doorstep of American citizens. It is we who have
elected the governments that have driven us toward near collapse. It
is we who have participated willingly in the consumption frenzy in
which both individual citizens and the government live beyond their
means. Credit card debt is undermining both government and citizenry.

This pathway is unsustainable and this book serves up a direct and
meaningful warning to this effect. Niebuhrian "realism" sees through
the illusions that fuel our own individual behavior and that of our
government. There are limits to American power and limits to our own
individual living standards and, of course, there are limits to what
the globe can sustain as is becoming evident from climate changes.

American exceptionalism is coming to an end and it will be painful for
both individual citizens and our democracy and government to get
beyond it. But we have no choice. Things will get worse before they
get better. Bacevich suggests some of the basic ways that we need to
go to reverse the path to folly. He holds out no illusions that one
political party or the other, one presidential candidate or the other,
has the will or the leadership qualities to change directions. It is
up to American citizens to demand different policies as well as to
govern our own appetites.

While this is a sobering book, it is not warning of doomsday. Our
worst problems are essentially of our own making and we can begin to
unmake them. But we first have to come to terms with our own
exceptionalism. We cannot manage history and there are no real global
problems that can be solved by military means, or certainly not by
military means alone.

Fellow citizen, you need to read this book!