Internatinal Affairs

Book reviews
International Relations theory

Realism and world politics. Edited by Ken Booth. London and New York: Routledge.
2011. 346pp. Index. 100.00. isbn 978 0 41557 057 2.
This book brings together 18 essays previously published in two special issues of the journal
International Relations in 2009. Most originated as papers for a conference held at Aberys-
twyth University to honour the work of Kenneth Waltz and to celebrate both the 50th
anniversary of the publication of Man, the state and war (Columbia University Press, 1959)
and the 30th of Theory of international politics (McGraw Hill, 1979). The contributors range
from sympathizers to staunch critics, but together they offer an exhaustive and engaging
examination of Waltzs contribution to the field as well as of other Realist ideas.
Ken Booth divides the book into five main sections. The first, comprising essays by Daniel
Deudney, Michael Foley and Michael C. Williams, seeks to locate Waltzs thought in the
broader contexts of political and international theory. The second includes four chapters
on aspects of structural Realism by Ole Waever, Nicholas Onuf, Georg Srensen and John
Mearsheimer, and the third concentrates on theories of human nature, with pieces by Chris
Brown, Neta Crawford and Jean Bethke Elshtain. The fourth and fifth parts examine issues
of international security and international order respectively, with contributions from
Hidemi Suganami, Richard Ned Lebow and Benjamin Valentino, Cornelia Beyer, Nicholas
Wheeler, Ian Clark, Barry Buzan and Richard Little, and Andrew Linklater. What the
book most obviously lacks, however, is something substantial by Waltz himself, who lends
only a short foreword to the collection.
The contributors are on the whole critics of structural Realism and partly as a conse-
quence, the degree of their engagement with Waltzs work varies. Somelike Deudney,
Mearsheimer, Crawford, Elshtain, Wheeler, Clark, Buzan and Little, and Linklateruse
elements of Waltzs thought as starting-points for the restatement or development of their
own arguments. Thus Deudney begins with the anarchy problmatique and opens into a
discussion of his own anarchy-interdependence problmatique that will be very familiar
to readers of his Bounding power (Princeton University Press, 2006). In much the same
way, Mearsheimer recalls the reasons for his dissatisfaction with defensive Realism and
the origins of his own offensive theory, while Wheeler puts again his rebuttal to Waltzs
classic argument about nuclear proliferation, More may be better (1981).
Other chapters aim to deconstruct Waltzs thinking and its place in postwar American
thought on international relations or to reappraise aspects of his theory. Foley tries to
tease out what he thinks are the liberal underpinnings, Williams aims to recover the Cold
War politics of Waltzs theory, while Brown traces the evolution of his treatment of the
vexed topic of human nature. By contrast, Waever, Onuf and Suganami concentrate on
the theoretical rather than historical. While Waever attempts to get to grips with precisely
International Affairs 87: 3 (2011) 717762

2011 The Author(s). International Affairs 2011 The Royal Institute of International Affairs. Published by Blackwell
Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford ox4 2dq, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Book reviews
what Waltz meant by theory, Onuf embarks on a similar quest for the structure in struc-
tural Realism. Suganami, for his part, concerns himself with a series of smaller, though not
insignificant, problems he perceives in Man, the state and war.
This book has no clear message, but it does have implications. The various contributors
all suggest that Waltzs workespecially Theory of international politicsis inescapable, but
their contributions all demonstrate the extent to which international theory has in fact
broken the bonds of structural Realism. One essayLebow and Valentinos analysis of
power transition theorybarely mentions Waltz at all, and certainly none of the theoret-
ical precepts for which he is best known figure in their argument. The field, in other words,
has moved on and Waltzs work, despite its virtues, has been largely left behind.
This is not an ideal book for those wanting an introduction to Waltzs theory or indeed
even to Realism more generally. For those, students should stick with Waltz himself
and Robert Keohanes edited Neorealism and its critics (Columbia University Press, 1986).
Beside the quality of the contributors and their essays, which is generally very high, the
overarching virtue of this book is rather the evidence it presents for the sheer messiness of
contemporary international theory.
In his conclusion, Booth makes the case for giving the discipline of International
Relations (IR) an architectonic role in the social sciences, systematizing and directing
other fields. Cinderella, he implies, needs to be recast as the biggest of the ugly sisters,
alongside economics, sociology and political science. Booth thinks this should happen
because IR has within its purview the most pressing problems faced by humanity. But how
will this happen? As this book shows, IR remains a messy magpie discipline, picking up its
major ideas and concepts from othersas Waltz himself did from political philosophy and
then from economics. Without a capacity to generate novel theory in its own right or to
resolve the gulfs that divide the major schools of thought, it is hard to see how IR could
ever play the role that Booth envisages.
Ian Hall, Griffith University, Australia
Worlds in transition: evolving governance across a stressed planet. By Joseph A.

Camilleri and Jim Falk. Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. 2009. 682pp.
Index. 40.00. isbn 978 1 84980 034 1.
It is being increasingly observed that theories of world politics have been unnecessarily held
up by two factors: first, a Euro-centric bias brought about by the influence of European
intellectual traditions on International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline; and second,
a somewhat limited engagement with world history, in which the last three to four centu-
ries have been taken as the only laboratory available to analysts. This book is nothing else
if not an admirable attempt to address this second weakness. Joseph Camilleri and Jim Falk
choose to take the long view by setting their study of governance against the backdrop of
2,000 years of evolutionary history.
The books methodological approach resonates with some recent developments in the
IR literature, while not being altogether conscious of this (at least not explicitly). The
book follows Barry Buzan in applying a sectoral approach to the study of systemic politics,
but follows Alexander Wendts recent work in bringing the constituent parts together in
what is described as holoreflexive analysis. Large-scale trends in governance are mapped
in five sectors: economy, environment, health, information and security. In particular, the
concept of flows (economic, environmental, military, etc.) is used to describe an increasing
complexity in international life as well as a higher degree of social reflexivity in the
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Copyright 2011 The Author(s). International Affairs 2011 The Royal Institute of International Affairs.
International Relations theory
a rrangements created to govern these flows. A number of trends are identified which the
authors argue point to the emergence of a horoflexive epochthat which is characterized
by a temporal and spatial frame of reference that can more effectively monitor and diagnos-
tically integrate the rising volume, speed and intensity of flows (p. 537).
Importantly though, Camilleri and Falk argue that there is nothing preordained or
natural about the emergence of appropriate governance structures for the horoflexive
epoch. Increasing complexity and interdependence are not enough and this is where the
backdrop of human evolution comes into play in the analysis. In the discussion of human
evolution, the authors stress the extraordinary possibilities opened up by high levels of
human agility and ingenuity and significant cultural variation (p. 113) alongside genetic
endowment. In other words, the emerging epoch requires more than just holistic under-
standing of flows across space and time but also horoflexive capacities (p. 537) that will
allow humanity to adapt to the limits of the modern epoch, be they environmental,
economic or even what the authors describe in detail as the limits to empire (pp. 28790).
As is hinted at in the title, Camilleri and Falk are at pains to emphasize that what we are
currently witnessing is not a simple transition from one epoch to the next, but a complex
layering of forms of governance over time. These are governing arrangements based on
different norms, imperatives and modes of operation that therefore exist concurrently, not
sequentially. While a more definitive and bombastic pronouncement of out with the old,
in with the new would probably have generated more book sales, the nuanced and complex
analysis would surely have suffered for it.
With a few notable exceptions such as Richard Ned Lebows A cultural theory of Interna-
tional Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2008) or Philip Bobbitts The shield of Achilles
(Allen Lane, 2002), of late scholars of world politics have tended to shy away from grand
theorizing and sweeping historical narratives. This is an unsurprising by-product of the
constant push towards specialization within the discipline, in which theories are neatly
divided into competing isms (often resulting in inward-looking meta-theorization), and
where empirical studies in specific sub-fields such as security, environment or economics
(competing with the ever-growing production of policy analysis from think-tanks and
consultancies) are more concerned with policy relevance and predicting the immediate
future than dealing with macro-landscapes and historical trends. Thankfully, Worlds in
transition is an antidote to such immediacy and parochialism. Of course the sheer length
and density of the book may put off some would-be readers, so there are costs associated
with its depth and range. Also, those searching for parsimonious off-the-shelf theoretical
models to apply to other areas of human activity will be disappointed. This is instead an
in-depth study of the evolution of governance, which offers many insights and will no
doubt reward repeat readers.
If Camilleri and Falk are correct, and over the course of the last six or more decades
we have seen the unfolding of a radical transition as momentous in its significance and
possible ramifications for governance as many of the preceding transitions in human evolu-
tion (pp. 23), then this study, while hardly being the final word, will truly be a text for
its times. At the very least, it is an impressively ambitious piece of historical analysis for
an age in which human governance faces both unprecedented challenges and demands and
is worthy of engagement by policy-makers (or those at the coalface of governance) and
scholars alike.
Benjamin Zala, University of Birmingham, UK
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Book reviews
International law, human rights and ethics

The handbook of the international law of military operations. Edited by Terry D.
Gill and Dieter Fleck. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2010. 688pp. Index. 95.00. isbn
978 0 19954 589 6.
The present volume constitutes the third instalment in a series of handbooks (co-)edited
by Dieter Fleck and published by Oxford University Press. The first of these works, The
handbook of international humanitarian law (second edition 2008), addresses the law applicable
to international and non-international armed conflicts, while the second, The handbook of
the law of visiting forces (2001), deals with the legal issues raised by the deployment of armed
forces abroad with the consent of the territorial sovereign. This latest handbook adopts a
perspective that is somewhere in between those taken by its companion volumes, focusing
on the rules of international law applicable to military operations conducted in times of
either peace or war. The rules of international law governing such military operations
derive from a multitude of sources from both general international law and specific legal
regimes, including the law governing the use of force, international humanitarian law and
international human rights law. The main purpose of this handbook is to provide a compre-
hensive overview of these different rules and to bring them together in a single text for the
first time. As such, some overlaps between the present handbook and the other two volumes
are to be expected.
Like its predecessors, the handbook is written in the style of a commentary: its 32
chapters first set out the basic rules in bold (what the editors call the black letter rules) and
then provide detailed commentaries on those rules. This style reflects the dual purpose of
the handbook, first, as a training tool and comprehensive guide intended for practitioners
involved in the conduct of international military operations, and, second, as a reference
work for scholars and students working in this area from a safer distance. This format and
dual purpose imposes certain constraints. In particular, when confronted with controver-
sies relating to the applicable law, the editors have decided, as a matter of editorial policy,
to favour clarity and usability over extended doctrinal discussions. There can be no doubt
that the readability and ease of use of the handbook owe much to this decision. However,
since operational law is at its most fascinatingcertainly from an academic but most likely
also from a professional point of viewprecisely at the point where legal certainty gives
way to ambiguity and unpredictability, this policy might leave neither the scholar nor the
practitioner completely satisfied in their search for enlightenment on particular legal diffi-
culties. The more liberal use of footnotes to offer further guidance to the reader may have
offered a partial remedy, if not a perfect solution, to this problem.
Despite its aim to offer a comprehensive overview of the subject, it is not easy to gain a
coherent sense of the international law of military operations by reading the handbook. The
fault for this lies primarily with the subject matter rather than with the authors and editors:
the international law applicable to military operations is thoroughly fragmented, deriving
as it does from a multitude of separate legal sources and regimes. However, this fragmented
nature of the applicable law does raise an underlying question, namely whether it is in
fact appropriate for the handbook to describe the international law of military operations
as a distinct branch of international law. To substantiate this claim, the handbook could
have attempted to situate this new or emerging branch of international law within the
context of the international legal order; to explain what its core principles and processes
are; to provide a systematic account of its different areas of application; and to investigate
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International organization and foreign policy
the relationship between the different legal regimes feeding it in general terms rather than
focusing primarily on the relationship between international humanitarian law and inter-
national human rights law. The handbook provides some partial answers to these questions,
but with its emphasis on serving the professional needs of military lawyers and other practi-
tioners, it does not attempt to advance a general theory of international operational law.
From its pages, the international law of military operations thus appears more like a distinct
field of international legal practice, the world of international law as seen through the eyes
of military legal advisers, rather than as a distinct branch of international law.
That said, it would be wrong to chide the handbook for not being a monograph. In
fact, whether or not international operational law is a distinct branch of international law,
it is certainly a topic that merits detailed study, and this work does an admirable job of
providing authoritative guidance on some of the most pressing problems of international
military operations. As such, the handbook deserves to be widely read and consulted as an
indispensable reference work by scholars and practitioners working or interested in this
field.
Aurel Sari, University of Exeter, UK
International organization and foreign policy

Latin America facing China: SouthSouth relations beyond the Washington
Consensus. Edited by Alex E. Fernndez Jilberto and Barbara Hogenboom. New
York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. 2010. 201pp. 44.00. isbn 978 1 84545 739 6.
Conceptualizing and explaining Chinas riseand particularly Beijings hunger for raw
materials and resourceshas exercised academics and policy-makers for some time. Inter-
estingly, to date the vast majority of observers have focused on Chinas growing economic
and political involvement in sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to ever-tightening relations
between Beijing and its regional neighbours in East Asia. Chinas emergence as an important
actor in Latin America has attracted relatively little scholarly attention. This is surprising
given the substantial intensification of ChineseLatin American interaction especially since
November 2004, when Chinese President Hu Jintaos first tour of Latin America marked
the beginning of a new phase in Beijings relationship with the western hemisphere.
Latin America facing China fills a significant gap in the existing discourse by providing
a comprehensive analysis of a crucial structural feature of SouthSouth relations. Alex
Fernndez Jilberto (who sadly passed away shortly before the book was published) and
Barbara Hogenboom have put together insightful chapters on the bilateral relations
between individual Latin American states and China, written by knowledgeable specialists,
to produce one of the best books yet in its field.
As the title suggests, the work follows a distinct Latin American perspective: it tries
to assess the important effects of Chinas global economic expansion and its new polit-
ical role in Latin Americas development (p. 2) mainly from the strategic viewpoint of
Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Central America, rather than
taking Chinas global interests as the starting point. This constitutes a welcome new angle
in the debate on Chinas rise, as most existing studies elaborate predominantly on Beijings
presumed interests and strategies of power projection. Crucially, the book counters the
myth that the patterns between China and Latin America are almost a classic textbook
illustration of trade between developing and industrialized regions, in which Latin America
strengthens its specialization in primary products and process resources while China does
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Book reviews
the reverse (p. 20). As some of the case-studies show, Chinese and Latin American strategic
interests often meet. For example, Henrique Altemani de Oliveira outlines the strategic
partnership between Brazil and China in the field of scientific and technological coopera-
tion in order to break the monopoly held by developed nations and cooperation in the
political-strategic field in order to develop joint strategies in international forums (p. 42).
The latter observation is also confirmed for Argentina. According to Carla V. Olivia, in the
UN context, Argentina and China share positions regarding key matters on both countries
foreign agendas (p. 112).
While the books comprehensive and empirically sound analysis tilts towards economic
relations (based on a rich presentation of valuable data), it nevertheless follows a holistic
approach that includes a thorough presentation of historical and political variables in
ChinaLatin America relations. Gabriel Aguilera Peraltas chapter on Central America
between the two dragons is particularly useful in this regard as it delves into the fierce
diplomatic competition between Beijing and Taipei and the difficult decisions that the states
of the sub-region face in choosing between the two powers.
If the volume has any shortcomings, it is the limited analysis of how Chinas increasing
status in Latin America impacts on the role of the United States. This aspect is not neglected
but, given Washingtons hegemonic status in the western hemisphere, a more thorough
discussion would have been helpfulalso so as to strengthen one of the central arguments
that Jilberto and Hogenboom try to put forward: As a result of many leftist governments
in Latin America, an interesting pragmatic convergence with China has come about: the
state is granted an important role in the economy (again) China and Latin America have
both been moving in the direction of a development model in which there is reconciliation
of state and market (p. 191). Have China and Latin America become natural bed-fellows?
Do Latin American governments even play the China card to hedge against Washington?
No matter how much Chinas influence has grown, its role is still dwarfed by the United
States. USLatin America trade is currently roughly ten times larger than ChineseLatin
America trade, and US foreign direct investment in Latin America exceeds Chinas FDI by
more than 3,000 per cent.
Jrn Dosch, University of Leeds, UK
Conflict, security and defence

Why nations fight: past and future motives for war. By Richard Ned Lebow.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010. 295pp. Index. 18.99. isbn 978 0 52117 045 1.
Why nations fight is part of a refreshingly ambitious project of the American scholar Richard
Ned Lebow. It started with the publication in 2003 of The tragic vision of politics: ethics, inter-
ests and orders (Cambridge University Press), the first part of an extensive trilogy, in which
Lebow poses the question of whether or not ethical policies can maintain national security.
The tragic vision also elaborates on an alternative ontology for the social sciences, which
subsequently formed the basis of the second, even more wide-ranging volume, A cultural
theory of International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Lebow plans to complete
his trilogy with a volume containing a full-blown theory of political order based on A
cultural theory and two additional studies. One of those studies is on the concept of identity
(In search of ourselves, forthcoming in 2012) and the other one is the book under review. Why
nations fight goes in search of motives for war initiation, for which Lebow has drawn up a
dataset containing all wars since 1648 involving at least one or more great or rising powers
722
(p. 97). The first war in this set is the Franco-Spanish waralready under way in 1648and
the last one is the Russian invasion of South Ossetia in 2008. Lebow stresses the fact that
these 94 wars will not be used for correlational analyses and describes his set as an indirect
historical poll (p. 104). Lebow also reviews the most prominent war theoriesdifferent
strands of Realism, power transition theory, Marxism and various rationalist theories
from his constructivist vantage point and finds them wanting. His six propositions that
challenge various predictions of these war theories are substantiated by his findings from
the dataset. Lebow approaches the war problem from a totally different angle by focusing on
motives of the war initiators. He thereby avoids the nomothetic cul-de-sac in which many
war theories and paradigms seem to be permanently stuck, and at the same time provides
a promising innovation from which these theories may even benefit. Lebow, following in
the footsteps of the Greeks, derives the motives from his contention, originally developed
in A cultural theory, that appetite, spirit and reason are essential human drives. The spirit
is linked to the quest for self-esteem which generates war-initiating motives like honour,
standing and revenge. Together these motives account for 68 per cent of the 109 motives
which Lebow has detected in the 94 wars (standing 58 per cent, revenge 10 per cent).
Appetite, often aimed at pleasure and material well-being, produces the interest motive.
Realists expect this, together with security, to be the dominant motive for war initiation.
However, interest and security together only make up 25 per cent of all the motives in the
dataset (security 18 per cent, interest 7 per cent). Lebow though, does not link security to
appetite but to fear, not in itself a fundamental human drive but an emotion. This leads to
some minor conceptual confusion in the book as it is not clear whether fear and security
are interchangeable as motives. Appetite and spirit sometimes also appear as motives (table
3.1, p. 86).
The focus on motives opens new perspectives on the extraordinary complexities of
analysing trends in warfare. Lebow even tackles the future of war in the second part of
Why nations fight. He admits this amounts to the reading of tea leaves because of three
contradictory trends in modern-era warfare: a decline in the overall frequency of war, an
increase in its lethality and a steady growth of anti-war sentiment (p. 141). Lebow bravely
does the splits as he engages the prospects for future war from a non-reductionist perspec-
tive while maintaining an admirable level of historical sensitivity. Lebow agrees with Hans
Morgenthau that the moral qualities of leaders are much more important when it comes
to the preservation of peace than the balance of power (p. 223). It is therefore essential that
the supposed analytical minefield of motives should not be left alone. Lebow has shown us
how and his analysis has already resulted in a more complex understanding of the issue of
war. May many follow in his footsteps.
Richard t Hart, Leiden University Campus The Hague, The Netherlands
On art and war and terror. By Alex Danchev. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
2009. 256pp. 65.00. isbn 978 0 74863 915 1.
A central theme of these essays is that the arts offer truths and even redress on the subject
of war that more traditional forms of discourse cannot achieve. Ironically, however,
the book gains its power not from its photographs, paintings, poems or invocations of
Montaigne, Kafka and other literary explorers of the human condition, but from the force
of its authors sympathy and indignation, conveyed in the classic form of academic analysis.
The ten essaystwo newly written, the rest revisions of earlier versionsvary widely
in subject-matter and approach, yet all are linked by a combined focus on acts of war or
723
Book reviews
terror on the one hand, and, on the other, the artistic or literary expressions associated with
those acts. The expressions may take the form of paintings, photographs, films, diaries,
poems, novels or even the comments of politicians, but in every case Alex Danchevs aim
is to show how the representation of violence, or the response to it, adds another dimen-
sion to our understanding of the events themselves. What is so interesting is that, again and
again, it is his ability to enter into the minds of his subjects, to create a persuasive context,
or to explain why a particular piece of evidence is so compellingrather than the artistic
or literary work itselfthat gives his arguments their cogency.
It is no surprise that, as the author of a major biography of Braque, Danchev should
devote two of his essays to that artist. One of them, on the German Occupation of France,
which draws a sharp contrast between Braque and the collaboration-inclined Vlaminck and
Derain, differs little from a chapter in the biography. But the other, on The guitar player,
is a revelation. Through close study of a changing provenance history, Danchev is able
to demonstrate how the shifting (and often concealed) ownership of a single painting can
cast light on the cultural imperatives of two world wars. It is not just artistic expression, in
other words, but the very physical object the artist produces that can broaden our insights
into war and its effects.
Danchev has few good words for the political leaders of the twentieth century. Even
Churchill suffers, certainly by comparison with Viscount Alanbrooke (whose diaries
Danchev has edited), but the most devastating critiques are levelled at Tony Blair and
George W. Bush and his associates. In all cases, however, it is the medium that is the focus:
diaries for Churchill, photographs (especially of Abu Ghraib) for the others. The argument
is made by dwelling on the nature of narratives: how they are framed, what arc they follow,
and what lessons they teach.
Danchev is equally at home finding meaning in war photographs; elucidating the paint-
ings of Gerhard Richter (though this essay could have been more persuasively illustrated);
or analysing the writings of Liddell Hart and Evelyn Waugh. The latter, in particular,
gains a level of recognition that he rarely receives as a novelist of war. And a study of the
films prompted by the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is yet further evidence of
Danchevs range.
This last essay rightly emphasizes the shortcomings of Charlie Wilsons War, but then
pays tribute to two films which succeeded in evoking the anguish of Iraq. As Danchev makes
clear, In the Valley of Elah and Standard Operating Procedure (the first a feature film, the
second a documentary) make us ponder a familiar history anew. His one reservation about
Elah, that it is what he calls white elephant artnamely, striving to make a statement
seems unfair, considering that Goya is one of his heroes. But Procedure, a film about the
Abu Ghraib photographs, is rightly hailed as an artistic achievement that, like much else in
this book, offers a route to comprehension that formal analysis alone cannot uncover. What
is worth noting, though, is that it is always the penetrating academic investigation, the
explication of the art, that brings the hidden levels of meaning out of the images and words.
There are occasional lapses. Eisenhower defeated Stevenson, not Truman, in 1952.
Authority is sometimes too easily ascribed to a quotation because of the identity of the
author; when identification is offered, it is not always convincing (John le Carr, wise
in the ways of the world); essay titles are quirky and not very helpful; and, inevitably in
a collection of essays, there is some repetition. But these are minor blemishes in a deeply
learned, far-reaching and thought-provoking book.
Theodore K. Rabb, Princeton University, USA
724
The insurgent archipelago: from Mao to Bin Laden. By John Mackinlay. London:
Hurst. 2009. 292pp. Index. Pb.: 20.00. isbn 978 1 84904 013 6.
Counterinsurgency. By David J. Kilcullen. London: Hurst. 2010. 251pp. Index. Pb.:

15.99. isbn 978 1 84904 028 0.
If you start far enough back, reading the literature on insurgency and counterinsurgency
feels a bit like the 1993 film Groundhog Day in which the hero is forced to relive the same
day over and over again. The ideal type of counterinsurgency has been reckoned by the
literature, repeatedly over decades, to encompass certain characteristics: first, coordinated
government machinery; second, focus on defeating insurgent subversion; third, using
minimum force and adhering to the law; fourth, intelligence-led clear and hold opera-
tions; and fifth, seeking success in political settlement.
Disagreements on the finer points and prioritization may arise, but on the basic points
you would struggle to find much disagreement between the above and Charles Gwynns
Imperial policing (Macmillan, 1934), the celebrated US Marine Corps Small wars manual
(1940) or the now famous FM3-24 Counterinsurgency (2006). In short, the insurgency and
counterinsurgency literature tends to be repetitive and the phenomenon which it addresses
is usually treated as static. Even now much of the literature adopts a sort of eternal verities
of COIN approach.
What makes the two scholars under review here so interesting is that they do not. David
Kilcullen and John Mackinlay both attempt to define the problem which we face now in
the form of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates as a form of global insurgency, the operational
method of which they seek to explicate. Most importantly, they share a certain iconoclasm.
They think what we are seeing now is something new and that looking at it in the old
way is therefore problematic. According to Kilcullen, the rise of global insurgency means
traditional counterinsurgency paradigms no longer work: they need to be fundamentally
reappraised (p. 166). In a similar vein, Mackinlay refers to Maoism, by which he means
classical insurgency (i.e., in the pattern of Mao Zedongs successful insurgency in China
and of his Cold War-era successors and emulators), and post-Maoism, by which he means
global insurgency.
Global insurgency, as they describe it, is a popular social movement which feeds on local
grievances, integrating them into broader ideologies and linking disparate conflicts through
globalized communications; its aim is to change the (global) status quo through an admix-
ture of propaganda of the deed, subversion and open warfare; both authors work hard to
delink analytically wider Islamic social movements from terror groups such as Al-Qaeda;
and at the centre of the two analyses is the de-territorialized essence of the phenomenon,
the networked nature of global insurgency, which allows it to act in a concerted manner
despite an apparent lack of structure.
Mackinlays theory is perhaps bolder and more thoroughly developed. He distinguishes
Maoism from post-Maoism across a range of categories. For example: Maoist insurgent
objectives are national, whereas post-Maoist objectives are global; the population involved
in Maoist insurgency is local and singular, whereas the multiple populations involved in
post-Maoist insurgency are dispersed and unmanageable; therefore the centre of gravity in
Maoist insurgency is local, whereas in post-Maoist insurgency it is multiple and possibly
irrelevant; the all-important subversion process in Maoist insurgency is top-down, whereas
in post-Maoist insurgency it is bottom-up; Maoist insurgent organization is vertical and
structured, whereas in post-Maoism it is an unstructured network; and whereas Maoist
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Book reviews
insurgency takes place in a real and territorial context, the post-Maoist variants vital
operational environment is virtual.
His most uncomfortable finding is that we have got contemporary insurgency all wrong
and that has led us into something of a strategic cul-de-sac with respect to the broader war
on terror (pp. 1678). Insurgency is not a static phenomenon; on the contrary, it is evolving
at the same rate of knots as the societies from which it arises. Since the Cold War the
pace of social change has accelerated dramatically, not just in the rich, secure nations of
the northern hemisphere, but also in developing countries as they have become gripped by
global change. Just as the structures of these societies have altered out of all recognition, so
it is possible that an insurgency arising from them can take on unforeseen characteristics.
Furthermore, if the communications revolution has given birth to global communities and
global movements, so too can it herald a form of insurgent energy that is de-territorialized
and globally connected (p. 6).
It is hard to imagine Kilcullen, who has noted publicly his dim view of the strategic
wisdom of invading Iraq, disagreeing with Mackinlay. In fact, as he explained in his
previous book The accidental guerrilla (Hurst, 2009, p. 34), kinetic campaigning in the Muslim
world has tended to have the effect of making more enemies than there were to start with.
However, his latest book, Counterinsurgency, is a less satisfying read. As a collection of
essays, many of which were written before The accidental guerrilla, it lacks the same feel of a
big argument being unfolded; readers familiar with his work will find few new ideas and
some ideas that are less well developed, which is a shame because The accidental guerrilla,
like the best sort of books, provoked a lot of questions which I would have liked to hear
probed further. I found the main contribution of Counterinsurgency to be the expanded and
annotated version of the essay 28 articles: fundamentals of company level counterinsur-
gency. The annotated paper is historically interesting as an illustration of the febrile mood
in the American defence establishment in 20062007 when the US was staring at defeat
in Iraq. The accidental guerrilla made Kilcullens career as counterinsurgency guru; it also
displays what a terrific writer Kilcullen is, with the knack of translating theory into pithy
vernacular, perfect for the company grade officers he was addressing.
Mackinlays Insurgent archipelago is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in the
field; the same is true of Kilcullens The accidental guerrilla. Whether or not one agrees with
their conclusions, they both push hard on the boundaries of knowledge, which is rare in
this field. They are thought-provoking, debate-enhancing and not to be ignored. Counter-
insurgency is a nice to have, but less necessary work.
David Betz, Kings College London, UK
Morality and war: can war be just in the twenty-first century? By David Fisher.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2011. 320pp. Index. 25.00. ISBN 978 0 19959 924 0.
By what right did the United Kingdom become engaged militarily in the crisis in Libya
in early 2011? Was it all about oil or was there a moral component to the decision to
intervene? Was the military campaign fought in an acceptable manner, or did the military
enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 lack discrimination, resulting in a
disproportionate number of casualties among the very peopleunarmed, non-combatant
civiliansthe intervention was designed to protect? In short, was the intervention in Libya
in 2011 a just war?
In Morality and war David Fisher has taken on a subject which receives close attention
in the theological and moral philosophical literature but less than it should in the wider
726
Governance, civil society and cultural politics
debate about security policy and defence strategy. Or rather, the moral debate is too often
assumed to be secondary to, or wholly enclosed within legal arguments about the resort to
war and warfare. And there are some, of course, for whom the moral debate about war is
little more than an opportunity for governments to sanitize their baser motives and disguise
their darkest conspiracies. But twenty-first century war (or armed conflict if preferred),
in all its diversity, complexity and mutability is a grave challenge on every conceivable
levelpolitical, diplomatic, economic, technological and moraland it is imperative that
moral arguments for and against war be made clearly and accessibly, and are subject to
informed criticism. The challenge for David Fisher, therefore, is to discuss a specialist and
very highly developed subject in terms which will have general appeal and application.
Trained as a moral philosopher, with a career in security and defence policy and now a
university academic, Fisher is especially qualified to rise to that challenge.
Fishers style is bold and provocative. He has little time for the advocates of new wars
who insist that our understanding of war and warfare must now change in fundamental
ways. He takes issue with those who claim to have unearthed an exclusive and enduring
paradigm for the new face of war such as war amongst the people (we might add counter-
insurgency, hybrid warfare, network centric warfare and cyber warfare and many other
pretenders to the throne of contemporary strategic studies). As Clausewitz observed, while
the character of war is in constant flux, its nature remains the same; war is an act of force.
And if rigour and consistency are necessary to strategic thought, the same can (and must)
be said for moral reflection on war.
Fisher has least patience for the prevailing mood of moral scepticism and moral
relativism, the last of which he describes as ultimately a self-defeating doctrine. His aim
is to show that there is a coherent and durable moral framework with which to inform and
guide thinking about war, and he conducts a systematic campaign in order to achieve that
aim. In the third chapter, Virtues and consequences, he takes on the dichotomy between
deontology and consequentialism and shows that both disciplines must play a part in
complex moral evaluation. He then goes further to rehabilitate virtue ethics in the context
of the just war tradition and uses this to build a middle ground of sorts between the ethical
traditions. The result of this engagement is examined in detail in chapter seven, Virtuous
consequentialism. This chapter is the crux of the book and it is this which, above all else,
achieves Fishers goal of connecting the ethical debate to the practical problems of military
policy and practice. The just war tradition emerges powerfully as the most suitable and
convincing framework with which to apply virtuous consequentialism to modern war.
Morality and war is a strikingly successful book; lucid, accessible and provocative. It is
among the best works I have read on the ethics of the use of armed force. Fisher deserves
a wide readership among scholars, among those who make decisions about war and peace,
and among those in the armed forces who must carry out those decisions.
Paul Cornish, International Security Programme, Chatham House
Governance, civil society and cultural politics

Children of Abraham at war: the clash of Messianic militarisms. By Talmiz Ahmad.
New Delhi: Aakar. 2011. 461pp. $31.25. isbn 978 8 18794 376 1.
Entire forests may have been cut down to print books about religious violence and the war
on terror, but it is still rare to read one espousing a point of view set outside this conflict.
Illustrating the extent to which the debate on terrorism after 9/11 has become globalized,
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Book reviews
this rarity is also due to the fact that writers of all hues feel compelled to identify themselves
with one or another position within the conflict, from national security to civil rights.
Missing is any outside voice, one whose importance is due not to its impartiality so much
as to the very fact of its externality. For it is important to circumscribe this debate, which
risks becoming a black hole sucking every opposing position into its vortex.
Talmiz Ahmads clear-headed account of the theological reasoning that informs even
the most realistic narratives of all sides in the war on terror manages to stand outside
this debate. Indias ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ahmad is not only a diplomat with long
experience in the Gulf, but represents a country whose citizens in the region number in the
millions, and in places like Dubai even form the majority. Given that India also possesses
one of the worlds largest Muslim populations and is in addition no stranger to religious
militancy, its stakes in the so-called global war on terror should be very great. And yet
for these very reasons among others, India has stayed out of the conflict, even refusing to
permit coalition forces to use its air space.
The discussion of militancy in India has managed, willy-nilly, to absorb the categories
of global debate into a pre-existing framework deriving from its own history of secularism
and nationality. Similarly, Indias large-scale but development-oriented presence in
Afghanistan has less to do with global militancy and more with its regional ambitions and
relations with Pakistan. While engaging closely with all the major actors in the war on
terror, then, India has been able to skirt around it both politically and intellectually, and
it is perhaps from this position that Talmiz Ahmad has written his book. For relying upon
a host of sources, mostly of American and European origin, Ahmad manages to deploy
them in such a way as to render the conflict between global militancy and its enemies into
a parochial affair.
The book makes two main points. The first is that religious belief is irrelevant in the
war on terror, for whether or not any of its participants are devout, the conflict is imagined
in theological and in fact monotheistic terms. Thus both sides take for granted a linear
conception of history, with the apocalyptic and messianic corollaries that are part of it.
Such a conception has long been secularized in theories of revolution as much as panics
about nuclear holocaust or climate change, which, however realistic, are made possible by
theological concerns about redemption and the end of the world. In an Indian context,
where monotheisms linear conceptions of history exist alongside cyclical ones, the sense of
existential menace that increasingly characterizes western political culture tends to be rare.
The books second point is that the kind of enmity produced in a monotheistic
framework presumes the intimacy as much as repulsion of its contending parties. The
more these enemies fight, the closer they become, to the extent of pillaging each others
histories. So in addition to Christian jihad in the US or Muslim anti-Semitism appro-
priated from Europe, the apocalyptic and messianic speculations of evangelistic Protes-
tantism have been so influential on Jewish and Muslim religious thinkers that some of the
latter justify contemporary conflicts from biblical exegesis. But this means that friendship
is as much a possibility of this intimacy as hostility. Of this there is no greater illustration
than the notion that Jews, Christians and Muslims are the children of Abraham. After
all it was Abrahams willingness to kill his son at Gods command that lies at the root of
this kinship.
An example of this divisive kinship, the relatively recent term Judeo-Christian not
only creates a special bond between Christians and Jews to the exclusion of Muslims, in
doing so it also finally performs the longed-for conversion of the Jews into a hyphenated
prefix to Christianity. Yet most of the worlds Muslims have had as historical neighbours
728
Political economy, economics and development
not Christians or Jews, but Zoroastrians, Buddhists and Hindus. And however problematic
their relations, these have not been structured along monotheistic lines. It is only with
imperialism and in its aftermath that the worlds Muslims have learnt to see Christians and
Jews as people rather than abstractions, and so to be absorbed into a monotheistic history.
But to be true to their past, Muslims today may need to forsake this imagined history and
break out of the political theology it inspires.
Faisal Devji, University of Oxford, UK

Losing control: the emerging threats to western prosperity. By Stephen D. King.
New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. 2010. 279pp. Index. 25.00. isbn 978
0 30015 432 0.
Several books on globalization in the last three years have emphasized the passing of the
economic torch from western countries to Asia and other emerging markets. Among these
are Fareed Zakarias The post-American world (W. W. Norton, 2008) and Kishore Mahbuba-
nis The new Asian hemisphere (PublicAffairs, 2008). Stephen D. King, HSBC Groups Chief
Economist, has penned a worthy addition to this literature. Perhaps a bit more accessible
than the other two books, Losing control centres on a couple of key assertions: first, the high
growth rate of the West is a thing of the past, and second, globalization brings a new kind
of economic growth that benefits China and India more than either former growth centres
Japan and Korea or economic giants America and Europe.
Kings focus on globalizations impacts on the West distinguishes the book from its prede-
cessors. Intended as an extended essay on the changed global economic challenges facing the
West, for many it may serve as a dummys guide to globalization. King quickly dispenses
with the pro-globalization notion that everyone benefits from economic openness: there are
winners and losers, and inequality is increasing within countries. He reminds the reader of
the original economic concern with scarcity, and upbraids western policy-makers for their
complacency and hubris in thinking that their strong economic growth would always
return after recessions. The West has lost its labour advantage to China, India and others
and, as shown by Japans recent experience, can no longer depend on high technology to
boost economic growth. Free markets are unreliable, comparative advantage no longer
operates as a simple Ricardian exchange, and financial giants cannot provide the ever-rising
returns needed by ageing western populations.
Perhaps the books strongest chapters deal with trade, capital markets and inflation. It
is an oft-told story, but here compellingly told. Classical ideas of free trade have broken
down because the factors of production (especially capital) can easily shift from one country
to another to take advantage of cheap labour. Industrial firms such as the Japanese keiretsu
groups or American multinationals began to source their supplies from China and other
developing economies. America sells a lot of goods to China, but China sells much more to
the United States, and uses America as its bank, investing heavily in treasury bonds. The
search for ever higher returns (the hunt for yield) led to massive investment in emerging
markets, yet actual returns for individual investors generally have been disappointing. This
is in large part due to weaknesses in developing nations financial systems. Asian countries,
for instance, have yet to develop depth in their financial infrastructures, and have built up
huge foreign exchange war chests to avoid another Asian financial crisis. Most of this
money was channelled by state-run investment funds to conservative investments, driving
729
Book reviews
down interest rates, fuelling US consumer spending, and ultimately sparking Americas
housing bubble. Currency appreciation cannot reduce trade imbalances, as shown in both
Japan and China. Western monetary authorities kept interest rates low after the Asian
crisis, not appreciating that this crisis was caused by capital flight. Maniacally focused on
price stability, they ignored the ways that prices in much of the world are manipulated and
warped.
By concentrating on macroeconomic health and not the winners and losers of global-
ization (p. 126), the West has ignored the most vital economic developments of the past
generation. In line with the books introductory premises, governments need to make
clearer choices to ensure that more of their citizens benefit from recent economic changes.
Western states must realize that globalization has created increased income inequalities, as
global labour markets destroy the ability of western workers to continue receiving rising
wages and the financial sector benefits from foreign investment in countries such as China.
Owing to demographic collapse, at the same time they must cope with the multifaceted
economic effects of declining workforces.
King sketches a new agenda for the world, especially for the West, centred on a return
to traditional political economy. He provocatively argues that developing countries should
stop indulging Americas appetite for credit to live beyond its means; he compares the
profligate United States to sixteenth-century Spain. China should move to make the
renminbi a reserve currency. The world should adopt a no monetary decisions without
representation stance (p. 224), with a global monetary organization like the European
Central Bank operating across boundaries. The West is left with three choices: more flexible
exchange rates (the good), resort to bilateral deals with developing nations (the bad), and
trade and capital market protectionism (the ugly, pp. 22138).
The simplicity that makes the book an easy airplane read also weakens its intellectual
importance. The data, analysis and historical narrative are at times a bit thin, and the story
is occasionally repetitive. The volume could have benefited from a more robust discussion
of existing globalization and economic development literature. For instance, King never
refers to his kindred spirits, Zakaria and Mahbubani, and gives little space to other major
globalization authors. The focus on the BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China)
has become a little hackneyed, and perhaps more discussion of Africa, Latin America and
South-East Asia would have added power to the books arguments. Kings proposals to use
the renminbi as a reserve currency and to create an international central bank are premature
at best, politically untenable at worst. Even so, the book is a thought-provoking addition
to the recent globalization literature.
Joel Campbell, Troy University, Global Campus, Japan-Korea
How big banks fail and what to do about it. By Darrell Duffie. Princeton, NJ: Princ-
eton University Press. 2010. Index. 112pp. 20.95. isbn 978 0 69114 885 4.
There are precious few manuals on global finance. To be sure, there are enough leaden
textbooks and scholarly tomes to crush many a library, but there are few nuts-and-bolts
guides. Darrell Duffie has performed a great service by attempting to explain in simple
terms why and how major investment banks (what he calls dealer banks) collapse. In light
of the recent global financial crisis, in which investment banks were at the epicentre of
the world upheaval, a clearer general understanding of the dynamics of the meltdown of
financial firms can immeasurably help both policy-makers and the public to come to grips
with future financial crises.
730
This is a slim primer, with only 69 pages of main text, but it is no easy read. I recom-
mend a slow, measured pace, allowing the reader to take in each paragraph, letting the
ideas assemble the financial structure (or de-structure) in the mind. Since it is not intended
as a detailed policy analysis, financial textbook or deep history of the financial crisis, this
minimalist volume should be a starting point for intelligent discussion of how to avoid a
replay of the events of 20082009.
Dealer banks vary in the types of business that they handle, but they usually act as
intermediaries for the purchase of various classes of securities and derivatives. They act as
brokers for hedge funds, but usually operate their own hedge funds and securities firms.
They may also have ordinary commercial banking operations for both companies and
individuals, and often function under holding companies.
Duffie asserts that dealer banks essentially fail because of the loss of cash caused by the
exit of short-term creditors, over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives counterparties, and client
hedge funds (p. 1). As a hypothetical bank begins to lose its capital, it takes actions designed
to demonstrate financial strength that actually lessen liquidity. It helps bail out clients with
large losses, but OTC counterparties gradually shift away from the bank. The bank tries to
keep its terms competitive, but counterparties begin to use other dealer banks to guarantee
trades, further weakening the banks position. Hedge funds and other brokerage customers
become nervous, and begin to transfer their holdings to dealer banks with greater reserves.
Short-term creditors now decide not to renew loans or continue to buy the banks securi-
ties. As the banks liquidity becomes critical, its clearing bank (a bank that holds sufficient
securities to cover potential shortfalls) announces that it will stop handling the banks finan-
cial transactions. At this point, Duffie concludes, the bank has little choice but to declare
bankruptcy.
Perhaps the books most original contributions are Duffies recommendations for recapi-
talizing banks, and ways to improve bank regulations and market infrastructure. Distress-
contingent convertible debt involves either a regulatory requirement or an optional
conversion of bonds to common equity that can be employed if the banks capital ratio
falls to, say, 5 per cent. Mandatory rights offerings allow current shareholders to purchase
new shares at discount prices if the bank runs into financial difficulties (the banks debt
overhang would make investors reluctant to buy new shares at market prices, yet current
investors likely would buy them to protect their previous investments). Involvement of
a third party, perhaps a clearing bank, in short-term repurchase agreements could reduce
some banks day-to-day financial instability. Central clearing of OTC derivatives sales
through a central clearing counterparty can allow vetting of sales in unstable times.
Improved bank failure resolution could be achieved through living wills that specify how
financial contracts and asset sales would be handled in the event of bank distress.
The brevity of the work is also its principal weakness. In an effort to write the most
parsimonious text, Duffie leaves out much historical, economic and policy context that
could enrich the narrative. Banks have sometimes failed since they made their first appear-
ance in the Middle Ages, and investment banks have sometimes fallen apart for at least the
last two centuries. Comparison of recent and more distant crises would help us under-
stand the process better. Especially, more on financial crises of the past generation in the
United States, Japan and Europe would highlight the general or unique features of the
recent crisis. The book is implicitly US-centric, so more analysis of the Bush and Obama
administrations handling of the crisis and bank regulation would greatly strengthen
Duffies arguments. Particularly glaring is the books avoidance of discussion of the efficacy
of government bailouts or forced takeovers (not merely bankruptcy), which were the forms
731
Book reviews
of recapitalization and reconstitution of investment banks preferred by western govern-
ments in 20082009. The book also does not mention financial reform legislation passed
in the wake of the crisis. How does it fit with his suggestions for improvement? Another
40 to 50 pages would not add a great deal of heft, and so a second edition ought to include
another two or three contextual and policy analysis chapters. That said, How big banks fail is
still a valuable addition to public literature on the global financial crisis.
Joel Campbell, Troy University, Global Campus, JapanKorea
Energy, resources and environment

Oil, dollars, debt and crises: the global curse of black gold. By Mahmoud A.
El-Gamal and Amy Myers Jaffe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010. 217pp.
Index. 50.00. isbn 978 0 52189 614 6.
The issue of international oil prices has come back onto the global agenda. Two factors
explain. First there is the impact of the Arab spring. The futures markets in New York
and London have begun to impose a fear premium as they anticipate contagion. Thus they
take the view that what happened yesterday in Tunisia and Egypt will happen tomorrow in
Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, they have failed to realize the very different conditions. All
the Middle East is not the same and it is extremely unlikely that the major exporters of the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries will see their existing regimes swept away. In
2009, the four major Arab exporters of the GCC exported 12.4 million barrels per day (b/d).
The other Arab countries exported in total 3.8 million b/d, but the four major exporters
held some 4.2 million b/d of spare capacity. Thus threats to physical supplies in world oil
markets are somewhat overstated. However, there is a real danger that the requirements of
the GCC countries to buy domestic support will significantly increase their desired price
levels. The $37 billion gift from King Abdullah to his subjects in mid-February in Saudi
Arabia is the equivalent of $10.50 on the oil price. In mid-March he announced another pot
of sweeteners amounting to $93 billion. Thus Saudi claims that they are looking for $7080
per barrel are starting to look distinctly conservative.
The second new element that is beginning to drive oil prices upwards is the terrible
events following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The International Energy Agency
estimates that the damaged nuclear reactors have lost Japan some 60 terawatt hours (Twh).
The immediate option to replace this lies with oil-fired capacity. In 2009, Japan had an
estimated 100 Twh of oil-fired capacity, of which only 30 per cent was utilized, burning
some 360,000 b/d. However, while in theory the lost nuclear plant can be replaced, there is
a logistical problem: much of the spare oil-fired capacity is in the west of the country, while
the lost nuclear capacity is in the east; there are no high voltage transmission lines from east
to west. There is, however, a related issue: the loss of nuclear capacity and the damage to
the electricity infrastructure will almost certainly encourage consumers to turn to small-
scale diesel generators as back-up. Thus demand for diesel is likely to increase dramatically.
As the implications of all this for oil prices are being digested, any research that sheds
light on the recent history of oil prices is to be welcomed. Analysis that brings into the
oil price equation the relationship between financial institutions globally and nationally,
together with geopolitics, is particularly helpful. In that context this book is a welcome
addition to the literature. While it is true that very little that we have reviewed in this book
will come as a surprise to the informed reader (p. 191), the introduction to the analysis of
the global financial system is extremely helpful. This is not least because the book deals
732
History
with what are technically complex issues in an extremely accessible way. It is not necessary
to have a degree in economics to be able to understand the arguments. Furthermore, Oil,
dollars, debt and crises manages to tell the story from the development of Bretton Woods to
the collapse of the financial system following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
The work tells the story through three lensesfinancial markets, energy economics
and Middle Eastern geopoliticsand focuses on contagion and spill-overs between these
three factors. As each factor has become more globalized, the interactions between them
have grown in importance, leading to what the authors call the globalized curse of black
gold. One can quibble over some of the analysis on each theme. For example, the descrip-
tion of the oil price collapse of 1998 misses the key point that it was a serious misjudgement
by OPEC in November 1997 to grossly overstate the expected call on it that triggered
the collapse. Discussions on natural gas are very thin. One also senses an overstatement
regarding the economic basis for Osama Bin Ladens hatred of the Al Saud. There are many
other minor points where this reviewer would disagree with specific statements, but this
would be to underplay the contribution of the book, in particular the very intelligent way
in which the work discusses the relationships between financial markets and oil prices in the
real wet barrel market where real people trade real black sticky barrels of crude oil. This is
an issue which has high relevance in the current situation described above with respect to oil
prices. The book actually acknowledges that many of the latest development discussions
would have long become old news (p. 191). However, this neglects that the underlying
analysis retains validity and will help understanding as events inexorably move on.
The books conclusions are not especially encouraging. Otto von Bismarck once
remarked, only a fool learns from his mistakes. I learn from other peoples mistakes. The
book concludes that, at least for the foreseeable future, we do not even learn from earlier
mistakes and therefore are condemned to repeat the same old errors as the seemingly inevi-
table cycles of the three factorsfinancial markets, energy economics and Middle Eastern
geopoliticsgo round and round and round.
Paul Stevens, Energy, Environment and Resource Governance, Chatham House
History
The generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the struggle for modern China. By Jay
Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2009. 722pp. Index. 25.95. isbn 978
0 67403 338 2.
The Chinese Communist Party has maintained power in mainland China for over 60 years.
The nations preceding history is complex, patterned by struggles between numerous actors,
each keen to secure its influence in East Asia. Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist party, the
Kuomintang (KMT), are key to this story. The party rose to power in the 1920s, determined
to unify the traditionally divided Chinese people under its rule. Over many years, the party
battled against warlords, Japanese imperialists, Soviets and Chinese Communists in order
to try and consolidate its power. The KMTs on-off conflict with the Communists alone
lasted 30 years, until civil war (19469) finally led to the KMTs defeat. Following these
events, Chiang retreated from mainland China to Taiwan, where he ruled as president until
his death in 1975.
Chiang is most commonly portrayed as a corrupt, brutal and inept leader with few
redeeming features. He made many reckless decisions throughout the Chinese civil
war, causing the deaths of millions. He went on to rule Taiwan as a dictatorship, killing
733
Book reviews
hundreds, if not thousands, of islanders who protested against his rule. During the KMTs
Second World War alliance with the United States, figures such as General Joseph Stilwell
(Chiangs Chief of Staff at the time) helped to colour the portrayal of Chiang as a man with
few values, interested only in clinging on to power. According to Stilwell, Chiang spent six
years refusing to fight the Japanese out of fear of defeat and cared nothing for the welfare
or development of the Chinese people.
In The generalissimo, Jay Taylor draws upon evidence collected from Chiangs diary and
other personal archival material to help challenge many of these perceptions. Taylor depicts
Chiang as fervently anti-imperialist and hugely patriotic, earnestly dedicated to the cause
of a united China. He shows how Chiang frequently drew upon a unique blend of Confu-
cian and Christian ideals to strengthen his belief in converting moral thought into action.
He also used these beliefs to gain perspective and maintain faith in the face of his failures.
During defeat, Chiangs response was often philosophical and it appears he rarely sought
retribution for what could have been seen as others failings. He often drew upon political
advice from his wife and loyal supporter, Soong May-ling, and allowed her a prominent
position within Chinese international relations.
During the Second World War, Chiang commanded great respect from a number of his
contemporaries. He was described as one of the greatest military and political leaders
of the time (p. 232) by General Chennault, who worked with Chiang during the United
States ChinaBurmaIndia Theatre. Chiang managed to work his way up to become the
leader of 400 million Chinese and, through the Cairo Declaration, became the first Chinese
leader to be treated as an equal to those of the West. In war, Chiang often demonstrated
considerable insights, reflecting both a comprehensive understanding of global politics and
great skills as a political and military strategist. Taylor explains that Chiangs reluctance to
act against the Japanese resulted from an awareness of his armys weaknesses and the knowl-
edge that it was still not strong enough to win. Chiangs predictions regarding the outcome
of US war efforts in Vietnam also proved to be accurate.
Despite Chiangs frequent portrayal as the man who managed to lose China, Taylor
reminds us of the pivotal role played by the generalissimo in shaping the nation that we
know today. His analysis is ultimately a sympathetic account of Chiang and his role in
Chinas history, and consequently represents a controversial reading of events. Neverthe-
less, it is comprehensively researched and, through relaying Chiangs perspective, presents
some credible arguments in his favour. Regardless of whether or not this will change
common perceptions of Chiang Kai-shek, Jay Taylor has provided a valuable contribution
to our understanding of one of the key figures in East Asian history.
Chloe Sageman, Asia Programme, Chatham House
After Hiroshima: the United States, race and nuclear weapons in Asia, 19451965.
By Matthew Jones. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010. 514pp. 65.00. isbn
978 0 52188 100 5.
Shortly after the United States exploded atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a
comic strip in the African-American-owned newspaper the Chicago Defender fantasized
about what would happen if the worlds colonial peoples acquired nuclear weapons.
According to the comic strip Speed Jaxon, the white world would be forced to accept
racial equality as the basis of international relations and an era of peace and progress would
ensue. Although Speed Jaxon failed as a prognosticator, he succeeded in illustrating that the
bomb and ideas about race were intertwined from the start of the nuclear age.
734
History
Matthew Jones makes a similar point in After Hiroshima, but he goes on to demonstrate
just how difficult it was for American policy-makers to escape the racial implications of
nuclear weapons in Asia. During the last two decades historians have studied the connec-
tion between race and American foreign policy, primarily by showing how civil rights
groups sought to find redress for discrimination in the international arena. Jones moves the
discussion in a new direction by showing how American officials colour consciousness
made them sensitive to accusations of racism as they formulated nuclear policy for Asia (p.
3). The result is an original and valuable study that adds a new dimension to our under-
standing of American strategy in Asia.
Almost as soon as the atomic bombs were dropped, critics alleged that the Japanese
were targeted because they were not white. One of Joness contributions is to show just
how widespread this myth was and how long it persisted. More importantly, he shows that
American officials understood the symbolic importance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki even
though they denied that race entered into the decision to drop the bombs on Japan.
Thereafter, American policy-makers repeatedly second-guessed strategic planning for
Asia because they feared that use of nuclear weapons would reinforce the widely held belief
that Americans had little regard for Asian lives. As Jones shows, part of the difficulty for the
Americans lay in trying to identify what constituted Asian opinion. Military officials who
wanted nuclear weapons integrated into limited war planning pointed to allied leaders in
South Korea and South Vietnam who accepted the weapons as necessary for their defence.
Civilian officials in Washington and diplomats in Asian capitals emphasized the views
expressed in non-aligned nations, especially India, and in Americas ally Japan, as evidence
that Asian opinion recoiled at the prospect of another Hiroshima anywhere in Asia.
This dichotomy was apparent in late 1950 when President Harry S. Truman consid-
ered but ultimately rejected use of nuclear weapons to stave off defeat in Korea. Targeting
problems and the danger of involving the Soviet Union in the war tipped the balance
against using nuclear weapons, but internal objections, reinforced by Americas allies, about
the racial implications of using nuclear weapons again in Asia also entered into the decision.
Trumans successors in the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower continued
to grapple with this problem even as they adopted a strategy which placed greater emphasis
on Americas nuclear arsenal.
Eisenhowers strategists also had to adapt to the changing conditions created by decol-
onization in Asia. During the Bandung Conference, American officials worried about a
developing alliance of non-white peoples. Although no such coalition emerged from the
conference, American officials had ample reason to worry that reliance on nuclear weapons
would continue to alienate Americas allies, notably Japan, and encourage neutralism among
newly independent nations. Poorly controlled thermonuclear tests in the Pacific that killed
a Japanese fisherman, reckless talk about defending Kinmen and Mazu, the off-shore islands
held by Chinese nationalists, with nuclear weapons, and efforts to equip American forces in
the region with nuclear-capable weapons repeatedly provoked criticism throughout Asia.
By the early 1960s the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had
to consider a nuclear-armed China in their calculations. In 1964, the moment predicted
by Speed Jaxons creator had finally arrived; one of the worlds non-white nations had
acquired the bomb. Now the United States needed to counter what the Central Intelligence
Agency called the coloured bomb (p. 435). American policy since the Korean War had
relied on technological superiority, including nuclear weapons, as a substitute for American
manpower in the region. But the Americans feared that world opinion would view use of
nuclear weapons in Asia as a racist act. How could the United States deflect accusations of
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racism, reassure its allies and thwart what they viewed as Chinas attempt to mobilize Asia
against the West? The answers to those questions set the parameters of American interven-
tion in Vietnam. The United States would dispatch conventional forces to South Vietnam
to bolster its allies in the region but avoid a showdown with the Chinese that might lead
to a nuclear confrontation. In this way, as Jones adeptly shows, the legacy of Hiroshima
continued to shape American policy in Asia.
Marc Gallicchio, Villanova University, USA
Afgantsy: the Russians in Afghanistan 197989. By Rodric Braithwaite. London:

Profile Books. 2011. 417pp. Index. 25.00. isbn 978 1 84668 054 0.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was a disaster both for the Soviet Union and for
Afghanistan. It froze EastWest relations, turned Afghanistan into a proxy war zone and
destroyed all Soviet pretence in the Third World to be a peace-loving nation. It probably
hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. Why then did the Soviets invade?
The accepted wisdom and western propaganda at the time portrayed the Russians as
willing aggressors and expansionists. As Rodric Braithwaite shows in this highly readable
and dramatic history, it was much more complicated than that (p. 112). After the communist
coup of 1978 (p. 37) Kabul fell into the hands of a succession of feuding leaders, none able
to secure the country or defeat the mujahedin. There was civil war and every prospect that a
communist state on the borders ofthe Soviet Union would collapse. Russian economic help
and military advice were not enough to stem the tide. The Afghan leaders wanted Soviet
troops. Moscow foresaw all the pitfalls. They would be propping up afailing government
and would have to fight Afghans in hostile terrain (p. 49). But as the situation in Kabul
worsened with the murder of their nominee Nur Muhammad Taraki by the faction of
his rival Hafizullah Amin (p. 73) and with attacks on Soviet advisers in the field, the mood
in Moscow changed. The doubters who argued that history was against the invader of
Afghan soil were brushed aside.Brezhnev and the elderly Politburo, egged on by the KGB,
convinced themselves that the Americans had designs on their southern flank and that they
should do their internationalist duty and answer the desperate pleas of their ally, albeit on a
temporary basis (p. 79). On 25 December 1979 the newly created Soviet 40th Army crossed
the Oxus River (p. 86). Thus began the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Afgantsy is the name the Russians gave to the soldiers who fought there. The myth
of the Red Army as a highly motivated and efficient fighting force falls apart as Braith-
waitedescribes the bitter arguments on strategy and tactics, right down to the misery of
the conscripttroops. Soldiers were given impossible tasks against Afghan warriors skilled in
guerrilla warfare, driven by religious passion (p. 200) and supplied by the United States and
Pakistan. They lackedlocal knowledge, air cover and helicopters. Their food and clothing
were inadequate (p. 198) and their hygiene primitive, leading to massive sickness rates. They
were ill paid and bullied. Their field hospitals dated from the Crimean era. The dead, 15,000
of them, were sent home unceremoniously in zinc coffins to be dumped on the family
doorstep. In their angersoldiers brutalized villages (p. 228), took drugs and got drunk. The
comradeship of shared danger and privation sustained them, but most just wanted to go
home. When they did get home they found there was more reproach than glory for being
an Afgantsy.
Yet some of the Soviet occupiers, especially the advisers, did believe they were doing
noble duty (p. 149). Though they underestimated the strength of Afghan hostility, they tried
to replicate the good things of a Soviet Central Asian Republic. Amid all the d estruction,
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History
death and refugees, there were gains in education, public health and womens rights (p.
146).Some Afghans todaysay life was better under the Russians. But the death toll and
the cost of the war to the Soviet economy were unsustainable. The Afghan government
had no support or authority. The Soviet Chief of the General Staff said:In the past seven
years Soviet soldiers have had their boots on the ground in every square kilometre of the
country. But as soon as they left, the enemy returned and restored everything the way it
was. We have lost this war (p. 277). Gorbachev, by then in power, was convinced that a
political way out had to be negotiated with the Americans and the United Nations (p.
277). An agreement was signed in Geneva in April 1988, providing for the withdrawal of
Soviet troops by 15 February 1989 (p. 281).The mujahedin, however, rejected the terms,thus
opening the way to the fall of the regime of Mohammad Najibullah and more civil war
(p. 281). Neither the politicians nor the soldiers were proud of what they had done. The
country lay in ruins, said one general (p. 291): We were greeted with friendship when we
came in. Ordinary Afghans insulted us as we departed. The 40th Army returned home
to an unwelcoming public who blamed many of their woes on the cost of the war. It was
immediately disbanded.
Afgantsy is the Russian side of the war. Braithwaite was the British ambassador to Moscow
when the Soviet Union collapsed and later foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister.
He knows Russia well and tells this story in gripping, lucid prose, drawing on a vast array
of interviews, first-hand accounts, memoirs and once secret Soviet official documents. The
Russians made just about every mistake in the book, from supporting a corrupt regime, to
trying to create a state in their own image. They knew it was folly at the outset (p. 80) but
they blundered on. Does history repeat itself in Afghanistan?
John Birch, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK
Hotel Trpico: Brazil and the challenge of African decolonization, 19501980. By

Jerry Dvila. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2010. 312pp. Index. Pb.: 15.99. isbn
978 0 82234 855 9.
Jerry Dvilas new book examines in depth a dimension of modern Brazilian foreign policy
that has been underplayed in the English-language literature, which has largely focused on
relations with the United States and with the countrys more immediate neighbours. It is
a pioneering work in the mould of Piero Gleijesess Conflicting missions: Havana, Washington
and Africa, 19591976 (University of North Carolina Press, 2002) that detailed the long,
unobtrusive Cuban involvement in the continent prior to the dramatic dispatch of troops to
Angola in late 1975. Equally unexpected at the time was the surprising decisioncontrary
to Cold War logicby Brazils right-wing military dictatorship to be the first government
to recognize Angolan independence under the left-wing MPLA (Popular Movement for
the Liberation of Angola). As in the case of Cuba, this act was the culmination of years of
low-key Brazilian engagement with Africa.
The author has underpinned his study with an impressive amount of archival research in
both Brazil and Portugal. He has also conducted a number of remarkably revealing inter-
views with former Brazilian diplomats and intellectuals directly involved in the diplomatic
opening to Africa. He has consulted too a wide range of African newspapers in order to
gauge the African response to the various Brazilian initiatives. The emphasis, though, is
squarely on the motivating factors behind Brazilian policy.
This book is no standard diplomatic history. It falls within the genre of workmostly
related to the study of US foreign relationsthat seeks to show how domestic race relations
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Book reviews
have left a profound mark on the conduct of foreign policy. In contrast to the foreign policy
dilemmas posed by fraught race relations in the US, Brazilian foreign policy was subject
to the all-encompassing and vigorously defended myth (only officially abandoned in the
1990s) that the country was a model racial democracya view expounded since the 1930s
by the highly influential and increasingly conservative writer Gilberto Freyre, the principal
conduit of Brazilian national identity (p. 11). Freyres concept of lusotropicalism was so
pervasive and subliminal that it could be utilized both by Salazars Portugal and Portuguese
ethnic groups in Brazil as a central intellectual rationale for the preservation of Portugals
colonial empire (p. 18) and by other, more liberal, groups in Brazil as a justification for
building ties with newly independent African countries and for supporting decolonization.
This incompatible legacy of Freyrean thought is held to account for the swings in Brazilian
policy towards Africa in this period: from complacent support for Portuguese colonialism,
as embodied in the person of Freyre, in the 1950s; to the diplomatic opening to Africa
during the years of the Independent Foreign Policy (19614); to the sharp reversion to a
pro-Portugal stance after the 1964 coup; and to the renewed opening to Africa in the early
1970s that coincided with the Brazilian economic miracle.
Africa, in Dvilas view, was and continues to be no more than an abstraction in Brazil,
a canvas on which Brazilian national aspirations and racial values were rendered (p. 255).
Relations with Africa were consciously utilized at different junctures to assert Brazils
autonomy from the United States and to stake its claim as an emerging world power. In the
1970s, for example, Brazils stance towards Nigeria in particular reflected Brazilian desires
to imagine the country as an emerging industrial giant, to believe that Brazil was a different
sort of world power based on a tropical civilization that produced tropical technology
and to suppress criticism of the narrative that Brazil was a racial democracy (p. 223).
Dvila reveals the extent to which Brazil remained in thrall to the mother country for
much of the period due to the residual claims of its Lusitanian heritage, to the formidable
political influence of the Portuguese community in Rio de Janeiro and to Lisbons canny
ability to suborn Brazilian politicians and cultural figures. By the early 1970s, it was evident
that the Portuguese mortgage had become a substantial liability: Other than the repatria-
tion of the remains of a dead emperor, support of Portuguese colonial policy had brought
no benefit to Brazil (p. 168). Swift Brazilian recognition of the MPLA in Angola in 1975 was
designed above all to overcome this legacy of lingering support for Portuguese colonialism.
My only criticism of this well-written and insightful book is that it virtually ignores
Brazils attitudesuch as its voting record in the United Nationstowards apartheid
South Africa and the breakaway white settler regime in Rhodesia. A substantive link is only
hinted at in passing references to the regular Varig flight connection with Johannesburg.
If the newly independent African countries with which Brazil was fitfully attempting to
forge a relationship were united in their opposition to Portuguese colonialism, they were
even more steadfast in their hostility to these more enduring outposts of white minority
rule on the continent.
Philip Chrimes
The last Ottomans: the Muslim minority of Greece, 19401949. By Kevin Featherstone,
Dimitris Papadimitriou, Argyris Mamarelis and Georgios Niarchos. Basingstoke:
Palgrave. 2011. 352pp. Index. 60.00. isbn 978 0 23023 251 8.
There are many difficult border regions in the Balkans but the Muslim minority in north-
west Greece, living mostly in and around the town of Komotini in Greek Thrace, must
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Europe
inhabit one of the most politically sensitive. A leftover from the provisions of the 1923
Treaty of Lausanne, the minority have kept to a traditional Turkish identity in terms
of culture, religion and language use, while on the whole steering clear of any political
engagements. They usually see themselves as Turks, while official Greece bans this termi-
nology and in it they are only known as Greek Muslims.
In this interesting new study Kevin Featherstone and his fellow authors examine in
detail the position of the minority during the critical years of the Axis Occupation and
the Greek Civil War, and their research draws on material from recently opened archives
in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece itself. It is perhaps a sign of the improvement in scholarly
working conditions in Turkey in recent years that material on this hypersensitive topic is
now freely available for Greek and other historians.
The picture revealed is complex. Like other marooned Balkan Muslim groups after the
First World War, the Thracian Muslims who had suddenly become Greek citizens after
1923 knew little or nothing of the nation they had suddenly joined. They had as much
in common with an island dweller from, say, Crete, as a Breton-speaking peasant in the
nineteenth century might have had with a rich Parisian. Many retained a strong streak
of nostalgia for the certainties of the Ottoman world. On the other hand, there were
also strong Kemalists who had little interest in religion and admired the progress the new
Turkey had started to make under Ataturk. Their own world was one of decline, as the
authors point out: in 1922 about 84 per cent of the land had been owned by those with a
Muslim Turkish identity, but by the Second World War this had shrunk dramatically to
perhaps half that amount.
Much of the book is about the relative failure of the Communist-led resistance forces
to make decisive headway in the Turkish part of Thrace. The geography was not very
helpful for a guerrilla force, and the archaic social structures in the villages and authority
of the imams did not encourage an engagement with the possibility of a Marxist future for
Greece. The sections on the latter part of the Civil War period contain perhaps the most
innovative material in the book, where the Athens governments efforts to promote the
view that the whole war was a Slav conspiracy against Greece fell upon arid ground in this
part of the country. In practice, as the authors rightly point out, with its declining size and
economic clout against the growing Greek Orthodox majority in Thrace, often originally
Asia Minor refugees who had little liking for Turkish culture, the Muslim minority was a
prisoner of events and as poor peasants and traders did what their ilk had done in most wars,
that is to keep their heads down and hope for the best. The sufferings of all residents during
the often brutal Bulgarian occupation added to the sense of a minority that has always
been, in the last analysis, held by much more powerful outside forces than local politics and
identity issues in Thrace.
James Pettifer, University of Oxford, UK
Europe
The European Union and human security: external interventions and missions.
Edited by Mary Martin and Mary Kaldor. Abingdon: Routledge. 2009. 208pp. 80.00.
isbn 978 0 41549 872 2.
This book develops work on the concept of human security as a guiding principle for
European Union foreign policy. Through a series of eight case-studies, the publication
explores the extent to which EU external interventions have manifested aspects of human
739
Book reviews
security, and it offers recommendations on how to strengthen the application of human
security principles within the EUs foreign policy.
The concept of human security has gained increasing prominence within the EU in
recent years. First introduced in 2004 by a group of experts convened under Mary Kaldor
at the request of then High Representative Javier Solanathe concept attempts to provide
an alternative to the war on terror, both as a strategic narrative and an operational doctrine.
As explained in the book, human security refers to the security of both individuals and
communities. Best described as freedom from fear and freedom from want, the concept
revolves around six organizing principles: the primacy of human rights; legitimate political
authority; a bottom-up approach; effective multilateralism; regional focus; and strategic
direction.
At the request of the 2006 Finnish presidency of the EU Council, Kaldors group of
experts was reconvened to explore how the Union could take forward the implementa-
tion of a human security agenda. Many of the case-studies in the book contributed to the
group of experts report published in 2007. The book explores a sample of EU military
and civilian interventions across the globe, including those in Aceh, Lebanon, Kosovo and
Georgia. For each case-study, after providing a descriptive analysis of the specific crisis
and the EUs involvement, the book assesses the extent to which the EU has succeeded in
meeting the various principles shaping human security.
While conclusions for the studies vary, there are certain recurrent themes. In each case,
the EU is perceived to have implemented certain principles underpinning human security,
but to have failed on other counts. In some cases, as in the Aceh monitoring mission, the EU
is considered to have done better at ensuring traditional security than human security. And
in other instances, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the EU is perceived to
have implemented aspects of human security only incidentally.
The most frequent and significant challenges identified are inadequate coordina-
tion among EU institutions and between EU member states, and restraints on EU policy
created by political circumstancesnot least in Kosovo where splits among the interna-
tional community regarding its status have limited the scope for the EUs mission to focus
on human security. Other EU shortcomings highlighted include insufficient engagement
with civil society and local actors, for example in Afghanistan and the Occupied Palestinian
Territories; an insufficient focus on the regional dimension, for example in Lebanon; and
inadequate multilateralism, notably during the international response to the tsunami in
South-East Asia when, according to the authors, the EU did not attach enough importance
to coordinating its humanitarian effort with the United Nations.
The book also offers a series of original proposals to improve EU policy. Notably the
chapter on the EUs response to the 2004 Asian tsunami suggests creating crisis informa-
tion centres. These would aim to improve the access to information for disaster victims
and ensure international aid efforts were made with awareness of the needs on the ground.
The case-study on the EUs Aceh monitoring mission suggests that EU deployments should
include human rights advisers, while the chapter on Lebanon suggests developing the
concept of LebaneseEuropean municipality networks.
Unfortunately, the relevance of some of the books insights and policy recommen-
dations is somewhat undermined by the fact that the case-studies focus on events which
occurred between 2005 and 2008. In many cases, unavoidably, realities on the ground have
changed significantly since then. Notably the chapter on the Occupied Palestinian Terri-
toriesbased on research in May 2007would have been stronger if it had incorporated
the dramatic split between Palestinian factions in June 2007 and subsequent developments.
740
Russia and Eurasia
In addition, despite identifying poor coordination between the European Commission and
the Council as one of the key shortcomings in EU foreign policy, the book does not address
the potential impact of the new European External Action Service.
Nevertheless, the publication offers useful detailed overviews of several EU deployments
and provides an interesting and original lens through which to assess them. It is therefore
a valuable read for those interested in the concept of human security or EU civilian and
military operations.
Clara Marina ODonnell, Centre for European Reform, UK
Russia and Eurasia

The Caucasus: an introduction. By Thomas de Waal. New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 2010. 259pp. Index. Pb.: 12.99. isbn 978 0 19539 977 6.
Let our fame be great: journeys among the defiant people of the Caucasus. By Oliver
Bullough. London: Allen Lane. 2010. 496pp. Index. Pb.: 12.99. isbn 978 0 14103 774 5.
The mountainous Caucasus, which blocks the northsouth land routes between the Black
and Caspian Seas, has formed a natural historic buffer for Russia, Turkey and Iran. Its
single name suggests a unity which has virtually never existed, forming one of the many
paradoxes of the region, deeply explored in these two books.
The Caucasus and its mountain chains are home to about 55 distinct languages and
ethnicities among a total population of some 15 millions, with a variety of religions, social
mores, material cultures, topologies, mineral and energy riches, geopolitical pressures and
wars. So well-written, accessible and engaging books on the region are always welcome,
especially, as here, when the authors combine avoidance of ethnic bias with insight. Anyone
who studies the Caucasus meets widespread ignorance coupled with lack of interest,
summed up in the wry joke that US diplomats who are Caucasus specialists welcomed
WikiLeaks because it was the first time that Washington had read their reports.
One reason for the lack of study is that before, during and after the Soviet period much
of the Caucasus was closed, while liquid hospitality rendered most of the few visitors
incapable. There are no simple ways of gaining access. Mine, in 1983, was an unwittingly
prescient lecture in Baku to a packed ASSR Academy of Sciences Geography Institute
on hitherto banned historic maps of the Caucasus from the Royal Geographical Society
archives. They responded with their Soviet fantasy of a canal joining the Caspian to the
about 27 metres higher Black Sea.
Thomas de Waal was a war reporter in the first ChechenRussian war of 19946 and
he stayed on and spread wider, becoming a peace reporter, commentator and inevitably
a historian of the Caucasus. By coincidence, De Waal until 2008 built up the editorial
role which Oliver Bullough has now taken on, at the widely consulted Institute for War
and Peace Reporting (IWPR). Bullough is a new generations Norman Douglas or Bruce
Chatwin, who lived in Russia from 1999 until 2006 working for local magazines and then
for Reuters. Both men are fluent in Russian and have had what Professor Dame Caroline
Humphrey, the Cambridge anthropologist, calls long conversations with local people,
which is the fieldwork bedrock for understanding the numerous strands that form their
fluent pictures of the Caucasus.
De Waals book, as he points out, was mistitled as it covers the south Caucasus, formerly
called Transcaucasus. The selected subject matter reflects Georgian pre-eminence in
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Book reviews
the Transcaucasus, formed by Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It describes Russian
imperial and Soviet history, leading to more recent breakaway Abkhazia, South Ossetia
and Adjaria, the RussianGeorgian war of 2008 and its fall-out. Apart from a rich chapter
on the unresolved AzerbaijaniArmenian Nagorno-Karabakh war, with a guarded hint at
TurkishArmenian rapprochement, which did not happen, the book forms a logical third
volume in his work, with the first on the first RussianChechen war (Chechnya: calamity
in the Caucasus, with Carlotta Gall, New York University Press, 1998) and the second on
the Azerbaijani-Armenian war (Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war,
NYU Press, 2003). This continues his detailed, even-handed and occasionally ironic record,
marshalled from his innumerable enlightening IWPR three-page reports, since the collapse
of the USSR in 1991. His magisterial histories are an essential part of a comprehensible
explanation of the intractable problems that beset the region. Many would welcome his
cautious idea of a sort of Caucasian federation as a long-term hope, which of course has not
and likely will never happen. At page level, he skilfully navigated the minefield of nomen-
clature, so it was a pity that the term Azerbaijani, usually denoting a citizen of Azerbaijan,
which includes the minorities such as Lezghis, is used to describe the main ethnic group,
more usually called Azeris, like their Azeri language.
Most chapters are livened up by inserted two- or three-page grey-coloured parallel texts
on, inter alia, the Kurds, Lermontov, Rustaveli Avenue, Genocide, how Georgian was
Stalin, Baku jazz, the Greeks of Abkhazia, the Ergneti Market (South Ossetia) and Shusha
(historic capital of Nagorno-Karabakh). They provide that heady information overload
which reveals insight into the Caucasus. However, the publishers meanly omitted a bibli-
ography and only allowed black and white rather than colour photographs.
Bulloughs title Let our fame be great quotes a folktale of a mythical giant hero of Cauca-
sian epic poetry, who is given the alternative of a long dull existence or a short glorious life.
He chooses glory. This passionate choice of all the Caucasian peoples that his book surveys
has had inevitably sad results. Their passage through broken agreements, battles, inevitable
defeats and forced transportations leads to the present overwhelming lacrimae rerumthe
Aeneids tears of things. It started with Russias elimination of the Nogai horde, the
successors to Genghis Khan in about 1783, when the plains horse herders barred their way
to the Caucasus. Next in line were the Circassians across the north-west Caucasus. This
is a rare history of a neglected, scattered people. Their oppression culminates in the latest
Kremlin blunder of the location of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. The centre is where
the Kabardins surrendered to the Russians in 1864 after a hundred years of war. In that
period the Russians massacred some 300,000 Circassians, which Bullough describes as the
first modern genocide.
He continues with their neighbours the Mountain TurksKarachais and Balkars, trans-
ported by Stalin to Central Asia in 19434, alongside others from the CaucasusChechens,
Ingush, some of the peoples of Dagestan and the Meskhetian Turks. The survivors were
allowed back from 1957, under tight control by a more liberalizing Khrushchev. Their
eventual dreams of independence from a weaker Glasnost Russia led to renewed defeats in
Chechnya and the wider North Caucasus, exemplified in the 1994 destruction of Grozny,
(which means Terrible), the name of the original Russian fort. The disastrous Beslan,
North Ossetia, school siege in 2004 provides an example of a turning point towards
counterproductive terrorism, which played into Russian hands as a self-destructive defeat
of the soul and spirit of north Caucasians.
Bullough takes the greater idea of transforming the death, torture or ancestral horror-
memories of friends into symbols of the serial slaughter of defiant Caucasian peoples by
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Russia and Eurasia
the Russians. Even spoken languages disappeared. It forms an eloquent attempt to explain
the fate of a multiethnic region which has been described as a Garden of Eden, but is
defined by wars, ethnic cleansing and tragedy. He reveals his own emotional, analytical
and spiritual understanding of the Caucasian mentalities, attitudes and bleak possibilities
for a peaceful future: manipulated by a colonial Russia, they have often tragically turned
against themselves.
Too many Russian Federation journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya and human rights
activists such as Natalia Estemirova have been killed with impunity for being honourable
reporters of illegal acts in the Caucasus. Even foreign journalists are banned from entry,
as happened in February 2011 to Luke Harding of the Guardian, and to De Waal in 2006.
Similar implied threats make these books courageous in documenting accounts of human
rights and political abuses in an even-handed condemnation of any past hopes or propa-
ganda about the Russian and post-Soviet periods in the Caucasus. Passerby, read these
books and hand them on.
Robert Chenciner, University of Oxford, UK
Oil is not a curse: ownership structure and institutions in Soviet successor states.
By Pauline Jones Luong and Erika Weinthal. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press. 2010. 425pp. Index. Pb.: 18.99. ISBN 978 0 52114 808 5.
Resource curse and post-Soviet Eurasia: oil, gas, and modernization. Edited by
Vladimir Gelman and Otar Marganiya. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2010. 216pp.
39.95. ISBN 978 0 73914 373 5.
In analysing the causes of popular unrest in the Middle Eastparticularly with regard to
the cases of Libya and Bahrainmany informed observers have wondered about the inter-
connection between substantial natural resource endowments, non-participatory politics
and the socio-economic grievances of the masses. The expression resource curse has hence
featuredperhaps not as prominently as it should havein a number of commentaries on
the 2011 Arab uprising, identifying the direct link between resource-only economies and
authoritarian politics as a primary factor behind regional unrest.
When it comes to the interplay between hydrocarbons and authoritarianism, post-
Soviet Eurasia has largely conformed to the Middle East rule, as a growing number of
non-democratic regimes emerged and flourished on the back of economies almost exclu-
sively based on the extraction and export of natural resources. It is precisely to the analysis
of the impact(s) of hydrocarbons on political-economic development in Eurasia that the
two volumes reviewed here have devoted their core attention.
Their similar content notwithstanding, the arguments introduced and developed in Oil
is not a curse and Resource curse and post-Soviet Eurasia are diametrically opposite. While the
former study questions the premises of the resource curse literature, the essays selected by
Vladimir Gelman and Otar Marganiya are less concerned with a critique of the resource
curse theory as their ultimate aim is to outline, analyse and discuss how dependency on
natural resources shaped the political-economic landscape of the Eurasian region.
Resource curse and post-Soviet Eurasia offers an informed perspective on the interaction
between energy, politics and economic development in the post-Soviet space. Although
primarily concerned with the observation of the case of the Russian Federation, the books
seven carefully crafted chapters shed light on the negative impacts of natural resource
endowments in the form of the emergence of rentierism, authoritarianism and oligarchic
control of natural resources in post-Soviet Eurasia.
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Book reviews
The establishment of chronological continuity between post-Soviet patterns of resource
usage and the energy policy practices consolidated in the USSR represents a nicely innova-
tive analytical tool advanced throughout the book. As Vladimir Gelman observes in his
introductory remarks to the volume, inconsistent trends in energy usage of Eurasias largest
oil and gas producers (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan) are directly
connected with the energy legacy of the Soviet era. The seven ensuing chapters examine
in detail how resource curse dynamics affected different components of Eurasias energy
cycle (extraction, export and, perhaps most interestingly, transport); significant develop-
ments at the political level (regime change, class formation); and regulatory efforts vis--vis
financial policies. The authors spotlight is perhaps too often placed on Russia, but inter-
esting insights into the wider Eurasian region can be grasped by observations placed at
the margins of the various chapters. Although the books emphasis remains firmly located
within the Eurasian region, enlarging the comparative dimension of the book to other
regional casesas Nikolay Dobronravin does in his engaging chapter on energy usages
in the African context (pp. 17192)allows the reader to place Eurasia within the wider
framework of resource usages in the developing world. The questions outlined in the
introductionof which the most intriguing relates to the link between hydrocarbons and
unsuccessful stories of post-Soviet modernizationare convincingly tackled throughout
the book, which is in essence a welcome contribution to our understanding of the contro-
versial interplay between resources and modernization in post-Soviet Eurasia.
The very conclusions advanced by this collective volume are indirectly challenged by
Pauline Jones Luong and Erika Weinthal in Oil is not a curse. This book represents a watershed
in the current literature: impressively researched, well-written and innovatively structured,
Oil is not a curse aims at deconstructingthrough a detailed observation of energy usage
patterns in five Eurasian economies (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan)the myth of the resource curse. Providing a viable alternative to the First
law of petropolitics (T. L. Freidman, Foreign Policy, MayJune 2006) is the a nalytical corner-
stone of the book, in which rentierism, authoritarianism and unequal paths of economic
development are not presented as the inevitable consequence of resource endowments.
In the authors views, the many negative effects of resource endowments have to be
explained by looking at a peculiar relationship, namely that which connects a given natural
resource with whoever owns it, extracts it and finally exports it. Ownership structures as
selected by the state are hence the key factor in determining the political-economic paths of
developments for resource-rich states. The leaderships of resource-rich states in post-Soviet
Eurasia, as illustrated by the books core chapters (chapters three to eight) adopted four main
postures in relation to their resource endowments, setting constraints for or opening the
doors to external participation in resource management. The correlation between resource
endowments and institutions is in turn explained by looking at the relationship between
taxation and external rent: in other words, it is a states ownership structure that influences
more profoundly its fiscal regime.
While the geographical spotlight of the book is firmly placed on Eurasia, the chrono-
logical dimension of its analytical framework allows the authors to make a number of
significantly innovative claims. Ownership structure, for Jones Luong and Weinthal, is not
frozen in time, as resource-endowed states have interpreted it in different ways at different
junctures. To demonstrate this proposition, the authors decided to expand the chrono-
logical dimensions of their analysis: as resource curse literature has been often limited to
post-1960 analysis, Oil is not a curse recognizes the importance of analysing ownership struc-
ture variation over a larger timeframe (1900 onwards).
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Middle East and North Africa
Jones Luong and Weinthals new book is a tour de force, which will hold significant
relevance for two main readerships. On the one hand, regional specialists are faced with an
exceptionally detailed analysis of resource usage patterns in Eurasia. On the other hand, the
books innovative framework opens new perspectives in the wider debate on the resource
curse, as it greatly furthers our understanding of the impacts of substantial resource endow-
ments on political liberalization and economic development.
Luca Anceschi, La Trobe University, Australia

A history of the Egyptian Intelligence Service: a history of the mukhabarat,
19102009. By Owen L. Sirrs. Abingdon: Routledge. 2010. 271pp. Index. 80.00. isbn
978 0 41556 920 0.
Very few books have been written exclusively about the intelligence and security services
of the Arabic-speaking countries. This is only one of many reasons why Owen L. Sirrss
book is important, interesting and timely, although even with his expertise the author
couldnt predict that parts of the Middle East and North Africa would erupt only a couple
of months after the work appeared in bookshops. A history of the Egyptian Intelligence Service
is not only about the intelligence service but covers in depth the whole Egyptian security
and intelligence community, the oldest, largest, the most active and experienced but, at
the same time, one of the most brutal in the Arab world. The title of the book can be
confusing because the author often uses intelligence when security would be more
appropriate. This is particularly surprising because, as a former senior intelligence officer
of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Sirrs was a member of a community familiar
with the relevant terminology and definitions. Like every publication covering the most
secret structures of any state, the earliest history of the Egyptian special services is the
best documented, as the author was able to use official archives in the US and the UK. In
addition to a brief description of the Egyptian security and intelligence organs under the
monarchy, the book is divided into three main parts, each covering their activities under
the three leaders who dominated the country for almost six decades: Gamal Abdel Nasser,
Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. The most brutal of the three was Nasser, the father
of the modern Egyptian security and intelligence organizations. His oppressive internal
policies are comparable to those conducted by the cruellest dictators of the twentieth
century and hismostly unsuccessfulcampaigns aiming at undermining several Arab
leaders made him both a difficult opponent and a difficult ally. Nasser may have created the
most powerful intelligence services and propaganda machinery in the Middle East, but he
and his close circle ignored warnings from their own intelligence organizations, relied on
their foreign allies before the 1956 and 1967 wars, and accepted only the intelligence infor-
mation which fitted their prejudiced and arrogant preconceptions. The security operations
inside the country were much more successful in spite of the shortcomings of the Egyptian
technical intelligence assets. The secret of their victories lies mainly in what was described
by two experts, a former CIA employee and a Mossad agent, as the City Eye phenom-
enon when practically every servant, doorman, taxi-driver, shop-keeper, hotel employee,
waiter, vendor and beggar was potential or actual police informer and the consequential
brutality of the security and police interrogators. The Sadat years ended in the worst intelli-
gence and security failure imaginable in any country, his (the head of states) murder, when
the counterintelligence service didnt know and the presidential security didnt react as the
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Book reviews
terrorists attacked. The authors description of the Egyptian special services and the effec-
tive propaganda machinery is very good, as is the coverage of the activities of the Muslim
Brotherhood and other internal real and imaginary opponents of the Egyptian rulers. The
weaker points of the book are: the list of abbreviations, which mentions only one Egyptian
organization in both English and Arabic, although the Arabic names are provided later in
the book (the Soviet State Security Committee, KGB, on the other hand, is only transliter-
ated in Russian, without explanation in English); minor omissions, such as the disastrous
operation of the Egyptian special forces and intelligence services in Cyprus in 1978; the
role played by the Egyptian intelligence officials in several regional successful crypto-diplo-
matic operations, or their influence in the divided Palestinian community; and smaller but
niggling mistakes. The author rightly suggests that there is no definite proof of German
General Oskar Dirlewanger helping to build up the Egyptian intelligence organs after the
Second World War, but he doesnt point out that the Generals death in June 1945 may have
had something to do with it. Dirlewanger didnt take part in the suppression of the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising in 1943, as claimed by the author, but in the operations against the Warsaw
uprising in 1944 for which he was murdered almost a year later by his Polish guards in a
PoW camp. The book has impressive notes and index sections, but in the conclusion the
author offers six optimistic and somewhat unrealistic suggestions to create a stable, healthy
Egyptian democracy. This maybe was and is a fashionable dream of some scholars and
human right activists, but after all Sirrs, not only a scholar but also an experienced practi-
tioner, should know better. After reading his excellent book, the most optimistic readers
will understand that the road to a stable, healthy Egyptian democracy, even after the recent
peaceful revolution, is very long.
Henry Plater-Zyberk, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, UK
Power and policy in Syria: intelligence services, foreign relations and democracy
in the modern Middle East. By Radwan Ziadeh. London: I. B. Tauris. 2011. 240pp.
56.00. isbn 978 1 84885 434 5.
Written before the recent wave of revolutions across the Middle East, this book by Syrian
exile Radwan Ziadeh provides an informative, well-intentioned but inconsistent account
of the politics of modern Syria. The nadir of this inconsistency is the books claim to focus
on Syrias intelligence services, a worthy and important subject, but one whose secretive
and authoritarian nature makes it somewhat impenetrable. However, while Ziadeh fails
to shine a light on the dark recesses of Syrias security institutions, he does provide a very
readable snapshot of the first ten years of Bashar al-Asads rule, placed in the context of a
brief history of the country and the transition from Hafez to his son Bashar.
Part of the books failure is self-imposed. Ziadeh boldly begins by stating that academic
studies of Syria tend to place too much emphasis on a particular Syrian leader without
attempting to study what mechanisms lie behind the political system. The author criti-
cizes Patrick Seales masterly biography of Hafez Asad (Asad: the struggle for the Middle East,
University of California Press, 1992) for claiming that Asad is Syria, and Syria is Asad;
however, such an attack can only hold water if the work truly manages to propose a different
hypothesis. Ziadehs research uncovers only what Seale would have himself confirmed: that
Hafez Asad was completely and single-handedly the one decision-maker who could set in
motion any all-inclusive system at his disposal. Ziadehs book offers little change, stating
that any differences between President Bashar Asad and his father stem from psychological
differences between them rather than differences in the political system.
746
The work is, however, a useful introduction to the structures of power that make up the
security institutions underpinning the all-powerful Asad presidencies. In the introduction,
the author describes his own experiences of interrogation by the security forces, which
eventually led to his departure from the country. Indeed, Ziadeh has had a unique perspec-
tive on the Orwellian system of surveillance that exists in Syria, where he estimates there is
a member of the intelligence service for every 153 citizens. He was a member of the reform-
ists who made up the Damascus Spring, described as a brief moment of opportunity for
the country to bring about genuine change before, in 2001, realizing that the regime would
stick with a policy based on fear, oppression and a monopoly on truth and patriotism.
The massive bureaucracy that reinforces the power of the presidency and the effective-
ness of its security organs is characterized as a Gordian knot that makes it well nigh impos-
sible to reframe political and economic policy in the country. Ziadeh demolishes the myth
that Syria will somehow be able to replicate the Chinese method of reform typified by
economic rather than political change. He skilfully contrasts Chinas huge number of well-
qualified managers, specialists and technocrats to the moribund Baath regional leadership
and its paucity of postgraduates.
Ziadehs section on Syrias foreign policy under Bashar Asad reveals few surprises and
falls into the trap of providing too little detail when describing the complexities and subtle-
ties of the relationship with Lebanon. Whats more, the chapter relies too heavily on a
chronology of statements from both Bashar and western leaders to fill the narrative, making
it feel distinctly disconnected from the rest of the text.
Ziadeh also fails to avoid the clich so often present in writing on the Middle East
when he describes the present day as a unique stage of Syrias history with Syria now at
a crossroads. Having spent much of the book describing the leaderships suffocating hold
on power, it requires quite a radical departure to explain 2010 as a moment of pivot for the
regime. However, Ziadeh was not alone in being surprised by the rapid pace of change that
would roll across the region in 2011, with the International Crisis Group stating in March
following violence breaking out in Deraa that Syria is at what is rapidly becoming a defining
moment for its leadership. Ziadeh did predict the key role of technology in challenging
entrenched power, describing the internet as the sole place where democratic debates take
place, a reality that has been validated by the key role played by online social networking
sites in the Arab revolutions to date. Ultimately, Ziadeh, alongside many commentators
on the region, will have to update his work to accommodate the legacy of these dramatic
events. As I write, Presidential Adviser Buthaina Shaaban has announced that the ruling
Baath party has agreed to study the possibility of lifting emergency law and has announced
a string of other reforms, including pay rises for state employees and possible licensing of
political parties. Syria, it would appear, truly is at a crossroads.
James Denselow, Kings College London, UK
The Kurdish policy imperative. Edited by Robert Lowe and Gareth Stansfield.
London: Chatham House. 2010. 211pp. Index. Pb.: 16.99. isbn 978 1 86203 199 9.
Two developments since 1990 have shaped Kurdish politics and its place in the regional and
international system: the establishment of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in
Iraq following the Kuwait war of 1991, and the rise of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)
in Turkey and its military operations in the region. These developments have had profound
consequences for the aspirations and orientations of Kurds in these countries as well as those
of Iran and Syria. The KRG is the first internationally sanctioned Kurdish territorial govern-
747
Book reviews
ment in modern history. In addition to its ideological significance, it has also provided
territorial refuge, often uneasy, for dissident movements from neighbouring countries. The
PKK has posed a serious, and destructive, military challenge in Turkey, but has also had
important consequences in the other three countries. The governments of the four states
including the territory of Kurdistan have played devious games with dissident Kurds from
one anothers countries over the course of the twentieth century and to the present. Iran
and Iraq have at various points supported each others Kurdish populations, letting them
down when the balance of forces changed. Syria hosted the PKK and its leader, Abdullah
calan, in the 1980s and 1990s, when confronting Turkey. During that time it allowed the
PKK to campaign and recruit among Syrian Kurds, so long as it did not affect their activi-
ties in Syrian opposition. This practice ended with later rapprochement with Turkey, and the
expulsion then capture of calan in 1999. The KRG dependence on good relations with
Turkey and Iran has inhibited the degree of their support for and willingness to grant refuge
to Kurdish movements, including the PKK, but at the same time the KRG could not turn
totally against them without alienating nationalist sentiment within its region.
This book is a collection of admirable studies which treat these events and processes
with analytical depth. The editors introduction sets the scene, guiding the reader to the
contents of the chapters.
The history and politics of the KRG in Iraq is narrated by Gareth Stansfield. Kurdish
movements and wars in Iraq had been constant for much of the history of the Iraqi nation-
state, and any achievement of autonomies and rights ephemeral. The Anfal campaign by the
Baathist regime in the later 1980s was one of the bloodiest massacres of many thousands, and
notable for the use of chemical weapons on civilian targets. Autonomy was only achieved
thanks to the international situation arising from the Iraqi defeat in the Kuwait war of
1991 and the imposition of a no-fly zone by the US and allies. The Kurdish movements
consisted of an uneasy coexistence between ideological nationalism (earlier associated
with the Iraqi Communist Party) and tribal networks and loyalties, notably the Barzanis,
challenged by the breakaway Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, each with its own Peshmerga
militia. The KRG, then, had two regional centres for the two rival factions, each revolving
around the loyalties and resources of clans and networks. The open hostilities between the
two in the 1990s were only brought to conclusion through forceful American pressure. The
two centres, in effect two parallel governments, continue to operate through family and
patronage connections, bypassing weak and nominal institutions, with rampant corruption,
much like the rest of Iraq. A chapter by Liam Anderson outlines the constitutional arrange-
ments in Iraq which accommodate (uneasily) Kurdish autonomy, and their international
dimensions.
Several chapters, by Kemal Kirisci, Janet Klein, Nicole Watts and Clemence Scalbert-
Yucel, deal with various aspects of Kurds in Turkey, movements, politics, identities, and the
twists and turns of state and military policies. With the prospect of EU membership, the
present AKP government enacted many reforms, grudgingly recognizing Kurdish identity
and some cultural rights, always confronting the challenge of PKK militancy. Concessions
on Kurdish rights were always challenged by the strong Turkish nationalist currents and
the powerful military. In the face of these challenges, and with the waning of EU prospects
after 2005, the reforms seem to be in retreat. The PKK remains a focus of politics and
conflict, attracting the sympathy of pro-Kurdish political parties and their voters, alienated
by continuing pressures from police and bureaucracy. However, as Wattss chapter shows,
the votes in the Kurdish region are almost equally divided between the Kurdish party and
the pro-Islamic government party, the AKP.
748
Sub-Saharan Africa
Iran and Syria are covered in lucid and informative chapters by Hashem Ahmadzadeh
and Robert Lowe respectively. In a sense Kurdish politics in these two countries are being
transformed by the example and influence of the Iraqi KRG and PKK militancy.
Other chapters in this comprehensive book include more general and comparative treat-
ment of Kurdish issues in the regional and international contexts. David Romanos chapter
on this theme is particularly illuminating.
Sami Zubaida, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sortir de la grande nuit: essai sur lAfrique dcolonise. By Achille Mbembe. Paris:
La Dcouverte. 2010. 246pp. Pb.: 13.61. isbn 978 2 70716 670 8.
It is often said, and not without reason, that our knowledge of Africa is not just shallow
but all too easily shaped by the facile accounts we read in the press. Over the years, Africans
and Africanists alike have pointed out that much of what passes for evidence about the
continent is nothing other than an ill-digested mishmash of centuries-old clichs refreshed
by the latest outrageous or exotic news. Often, many maintain, it is an image that reflects
what we see in Africa rather than what is happening there. It is the very lens we employ
to gaze at the perennially dark continent that is clouding our vision and innervating our
senses. Blinded by what we think we know, we are unable to comprehend the rapid changes
taking place. We simply do not comprehend Africas modernity. But what is worse, we
are not aware of our inability to make sense of that very pregnant modernityto which,
metaphorically, we in the former colonial West turn our backs.
For this reason alone, it is worth reading Sortir de la grande nuita volume which casts a
startlingly different look at the continent. Achille Mbembe is a Cameroonian intellectual
who has lived and worked in France, the United States and now South Africa. He is thus
in a privileged position to recast the discourse on (rather than analysis of ) Africa from
a rare standpoint. Not only is his a very powerful African voice, but it is one endowed
with multicultural perspective and a critical stance few of his continental peers display. His
reflections on the fortune of the continent since it came under the colonial yoke are at once
subjective, personal and linguisticlinguistic because his aim is to enunciate, by means of
a very idiosyncratic form of literary dissection, that to which he is a witness. This makes for
difficult reading, which is rewarded by the near-poetic quality of his expression. The effort
required is also a means of coming to grips with a reality that is often poorly presented in
social science terms.
The book is a collection of articles and other pieces written in the last few years on
different topics, ranging from post-colonial theory to the French obsession with a
neo-republican discourse that ignores minorities, including much fresh material on South
Africa. Of these, the chapters relevant to the search for new ways of thinking Africa are the
first, on the authors own personal trajectory, and the last two, on Africas trajectory and its
hybrid present. The rest of the book includes a chapter on race and post-coloniality and two
long chapters on Frances troubled relations with its colonial past and its current problems
with immigrants. Each is of interest but they do not cohere into a single volume, much less
anything resembling an argument. Yet, as the author would no doubt say, an argument is
reductive; what matters is what the text evokes in the reader. So what does it evoke?
Mbembe continues to be an angry man but he no longer is as obsessed as he was in the
past with the terrible violence Africans inflict upon each otherwhich was the main focus
749
Book reviews
of his previous book, De la postcolonie: essai sur limagination politique dans lAfrique contempo-
raine (Karthala, 2000). His is now a more forward reflection on the consequences of two
fundamental trends in Africa: globalization and migration. Unlike many of his contempo-
raries, Mbembe sees in the growing transnational transformation of the continent a poten-
tial force for good. Of course, he highlights the terrible costs inflicted on many societies
by the narrow local politics of those who now want to expel, or eliminate, the others
in their midst. He also points out how multiparty elections have sharpened communi-
tarian divisions and made war a business proposition. And he continues to despair at the
mendacity of most African politicians, many of whom are willing to generate apocalyptic
chaos merely to stay in power. But he would also like to believe that morality is slowly
changingpartly because more and more Africans live abroad and partly because their
post-colonial self-loathing is abatingand that this will, eventually, lead to a post-nation-
alist attitude, capable of achieving more than immediate gratification.
Read as a series of personal musings on contemporary Africa, rather than as political
analysis, this book will not fail to evoke in the reader an unbearably powerful image of the
brittle, broken, daily realities most Africans face. But it will also show how one particularly
cosmopolitan African intellectual envisages what he dubs an Afropolitanisme (meaning
an African cosmopolitanism), which will enable Africans to transcend race, violence and
short-termism. It is a very bracing book, which will not leave the reader indifferent.
Patrick Chabal, Kings College London, UK
South Asia
Deadly embrace: Pakistan, America and the future of global jihad. By Bruce Riedel.
Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press. 2011. 180pp. 16.99. isbn 978 0 81570 557 4.
The scorpions tail: the relentless rise of Islamic militants in Pakistanand how it
threatens America. By Zahid Hussain. New York: Free Press. 2010. 243pp. 17.86. isbn
978 1 43912 025 5.
When the United States declared war on Afghanistan a decade ago few could have imagined
that Pakistan, its supposed friend and ally, would emerge as the deadlier foe. These two
books chart the course of this extraordinary transformation and both suggest that the
volatile nature of USPakistan relations naturally predisposed them to radical shifts in
policy and perception. Today these shifts threaten not only to destroy an alliance that has
served both sides well for more than 60 years, but to endanger the very security of America
and the wider global community.
Indeed, the question of Americas national security is a dominant concern for Bruce
Riedel, who argues strongly in favour of consistency in US policy towards Pakistan to repair
the damage caused by their fractious ties. This is no idle exercise. Riedel, a top CIA agent
with three decades of service, is best known for chairing President Barack Obamas first
policy review on Pakistan. Its ambitious mandate was to frame a new approach to Pakistan
that would avoid the wild swings of intense friendship and bitter enmity characteristic of
previous US administrations. But Riedel is also driven by another, arguably more urgent,
consideration: his belief that only by engaging reliably with Pakistan, which he depicts as
the epicentre of global Islamic jihad, can America hope to avert the unthinkable, that is, a
jihadist, nuclear-armed Pakistan (p. 113). At the same time, he acknowledges the daunting
challenges ahead. Chief of these is to overcome decades of mistrust between America and
750
South Asia
Pakistan. They date back to the early 1960s when Pakistan first accused America of letting
down an ally by tilting towards India. More recently America has voiced its own apprehen-
sions by blaming Pakistan for not doing more to help its ally win the war in Afghanistan.
These entirely different narratives developed by Pakistanis and Americans (p. 123), Riedel
argues, have effectively crippled their bilateral relationship even while leaving them stuck
with each other.
Finding a way out of this conundrum will not be easy. The key, Riedel believes, lies
in America forging a new relationship based on its unwavering support for, and genuine
engagement with, Pakistans democratically elected leaders. That, in turn, requires real
assistance along the lines of the KerryLugar bill, passed by Congress in 2009, which
aims to strengthen Pakistans civilian institutions and make them better able to withstand
pressure from the countrys dominant military, which until now has been the chief benefi-
ciary of US largess. This well-intentioned recipe for change is welcome. But if the recent
crisis over the arrest and release of the CIA contractor, Raymond Davis, is anything to go
by, unlocking the deadly embrace between America and Pakistans deep state (read, its
military and intelligence apparatus) will need to wait a while yet. Meanwhile, US policy-
makers may come to realize that real change in Pakistan demands measures not only to
fortify the countrys civilian leaders but to weaken its military leadership by starving it
precisely of the resources from America upon which it relies for its commanding position.
Riedel does not, and perhaps cannot, entertain this possibility. As a former intelligence
officer he is likely to be more aware than most of the terms of exchange agreed by America
when it first decided to subcontract its war in Afghanistan to Pakistans militaryterms
that many fear strengthened the militarys prerogative to decide the pace and substance of
democratic reform at home. Although Riedel lays down red lines that loudly proclaim
zero tolerance for the militarys protection of militant sanctuaries in Pakistan and for its
patronage of patently dangerous organizations such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, they are not
likely now to revise those terms of exchange. This is especially true at the present time
when Pakistans civilian leadership appears to have all but surrendered to the army high
command and when the shaky course of the Afghan campaign has made America more
dependent on Pakistans military.
These dispiriting trends are abundantly confirmed in veteran journalist Zahid Hussains
new book, The scorpions tail, which tracks the relentless rise of Islamic militants in Pakistan
since 2006. He offers little by way of new information or analysis about key events such as
the controversial peace deals concluded with tribal militants in 2006; the storming of the
Red Mosque in 2007; the deadly attack on the Marriott Hotel in 2008; or the battle for Swat
in 2009. But Hussain has no doubt that they all represent the blowback effects of Americas
failing strategy to crush the Islamist insurgency in Pakistan. And it is also this failure, he
believes, that has allowed Pakistans military to stage a creeping coup and to take charge
of the countrys national security and foreign policya development, he concludes, that
certainly does not bode well for the preservation of the democratic process (p. 211).
But the lack of a coherent US strategy also bodes ill for America. Its misguided policies,
notably the covert use of unmanned drones to strike militant bases in Pakistan, have signifi-
cantly compounded the threat to America by giving rise to a new al-Qaeda. According
to Hussain, its reach extends beyond the tribal regions of Pakistan to encompass young
Pakistanis drawn from the countrys educated, urban middle classes, who are deeply
ideologically committed and who are spear-heading the spreading war in Pakistan (p.
208). Typical of this new brand of recruits are the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad,
and his ring of educated associates operating out of Pakistans proliferating urban centres.
751
Book reviews
It is the power of these groups to regenerate and strike again that Hussain believes lends
credence to his metaphor of the scorpions tail, which when cut off, grows back again (p.
10). But the emergence of these groups also stands as an indictment of US policy that has
single-handedly tightened the nexus in Pakistan between Al-Qaeda, the Taleban and a new
generation of urban-based militants, who are now poised to inflict the greatest damage to
the United States at home and abroad.
Both these books offer valuable insights into the dilemmas that confront US p olicy-makers
and both must be commended for adding their voice to calls for a more coherent US strategy
to tackle the escalating militant threat in Pakistan. Pakistan could be heading towards the
abyss, but we have been warned that it may not be alone in the steep descent to oblivion.
Farzana Shaikh, Asia Programme, Chatham House, UK
East Asia and Pacific

East Asia before the West: five centuries of trade and tribute. By David C. Kang.
New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press. 2010. 240pp. 19.00. isbn 978 0
23115 318 8.
David Kang confronts us with a puzzle: why were there only two wars between the
Sinicized states of East Asia between 1368 and 1842 and so many more wars between the
states of Europe? Since the conquest of China by the Ming Dynasty and the Mings formal-
ization of the tributary system the only two wars fought between China, Korea, Japan and
Vietnam were Chinas invasion of Vietnam in 1407 and Japans invasion of Korea in 1592.
Kangs answer is, put simply, because the ideal in Europe of a formal equality between
states contrasted sharply with that of an accepted inequality between states in East Asia.
Whereas the formally equal states of Europe were locked in a perpetual struggle against
each other, the formally unequal East Asian states accepted a Chinese-led hierarchical
order that was codified in tributary relationships. The ideology of this system was a statist
Confucianism, which has at its core a relationship of unequal entities with the aim of
producing social order. Transposed to international relations, a Confucianist system leads
to an unequal international order. The rules of the game were set by China alone, and not
by a multitude of competing states.
The diplomatic tools employed by the unequal states were also different. Not carefully
balanced treaties, but tributary missions that were matched by gifts bestowed by the Chinese
emperor on the lesser states; rulers of the lesser states seeking investiture from the Chinese
emperor (for very personal reasons, though) and requesting the use of the Chinese calendar;
or the Chinese refusal to accept tributary missions from disobedient states. The arrival of
European imperialism and with it the idea of formal equality between states disturbed this
harmony and led to turmoil: interstate wars over territories, ethnic conflicts, insurgencies
and revolutionary struggles, and a nationalist rewriting of history.
The thesis is interesting, and the book persuasively argued. It discusses in fascinating
detail for example the conduct of diplomatic relations in chapter four on the tributary
system. There is a slight problem with timing perhaps. In Europe, the formal equality
between states was codified in 1648, 280 years after the Ming Dynasty came to power. Kang
admits that he did not go into the archives to search for new information. Therefore the
details he discusses are well known, and the value of the book at this point lies in the fact
that it assembles these details in a single volume and explains them from an International
Relations (IR) rather than historical research perspective.
752
In pursuing the goal of gaining insight into contemporary international relations in East
Asia from a historical perspective, Kang is in line with attempts in China to construct an IR
theory with Chinese characteristics. Chinese researchers advocating such attempts argue
that the nature of the international system as relations between sovereign and formally
equal states is a European concept, not an East Asian one; and that the introduction of the
Westphalian system to East Asia is too recent to fully explain and comprehend the inter-
action between the states in the area. Indeed, the thesis is fascinating. To what extent are
decision-makers in, say, Vietnam shaped by diplomatic tradition in relations with China? Is
there any reason to believe that western imperialism has eradicated all the experience gained
by 2,000 years of ChinaVietnam relations? Is there another layer of interstate conduct that
has pervaded the Westphalian institutions in Korea, Japan, Vietnam and China?
While reading through the historical narrative, there is some expectation that the final
chapter could be the most important one that answers these questions or at least gives some
indications of how old tradition might shine through a Westphalian surface. But it does not
happen. In the final chapter entitled Lessons, Kang immediately admits that there is no
return to the tributary system. Yet where we are in an assessment of tradition in East Asian
relations he also does not say. Only that tradition plays a role. Surely that assessment is not
very novel, and the book thus ends with some disappointment.
However, East Asia before the West is important in maintaining the ongoing discussion on
whether or not there is something distinctive about interstate conduct in East Asia and it is
at any rate immensely enjoyable and informative in its rich historical detail.
Oliver Hensengerth, University of Southampton, UK
Myanmar/Burma: inside challenges, outside interests. Edited by Lex Rieffel.

Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, and Konrad Adenauer Foundation. 2010.
200pp. Index. Pb.: 18.99. isbn 978 0 81570 505 5.
This book collects contributions to a workshop held in Washington in October 2009, the
purpose of which was to explore policy options for the United States and other govern-
ments in relation to the seemingly intractable problem of Burma/Myanmar. The meeting in
question was timely, as it contributed to the Obama administrations review of its Myanmar
policy, in an effort to move beyond the existing sanctions-led approach towards a more
engaged relationship with the military government in that country. Inevitably, therefore,
some of the essays are dated, written as they were before the November 2010 elections, and
formation of a new government in early 2011. Nevertheless, this is a valuable contribution
to the literature on Burmese politics.
As the title suggests, the chapters are grouped around two themes: domestic challenges
facing the Burmese polity, and international dimensions. Among the former, the editor
identifies two key issues: national reconciliation and economic development. Understand-
ably, given the books origins, the focus of many of the chapters, particularly in part two,
is on the role of US policy. In this respect, Under Secretary of State for East Asia and
Pacific Kurt Campbells closing chapter on US pragmatic engagement with the Burmese
government, presented to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in October 2009, is a
particularly useful reference.
The collection of essays is notable for the large number of contributions by Asian
scholars and policy-makers. The editor is to be applauded for this inclusive approach, in
a field which tends to be dominated by western experts. Among the more substantial
chapters are those by Myanmar scholar Kyaw Yin Hlaing, who provides some interesting
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new insights into the relationship between the military government, Aung San Suu Kyi
and the National League for Democracy. He rightly identifies one of the main sticking
points to dialogue as the issue of legitimacy, which is understood and practised differently
by different parties in the country (including ethnic nationalities, which make up about a
third of the population). Maung Zarni, a prominent scholar-activist in exile, contributes a
personal account of attempts at national reconciliation. He offers some astute observations
on the Myanmar army leaderships notion of its historical entitlement to configure
the postcolonial state in line with its uncompromising vision of a unitary polity (p. 53).
However, Zarnis account fails to acknowledge the attempts at peacebuilding undertaken
by various armed ethnic groups since the 1990s, in the context of ceasefires agreed between
insurgent organizations (many of which are currently under extreme stress) and the
militarized state. Instead, he provides a detailed explanation of his own controversial role
in reconciliation initiatives, which adds much of interest to the historical record, without
really explaining the authors shifting position regarding whether and how to engage with
the military authorities in Myanmar.
One of the most important, and depressing, chapters in the book is David Dapices
analysis of the rural economy. He points out the need for recapitalization and the extension
of affordable, large-scale credit, in order to prevent further decline and enhance agricul-
tural output and efficiency. Of all those in the book, this is the chapter which should most
urgently be recommended to Myanmars new government. Other chapters also focus
on economic dimensions, including Xiaolin Guos useful account of booming China
Myanmar border relations. Unfortunately, this chapter omits any serious analysis of the
drugs trade, which constitutes an important element of the political economy in northern
Burma, with destructive impacts on local communities and a corrosive influence on struc-
tures of governance. The Chinese and Indian state positions are authoritatively described
by Li Chenyang, while ASEAN official Termsak Chalermpalanupap outlines the history
and current status of the South-East Asian regional groupings Myanmar doctrine. A more
critical, but still comprehensive, view of international relations with Myanmar, focusing
on the role of ASEAN and the United States, is provided by Pavin Chachavalpongpun.
The penultimate chapter is an overview of the relationship between Myanmar and
North Korea and the nuclear question, provided by Andrew Selth, the leading western
expert on Burmese security matters. He provides a masterly overview of the evidence,
concluding that both countries are information black holes (p. 192). Therefore, although
the evidence for Myanmar having an active nuclear weapons programme is limited, such a
worrying development cannot be entirely discounted.
Ashley South
Inside the red box: North Koreas post-totalitarian politics. By Patrick McEachern.
New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press. 2010. 301pp. Index. 24.00. isbn
978 0 23115 322 5.
Witness to transformation: refugee insights into North Korea. By Stephan Haggard
and Marcus Noland. Washington DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics.
2011. 182pp. Index. Pb.: 21.50. isbn 978 0 88132 438 9.
With a great deal of international attention focusing on other parts of the world as 2011
dawned, North Korea retained its status as a vexing global security problem which waxes
and wanes but never subsides to an appreciable degree. In addition to ongoing concerns
754
about the development of North Koreas nuclear weapons programme and its belligerent
actions against South Korea in recent months, including the alleged sinking of a South
Korean navy corvette and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island by the North Korean military
in 2010, there is also the question of the succession of current North Korean Leader Kim
Jong Il and how that might change the political landscape of the hermit kingdom. Attempts
by outside actors to study political life and decision-making in Pyongyang have frequently
been made more difficult by limited access to government documentation for foreigners
as well as by severely restricted access to all manner of socio-political information which
would more clearly illuminate what the North Korean state is thinking as it stubbornly
maintains its cohesion.
Both of these books seek to clarify much of the murkiness and ambiguity which has
surrounded the study of North Korean politics, while calling into question many long-held
beliefs concerning the day-to-day political life of the country. Inside the red box wastes little
time in arguing that there is much material which outside scholars can examine in order to
better understand the questions of power and governance in Pyongyang. Dismissing the
idea of a one-person government in North Korea, McEachern instead describes a delicate
balancing act between the Korean Workers Party (KWP), the Korean Peoples Army and
the North Korean cabinet which often involves much more compromise and politicking
than conventional wisdom would suggest. North Korea under the current Kim regime is
described here as less totalitarian and more pluralistic than under the government of his
father. While the power of Kim Jong Il is not dismissed, it is argued that to more fully
understand North Korean politics and variant policy outcomes, one must evaluate North
Koreas second-order institutions (p. 37). It is this examination which makes up much of
the book, beginning with a political history of the state under both Kim and his father and
predecessor, Kim Il Sung.
There were many occasions, as the book notes, when Kim Jong Il and the KWP found
themselves at odds over policy, including over the degree of acceptable economic reforms.
In addition, the regime is portrayed, unsurprisingly, as being increasingly sensitive to both
South Korean and American foreign policy, especially after the erosion of Seouls sunshine
policy towards the North and the addition by the George Bush administration of Pyong-
yang as part of the axis of evil, augmenting fears of potential forced regime change.
Internal policy differences over the first testing of a nuclear warhead in October 2006 and
the regional six-party negotiations before and after that test are also examined in great
detail. At the conclusion of the work, a vivid picture of the ongoing tug of war between
the government, military and KWP is produced, which further challenges the perception
of a monolithic North Korean state.
The often chaotic nature of political life in North Korea is also the subject of Witness
to transformation, a work which relies on data gathered from interviews and surveys of
North Korean refugees who settled in China and South Korea over the past decade. The
descriptions of refugee life in China, including the process of successfully crossing the
border and the subsequent difficulties in which exiles found themselves upon reaching
China, are especially enlightening, but at the same time the surveys also provide much
information on the difficult economic conditions in the DPRK, exacerbated by famine and
erratic attempts at developing an independent market system. Polls taken about the impact
(or lack thereof ) of international aid to Pyongyang, for example, suggested widespread
obliviousness among North Koreans to international food aid shipments to the country.
Also illuminating is the books description of the countrys prison system and its treatment
of dissenters, portraying a regime which is still very sensitive to any degree of opposition.
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Book reviews
Despite attempts at economic reform, the legal system is described as, if anything, increas-
ingly repressive.
The authors argue that their empirical evidence suggested a reform in reverse (p. 5)
process which began in 2005 and was punctuated by renewed food shortages, unease over
the state of Kim Jong Ils health, and an attempt in 2009 to implement currency reform
through a revaluing of the DPRK won designed to choke off what was being viewed by
the government as excessive market liberalization and to restore higher levels of central
economic planning. The level of protest was purportedly great enough to prompt a partial
reconsideration of the policy. One conclusion drawn by the work is that domestic markets
should continue to be encouraged, both as a badly-needed tool to provide for an impover-
ished population as well as a mechanism to encourage long-term internal political change
in a more humane direction (p. 125).
A common theme in both books is that outside observers seeking to better understand
the North Korean state should not restrict their studies to the very top of the political
hierarchy in the country, and that many other political actors, including the North Korean
people themselves, have much to contribute to these studies. Both books deserve to be
added to the list of essential readings on the modern politics of North Korea and will be
of great use to those wanting to look beyond the hard security dimensions of the DPRKs
politics and foreign policy in order to understand the inner workings of the secretive state.
Marc Lanteigne, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Chinese strategic thought toward Asia. By Gilbert Rozman. New York: Palgrave.
2010. 272pp. 55.00. isbn 978 1 40397 551 5.
The rise of China as a major actor in world politics has been paralleled by a voluminous
academic and journalistic literature on the subject. Yet, for the most part, this literature has
not sufficiently scrutinized how the Chinese themselves think about the issue, let alone
across a broad time-span. This timely and important book deals with Chinese thinking since
1980, towards what is arguably the most strategically significant part of the world, Asia. It
constitutes the final part of a larger series on Strategic thought in Northeast Asia by Palgrave,
which is also edited by the author. The analysis is divided into two broad sections. Section
one is split up into four chapters, and deals with Chinese thinking towards Asia over the
following periods: 198089, 199095, 19962000 and 20012009. Section two explores in
greater detail Chinas strategic thinking towards specific geographical areas. These include
separate chapters on Russia and Central Asia, Japan, the Korean Peninsula, South-East Asia
and South-West Asia. Finally, there is a chapter on Asian regionalism.
Gilbert Rozman posits that Chinese strategic thinking has been guided by two critical
objectives. The first involves forging an external environment that facilitates Chinas
peaceful integration into the international economic system. He ventures that this has been
achieved with stunning success (p. 38). The second objective relates to the security realm,
and involves China constraining other powers with interests in the Asian region. Attention
is focused on the major powers: Russia (the Soviet Union during the 1980s), the US and
Japan. Here, there is more qualified success. The author covers a broad period of contem-
porary Chinese strategic thinking, and does so in an authoritative manner. His perspective
merits serious consideration.
There are two key debates that animate the academic study of Chinese strategic
thinking, and Rozmans account invariably touches on each. First, what drives Chinese
strategic thinking? The standard understanding is that the Chinese are Realists, focused on a
756
North America
aterialist and zero-sum perspective of international relations. A more recent development
m
has been to focus on the non-material sphere. Rozmans perspective appears to embrace both
approaches. The narrative is littered with references to Realist balance of power tendencies
in Chinese foreign policy. That said, Rozman also views values and ideology as being at least
as important in explaining Chinese strategic thinking. Indeed, China is viewed by Rozman
as the most ideological state in East Asia apart from North Korea (p. 38). Interestingly, he
points out that the Chinese are not particularly sensitive to their own value-laden world-
view. In any case, a Realist and ideology-based outlook is viewed by the author as being
responsible for a variety of misjudgements in strategic thinking, which has been translated
into actual policy failures. How then to reconcile these failures with the record of apparent
policy success? Rozman goes some way to doing so by explaining that Chinas counterparts
have themselves made errors, thus cushioning the effect of Chinese flaws. More generally,
this already strong book could have been further strengthened by articulating an explicit
model that explains the exact relationship between ideas, material power, and domestic
politics. Indeed, it would be a major contribution to the theoretical literature on Chinese
foreign policy if Rozman could relate it to the various theories that International Relations
theorists use to interpret Chinas behaviour in world politics.
A second debate that this book is relevant to concerns the issue of how skilful Chinese
strategic thinking has been since the early 1980s. Over the course of the last decade, a
number of analysts have advanced the view that the Chinese are particularly apt practi-
tioners of the art of diplomacy and power politics. This book offers a corrective to the
literature. During Deng Xiaopings leadership in the 1980s, Rozman makes the case that
China ended up being isolated in the ChinaUSSoviet strategic triangle, even while it
alienated the Japanese by exaggerating the danger of that countrys rise. Particularly under
Jiang Zemins leadership, Rozman argues that policy mistakes were rife. Examples cited
include the poor handling of the following events: the Taiwan Strait crisis of 19956; the
mistaken US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999; and the EP-3 plane colli-
sion of 2001. The author finds strategic thinking during the current Hu Jintao era to be the
most effective, which is interesting since this coincided with a de-emphasis on ideology (p.
126). Looking to the future, Rozman argues that the Chinese lack the leverage to be pivot
in any triangle, be it with the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea or ASEAN. Since
the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China, its leadership has emphasized the
importance of correct thinking as a guide to successful policy, be it for domestic economic
development or national security. If Rozman is correct, strategic thinking has both been
less successful than the Chinese think, and far from guaranteed for the future.
Nicholas Khoo, University of Otago, New Zealand
North America
The great American mission: modernization and the construction of an American
world order. By David Ekbladh. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2010. 404pp.
Index. 24.95. isbn 978 0 69113 330 0.
What David Ekbladh calls The great American mission refers to the deployment of American
notions about modernization in one of the battlefield of ideas in the international struggles
of the twentieth century, namely development. He argues that modernization formed an
essential element of American strategy not only in the Cold War, but in fact from at least the
1930s in reaction to the rise of fascism and communism. Thus the United States consistently
757
Book reviews
proposed to other countries a model of liberal modernization to combat the inimical statist
models offered by its ideological competitors. The author provides a welcome comple-
ment to and variation on the literature that takes the pursuit of US-style democracy as
the countrys main ideological-strategic goal, as in the similarly titled Americas mission: the
United States and the worldwide struggle for democracy in the twentieth century (Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1994) by his Tufts colleague Tony Smith.
While the role of foreign aid and development in the Cold War has been explored
before, here Ekbladh does a service by tracing the historical roots of American thinking
on modernization at least to the debates of the Reconstruction era, and then taking in
the US experience of involvement in the Philippines and China. In fact, he might also
have considered drawing further connections between modernization ideas, with their
associated concepts of progress and racial and cultural superiority, and the expansion of
the United States across the American continent in the era of Manifest Destiny. Historical
precedents noted, the author hangs the books central argument on the New Deal origin of
many American ideas about modernization at the domestic level, especially the example of
the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), one of the jewels in the New Deal crown, and their
transposition to the field of foreign relations. In this, he argues, the TVA was promoted as
the best example of how liberal development could be implemented worldwide (p. 62).
The great American mission does a good job of placing modernization at the heart of US
strategy for a liberal international order from the start of the Cold War, beginning with
Harry Truman and his four-point plan to confront communism after the Second World
War, as set out in his 1949 inaugural speech. Point Four would see the United States deploy
technical assistance to what were described as underdeveloped areas. Befitting the distrust
of an overly powerful state central to the American debates about modernization, Ekbladh
also brings out the role played by non-state actors such as religious groups and missionary
societies, universities and foundations in the devising and pursuit of this mission. Above
all, What is important is that a historically specific variant of international development
that took its cues from the experience of the United States had a clear strategic rationale
within a new American globalism. Its aim was to assure and extend the sphere of liberal life
against ideological challengers (p. 69). He goes on to follow the progression and travails of
the US modernization agenda across the different battlegrounds of the Cold War, notably
and instructively in South Korea in the 1950s and in Vietnam in the 1960s, reflecting the
importance of Asia in the global ideological competition, especially after the communist
takeover of China. (Ekbladh notes, though without dwelling on the point, that it was in
South Korea that the liberal development sponsored by the United States made peace with
what has been termed developmental autocracy (p. 199), which one should bear in mind
in todays debates about a possible Chinese model of development.)
The 1960s were supposed to be the development decade and President John F. Kennedy
created the US Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps. Yet Ekbladh
shows how American ideas about modernization and development fell prey to the night-
mare of the Vietnam War, in part because of their instrumentalization within US security
strategy. (This section of the book offers a salutary warning in light of more recent efforts to
instrumentalize democracy ideas.) The Vietnam effect, combined with other international
factors related to development, led to the unravelling of the modernization consensus in
US policy circles, with foreign aid much downgraded as a government objective over the
next two decades. The book notes, though with less detail than in covering previous eras,
the further decline of foreign aid after the end of the Cold War. Perhaps the author should
have made more of the 1990s rise of the good governance and democracy agenda in the
758
Latin America and Caribbean
field of foreign assistancewhat could be called a political turn in developmentand its
relationship to the modernization legacy in American thinking.
In a final chapter, Ekbladh addresses the evolution of US policy From Cold War to
global war on terror, with the possible resurgence of modernization-like approaches
post-9/11. Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, foreign aid has made something of a comeback,
especially in the US efforts in Afghanistan. It is again seen as part of an ideological competi-
tion between America and a foreign threat, as shown most recently by the spending plans of
the Obama administration. In this context, the author could also have paid more attention
to the earlier rise of the concept of failed states in the 1990s. One wishes that the history
of the last 30 years could have received the level of attention and detail shown in the earlier
chapters, though it is perhaps churlish to ask for what would have been a much expanded
work. And even though the TVA angle is an interesting and useful one, at times it feels
as though the author is perhaps trying to build too much on it. These points aside, The
great American mission deserves to take its place among the literature on the evolution of US
foreign relations in the twentieth century.
Nicolas Bouchet, Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, UK

Cheddi Jagan and the politics of power: British Guianas struggle for independence.
By Colin A. Palmer. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. 2010. 363pp.
Index. 35.95. isbn 978 0 8078 3416 9.
Accounts of British Guianas long and torturous path towards independence in 1966 have
often been cast, not least by the protagonists themselves, in terms of a simple morality play:
the straightforward struggle between a reformist Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) under
the leadership of Cheddi Jagan and conservative domestic interests aided and abetted by
external forces. As exemplified by Stephen Rabes United States intervention in British Guiana:
a Cold War story (University of North Carolina Press, 2005), the obvious attraction has lain
in elucidating the Machiavellian role played by the United States in seeking to bring down
the PPP government; such an approach has necessarily come at the expense of an adequate
and more nuanced consideration of the nature of Guianas fractured polity. Colin Palmers
latest book goes a considerable way towards redressing that imbalance.
Palmers study rests on an almost exclusive use of primary sources: he has diligently
combed the files of the British Colonial Office and the regular reports to Washington on the
domestic situation by the US consul-general in Georgetown, and has fruitfully accessed
though to a more limited extentarchival holdings in Guyana. He often provides in the
course of his narrative long extracts from these documents. Chapters three and four largely
comprise testimony from the 1954 Robertson Commission hearings, which he utilizes to
take the pulse of the colony in the wake of the previous years exceptional suspension of
the newly introduced constitution and the dismissal of the (first) PPP government after just
133 days in office. This is one of the major strengths of the work, as it lends immediacy to
poignant contemporary debates.
The book follows a loose chronological format framed by the 1953 imperial coup dtat
(as the author insists on calling it) and the deliberately engineered removal of the PPP from
office in 1964 by means of the introduction of the unprecedented (for a country within the
British constitutional sphere) electoral system of proportional representation. Thematic
chapters are dedicated to the tumultuous events of 1953; the subsequent attempt by the
759
Book reviews
colonial authorities to contain the PPP; the search for a constitutional way forward; a
penetrating analysis of what Cheddi Jagan stood for (Jaganism); the growing trauma of
racial divisions within the colony; and the Anglo-American attempt between 1961 and 1964
to remove the PPP from office once and for all prior to the granting of independence.
These chapters tend to overlap and the author is prone to get ahead of himself; the external
campaign against the PPP, moreover, is treated on a separate plane from the colonys simul-
taneous internal convulsions. A number of important milestones in the colonys political
trajectory, it seems to me, have been passed over much too rapidly as a result, in part, of
this analytical framework: namely, the internal split in the PPP and the actual founding
in 1957 of the rival Peoples National Congress under Forbes Burnham; the August 1961
elections, subsequently described as the most divisive in the colonys history (p. 228); and
the disturbances of 1963 to which the author dedicates just three paragraphs, referring the
reader to Jagans book The West on trial (1966) for details.
In a field in which partisanship has been the norm, the author is even-handed in his
criticism of the colonys mediocre leadership, a term he uses thrice in the course of
his introduction. His summation of the incompatible personality traits of Burnham
(brilliant, arrogant, self-assured, calculating, self-centred and overly ambitious) and Jagan
(passionate, ideologically confused, nave, impractical but earnest) (p. 195) is masterful.
For all his failings, Palmer nonetheless concludes that Cheddi Jagan was arguably the most
outstanding leader his country produced in the twentieth century (p. 312). The American-
born Janet Jagan, frequently viewed as a sinister figure by the colonial authorities and the
US, comes across in a positive light due to her political savvy and organizational capacity:
she is credited with holding the PPP together in 1964.
Palmers book adds little to the existing literature on the obsessive US campaign against
Jagan and the PPP; the author defers entirely to Rabes findings on the covert activities of
the CIA in the colony during the Kennedy administration. Consonant with Rabes searing
indictment, he charges the Americans with being enthusiastic enablers of the colonys pain
(p. 249). He is far harsher than the latter, however, on the role played by the British: despite
their more sympathetic attitude towards Jagan than in the early 1950s, officials in London
in particular Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandyswere in effect co-conspirators with the
US in the successful bid to topple the democratically elected PPP government.
A leitmotif of the volume is the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized:
The core of Guianas tragedy was the colonial experience. Britain had presided over a
society created to serve its interests, one legitimized by its coercive power and lubricated by
the ideology of superiority of white over black and brown (p. 307). Even when prepared
to grant the colony independence in the early 1960s, the British placed their own interests
to the fore. No opportunity is missed by the author to make an acerbic comment on the
position of subordination of the colonized: an imperious white colonial governor with the
power of the state behind him thought he had the right to berate the brown-skinned subject
with impunity (p. 178).
This somewhat earnest post-colonial perspective doubtless accounts for the occasional
lapse into the use of overheated language: the suspension of the constitution in 1953 hardly
warrants being called an act of constitutional terrorism (p. 61); the phrase Gestapo-like
tactics (p. 68) does not befit the post-coup campaign of harassment by the colonial author-
ities against the PPP; and the dispatch of British troops to support the governor in 1953 does
not constitute military intervention (p. 311) when measured against the military coups
prevalent in neighbouring Latin American countries at the time.
In sum, this eloquent and passionately written book adds greater depth to our under-
760
standing of British Guianas tragic downward spiral into bitter racial conflict on the eve of
independence, the ramifications of which are all too evident today.
Philip Chrimes
Toledos Peru: vision and reality. By Ronald Bruce St John. Gainesville, FL: Univer-
sity Press of Florida. 2010. 254pp. 39.50. isbn 978 0 81303 521 5.
Do not judge a book by its cover. Never has this aphorism been more applicable than in
relation to Ronald Bruce St Johns Toledos Peru. Anyone who casually picks up this book
in a library or bookshop would be inclined to think it was a hagiography and its author a
sycophant. The dust jacket is composed of a series of photographs of Alejandro Toledo,
President of Peru from 2001 to 2006, that suggest that the books designer was busy or short
of ideas. All the photos are courtesy of the Palacio de Gobierno, i.e. they were provided
by the presidential bureaucracy. They certainly show Toledo in political campaign mode:
hugging schoolchildren, riding a donkey, pointing to a bridge in the distance, wearing
traditional Andean clothes, hugging a baby vicua, wearing the presidential sash, and so
on. The theme of these photographs continues in the black and white images in the centre
pages of the book: Toledo and President George W. Bush at the Palacio de Gobierno,
surrounded by young admirers, displaying semi-professional football skills that helped
pay for his university education, distributing land titles, etc.
In fact, St Johns book is not a hagiography at all. It is a largely critical study of policy
during the Toledo government. St John draws primarily on newspaper articles and inter-
views (some 50 odd, including several with Toledo himself ) and demonstrates a good grasp
of the academic literature on political economy and politics in Peru (although the author is
wrong to claim that Shining Path hoped to co-opt Andean culture [p. 121]: Shining Path
ideologues did not think in terms of culture, or indeed in terms of an Andean culture,
if such a thing exists, but in terms of class and class struggle). The approach is largely
descriptive but St John does not shy away from providing critical assessments of the Toledo
governments policy successes and failures. Close observers of Peruvian politics will not
find any major new insights in this book. But the book does provide a clearly written and
balanced overview of Toledos government.
The book is divided into eight thematic chapters. The first chapter includes a short
biographical sketch of Toledo and discusses his political campaigns, and the role that he
played in the final year of the Fujimori regime (19902000). The following chapter looks
at the economic policy of Toledo and emphasizes its continuity with Fujimoris economic
policy, its relative success in maintaining high growth rates and its relative failure in
translating that growth into social improvements. The next chapter explores Toledos
institutional reforms, or, rather the failure to pursue the institutional reforms (aimed at
the military, police, intelligence services and judiciary) initiated by the transitional govern-
ment of Valentn Paniagua (20002001), and discusses the corruption and nepotism that
blighted the governments record. St John then turns to examine Toledos social policy
in areas such as education, health, housing and equality. He concludes that these policies
were only very partially successful in improving the lives of ordinary Peruvians. The
next two chapters focus on foreign policy, in the Andean context first, and then more
generally. The assessment is far more positive. A final report card summarizes St Johns
assessments of these different policy areas, grouping them in two categories: what went
wrong and what went right. A short epilogue brings the story to around 2009, before
Toledo had announced that he was running for the 2011 elections.
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Book reviews
As this suggests, the book is timely. Peruvians went to the polls on 10 April to choose
their next president and parliamentary representatives. Toledo was twelve points ahead
of his main rivals, Keiko Fujimori, Alberto Fujimoris daughter, and the former mayor of
Lima, Luis Castaeda. But Toledo only managed to come fourth in the first-round run-off,
and Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala, a former army officer who was narrowly defeated
in the second-round run-off in 2006 by current President Alan Garca, will now dispute
the second round, to be decided on 5 June. There are a number of factors that explain
why Toledo lost his lead and his chance of re-election. Some are linked to his campaign
and to the fact that Toledo, Castaeda, and Toledos former Prime Minister Pedro Pablo
Kuczynski (who came third), all competed for, and split, the same centre-right votes and
effectively opened the door to Humala, a populist of the left, and Fujimori, a populist of
the right. But Toledos electoral defeat must also be blamed on his record as president that
St John discusses ably in his book. Like his successor, Garca, Toledo did little to address the
concerns of a very large sector of the population who clearly feel that the current economic
bonanza is not trickling down to them. It is apparent that for this sector of the electorate, a
return to a mafia-like government of the Fujimori clan or a bet on the nationalist-populist
Humala is preferable to five more years of Toledo.
Paulo Drinot, Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, UK
762

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