While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today

In the aftermath of costly victory in World War I, the government of Great Britain downsized its military, avoided confrontations with powers large and small, and attended to domestic matters and quality-of-life issues. While England slept, in Winston Churchill's famous phrase, governments less concerned with sticking close to the hearth rose elsewhere and held sway. The result was World War II and, after it, the cold war.

The post-cold war United States, historians Donald and Frederick W. Kagan argue, resembles that cozy England in many ways. In the wake of Vietnam, the American government has been reluctant to commit its forces to the purpose of policing the world--though, the Kagans write, "if the United States is not to take a leading part in such a constabulary, who will?"--and has pursued a policy of brief, limited military encounters that involve little risk of incurring casualties. This policy, coupled with a long period of reductions in military spending and staffing, will, the Kagans believe, lead to disaster, as some other Hitler, or Saddam, or Kim Il Jung rises to trouble the world. Acknowledging that historical analogies are only approximations, the Kagans earnestly argue that England's and America's respective patterns of "self-deluding pseudo-engagements" have proved and will again prove to be misguided evasions, and that it will be in the world's ultimate interest for the United States to remain militarily strong and unafraid of a fight.

Though readers may not agree with their conclusions, the Kagans make a convincing case backed by thoughtful historical analysis. --Gregory McNamee