Maximalist

October 14, 2013
A Clinton-era diplomat, Reagan administration official, and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Sestanovich is well placed to assess the course of American foreign policy since WWII. He does so in lively prose with the understanding of a practitioner as well as an academic. While his trenchant narrative of America’s changing posture toward the world can carry itself, Sestanovich hangs it on a framework that it doesn’t require. The U.S., he argues, has oscillated over the past half-century between all-in “maximalism” and more restrained “retrenchment” approaches to international affairs, the use of its power, and the strength of its military forces. It’s difficult to argue with that characterization, though it doesn’t add much to what Sestanovich authoritatively relates. It’s a line of thought that echoes the long-running tension between realism and idealism in American foreign policy—a classic, probably unresolvable academic and official debate. Also, Sestanovich’s confusing restraint in assessing what he calls retrenchment makes changes in policy seem more fundamental than they were. With that said, this is a valuable survey of America’s international policies since 1945, and anyone would benefit from and enjoy reading it.

July 1, 2014
An informed analysis of American foreign policy that reveals a cyclical pattern.Sestanovich (International Diplomacy/Columbia Univ.) served in high posts under Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan and is currently a senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In this overview of the last 12 presidential administrations, he identifies two contrasting stances: maximalism, characterized by aggressive, expensive responses to international challenges; and retrenchment, efforts "to unwind a disaster and to put American policy on a more sustainable foundation." Truman, Kennedy, Reagan and George W. Bush were maximalists, the author writes. Eisenhower, Ford, Johnson, Nixon and Carter undertook retrenchment, providing "a corrective to the other's mistakes." Clinton and George H.W. Bush were hybrids. In each case, "when retrenchment fails to rebuild American power, meet new challenges, or compete effectively, the maximalist reappears, ready with ambitious formulas for doing so." No matter who was president, Sestanovich found vehement discord among advisers, in Congress, and in public discourse, as maximalists vied with retrenchers or, midstream, changed their positions. In 1948, for example, Truman's advisers Dean Acheson and George Kennan were at odds, with Kennan believing the Cold War was "a temporary spike of tension" that could be resolved through compromise, and Acheson refusing to yield to Soviet demands. The author analyzes Kennedy's decision-making about Russia's presence in Cuba and Johnson's about Vietnam, which resulted in the administration's conclusion "that the United States would succeed only if it could run the show." The Obama administration began with retrenchment, Sestanovich writes, but while Obama favors "innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches," among those innovations are forceful measures such as drones, surveillance and Special Forces strikes.As his title implies, Sestanovich believes in "productive maximalism" that acknowledges America's imperative to "call the shots" to achieve "a satisfactory global order-secure, prosperous, and democratic." This book gives ample evidence of the rocky road toward that goal.

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December 15, 2013
The recent revelations concerning spying on leaders of our allies by the NSA may have surprised many. However, in this survey of American foreign policy over the past seven decades, Sestanovich, a former diplomat and currently a professor of international diplomacy at Columbia University, makes clear that all administrations have used ethically questionable tactics in the pursuit of broader strategic foreign-policy goals. But Sestanovich is more concerned with consistency than ethics in the conduct of our foreign policy. He asserts that between and even within administrations we have lurched from active (or overactive) involvement to retrenchment. After WWII, we understandably shrank our military and shrank from confrontation until forced into involvement by the Korean War. Similarly, the failures in Vietnam and Iraq have caused similar reluctance to intervene abroad. The result, Sestanovich maintains, is a dangerous uncertainty among both our allies and adversaries. What he views as retrenchment could be considered sensible restraint. Still, this is a valuable and provocative interpretation of our diplomatic and military conduct.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)