Andrew Bacevich is a rebel without an ideology. In his new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Bacevich serves his own goals, ignoring entirely those of liberals and conservatives alike. Though labeled as a “conservative historian,” he seems to have no qualms about leveling a devastating criticism of Ronald Reagan, nor about praising the one Democratic president whom most Democrats see as a dolt or at least a naïve, Jimmy Carter. This intellectual independence makes Bacevich’s argument much more interesting, particularly in this time of highly polarized politics.
Bacevich’s thesis in The Limits of Power runs something like this: If the United States does finally fall from its position of unrivaled power, it will do so because Americans vote as if, in the words of George H.W. Bush, “the American way of life is not negotiable.” Carter won Bacevich’s favor for trying to convince the American people that they had to change, that they needed to reduce their consumption and expectations of unbridled abundance. The president suggested that, more than anything else, the behavior of the American citizenry threatened American dominance. Because according to Bacevich, “In American political discourse, threats are by definition external,” and in doing so Carter “kill[ed] any chance he had of re-election.”
American citizens’ feeling of entitlement composes the heart of what Bacevich calls “American Exceptionalism,” but the idea that we are somehow inherently special has many other facets. For example, Americans tend to believe that, when the United States goes to war, it does so for different reasons than other countries (such as Iran) and with different results. Somehow, the American people have again and again been duped into believing that unequivocal military victory was possible, that peace was more dangerous than war, and that full-scale invasions would actually save lives and livelihoods. To illustrate these points, one need only recall a few details about the propaganda during the buildup to the war in Iraq, such as Saddam Hussein’s alleged arsenal of weapons and the suddenly important plight of Iraqi Kurds. Bacevich argues that the belief in American Exceptionalism is the root of our gullibility to such misdirection, and therefore is a terminal blight upon American power.
Bacevich’s argument toward this end has a few significant and flawed assumptions. For example, Bacevich assumes that the only way to correct policy based on the belief in American Exceptionalism is to correct the belief itself. He does not seem to notice that negative feedback from such policies has already begun to correct the policies’ bad results without undermining American Exceptionalism itself. For instance, high gas prices have forced many Americans out of wasteful cars, and a failed military policy has inoculated even more against hawkish propaganda, for a while at least.
Bacevich also fails to offer any strategies for correcting American citizens’ view of themselves and their country. The last chapter of The Limits of Power discusses of the utility of reinstating the draft and a series of four “lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan,” and Bacevich uses the conclusion to broaden his argument and apply it to a number of other foreign policy issues. However, Bacevich fails to produce a fix for the heart of the problem; he provides no antidote to American Exceptionalism. I expect that Bacevich believes the only cure to our naïveté and narcissism is the very thing we need the cure to avoid: the end of American power as we know it.
Bacevich’s intellectual independence is of great value today, with the American right and left so thoroughly entrenched in their respective and mutually exclusive ideologies. His book exemplifies the kind of empirical thinking that we need to avoid another 20 years of partisan deadlocks, though his argument certainly has its share of blemishes. Cleanly written and decently argued, The Limits of Power will enthrall anyone interested in a unique perspective about the future of American dominance.
