in and of themselves?

First of all, it's really crappy writing. "In and of itself (themselves) . . ." means that something has merit or value without reference to other considerations, and almost always goes on to assert that there is some further merit or value in the thing referred to. The writing is really so bad as to make the claims entailed in the portion you have quoted nonsensical. For example, "Recent years . . . have demonstrated . . . ? The author, surely not intentionally, is saying that recent years demonstrate something, rather than speaking about what is demonstrated by either strategy or speech-making.

I wonder where people come up with things like this. It reads to me very much like a passage by someone who is attempting to appear wise, but who has made his or her idea opaque through the clumsy writing. Either that, or it is not written by a native speaker, and the author simply doesn't know how to express him- or herself coherently in English.

Thanks. I'm reading the book National Insecurity by David Rothkopf. Some sentences in the book are very confusing.