New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy

New Glory : Expanding America's Global Supremacy
by Ralph Peters
Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Since World War II, Americans have been the world's true revolutionaries, expanding the frontiers of human liberty by fighting and winning the cold war. But now that we're fighting the much more complicated war on terror, many observers wonder if our glory days are behind us.

Ralph Peters, a controversial strategist and respected expert on military and intelligence issues, argues that the United States is actually poised for even greater success in the twenty-first century?-if our leaders make the right decisions about the opportunities and dangers we face today. In New Glory, he offers a strategic tour of the globe's hot spots and how we should respond to the challenges they pose.

Peters criticizes the Bush administration for over-relying on high technology and defense contractors in the Iraq war and for not committing enough troops and being too afraid of casualties to do the job properly. He also offers a sharp analysis of what's wrong with our intelligence system and why the changes proposed by the 9/11 Commission aren't enough.

He then takes readers far beyond Iraq and the Middle East on a lively tour of other regions?-including Latin America, Africa, and deeply troubled Europe?-that rarely get serious attention in the media.

Drawing on his twenty-five years of experience in more than sixty countries, Peters shatters the dogmas of both left and right in this manifesto for a much more assertive and visionary U.S. foreign policy.

From Publishers Weekly

In this lively but rarely incisive geo-political screed, the battle lines are starkly drawn. On one side are Americans, who "are so successful, so powerful, so wealthy-and so humane-that our very existence humiliates the failed and failing around the world," assisted by the other English-speaking peoples and the promising regions of India, Africa and Latin America. Opposing us is the Islamic Middle East, a realm of "malevolence" and "sickness of the soul," the global scourges of terrorism and corruption and, worst of all, France, a.k.a. "that vicious child among nations," "the cancer at the heart of Europe," "a two-bit Soviet Union" and "poisonous snake."

America's success depends on "killing boldly when killing is required," but we must be careful lest our ferocity be undermined by Pentagon "court eunuchs" who insist that war be cheap and bloodless. Ex-Army intelligence officer Peters, author of Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace, is a soldier-scholar who combines pitiless martial aphorisms ("prove your victory by planting your flag in your dead enemy's eye socket") with impromptu disquisitions on Renaissance art and the novels of Anthony Trollope. But his mixture of stoic verities, erudite allusion and rabid overgeneralizations about national character hardly amounts to a consistent strategic vision. He wants America to champion human rights, but also practice torture and assassination where necessary, and to ensure that our military operations inflict the requisite "devastation" and "pain on the enemy population."

His most substantive recommendation-that America control the Indian Ocean's oil-shipping lanes-relies on the lazy assumption that trying to control Middle East oil is a strategic imperative rather than a strategic blunder. Peters is a vigorous, pithy writer, but he lacks a clear conception of America's global interests and capabilities.

About the Author

Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who served in infantry and intelligence units before becoming a Foreign Area Officer and a global strategic scout for the Pentagon. He has published three books on strategy and military affairs, as well as hundreds of columns for the New York Post, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and other publications.