The Hell of Good Intentions

America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy

De: Stephen M. Walt

Narrado por: Stephen M. Walt

From the New York Times best-selling author Stephen M. Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions dissects the faults and foibles of recent American foreign policy - explaining why it has been plagued by disasters like the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan and outlining what can be done to fix it.

In 1992, the United States stood at the pinnacle of world power and Americans were confident that a new era of peace and prosperity was at hand. Twenty-five years later, those hopes have been dashed. Relations with Russia and China have soured, the European Union is wobbling, nationalism and populism are on the rise, and the United States is stuck in costly and pointless wars that have squandered trillions of dollars and undermined its influence around the world.

The root of this dismal record, Walt argues, is the American foreign policy establishment’s stubborn commitment to a strategy of “liberal hegemony.” Since the end of the Cold War, Republicans and Democrats alike have tried to use US power to spread democracy, open markets, and other liberal values into every nook and cranny of the planet. This strategy was doomed to fail, but its proponents in the foreign policy elite were never held accountable and kept repeating the same mistakes.

Donald Trump won the presidency promising to end the misguided policies of the foreign policy “Blob” and to pursue a wiser approach. But his erratic and impulsive style of governing, combined with a deeply flawed understanding of world politics, are making a bad situation worse. The best alternative, Walt argues, is a return to the realist strategy of “offshore balancing,” which eschews regime change, nation-building, and other forms of global social engineering. The American people would surely welcome a more restrained foreign policy, one that allowed greater attention to problems here at home. This long-overdue shift will require abandoning the futile quest for liberal hegemony and building a foreign policy establishment with a more realistic view of American power.

Clear-eyed, candid, and elegantly written, Stephen M. Walt’s The Hell of Good Intentions offers both a compelling diagnosis of America’s recent foreign policy follies and a proven formula for renewed success.

©2018 Stephen M. Walt (P)2018 Macmillan Audio

Outstanding yet bleak

An outstanding book for those that dream of a different approach to foreign policy and a must read for anyone in the IC, departments of State or Defense.

alot more name calling than anything

all in all, the book is full out of context quotes his support a narrative by Design instead of true reality. the book would been a lot better off to not sound and come off as an emotional tirade by an frustrated outside Observer.

It was a little tough to absorb some.of the word

it was a little difficult to absorb the complexity of word choices, but the repetition got me involved and I started to understand the words as I started to focus more on listening. Words such as Hegemony, offshore Balancing, and supremacy, policing, etc. This is exactly how I understood the perspectives of other countries toward the United States.

Shifted My Thinking

Offshore Balancing may not be the only answer to all the mistaken military battles that I and others have criticized, but under the umbrella or optics of Liberal Hegemony it's easy to see the errors of both political parties thinking (as I did) that the spread of democracy was for the good of all. Offshore Balancing under moral leadership is worth striving for.... For American Patriotic ideals and values and the globe.

Enlightening and Challenging

This is an excellent piece of work! The author provides substantial background and examples to support his arguments. More importantly he not only points out the major deficiencies with the US’s foreign policies, but also proposes an alternative path - Offshore Balancing and the difficulty in making such a change. This work should be mandatory reading in our schools’ civic classes to provide for a fertile basis for debate.

Minus Chapter 13 great book

While the entirety of the book is great overall, clearly chapter 13 stood out as a disorganized afterthought that was politically motivated due to the 2016 election results. Walt effectively whines about the results of the election and doesn't bother to give any sort of credit to the Trump administration for any of its foreign policy wins. NATO spending increases, middle eastern victories, defeat of ISIS, normalizing of relationships with Israel, etc. The rest of the book speaks truth to power about the incompetence of the foreign policy establishment. The truth hurts, but many politicians amd civil servants alike deserve to be called out on their ineffectiveness in the foreign policy realm. He rightly points out the "blob" and their ability to internally steal conversations towards liberal hegemony and away from logical alternatives.

Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result....clearly America's foreign policy community and those who entrust them to perform their jobs effectively are crazy, as Walt successfully points out.

Political bias ruins the material

Anti-Trumper author is obvious with his writing and narration of the book.
Would be a more bearable audiobook if the author more neutrally wrote and read but rather hates President Trump and is affectionate towards the establishment when addressing countless swamp, establishment, deep state, political machine problems that exist with US foreign policy and why we are in decline politically and loosing respect globally.

Barely listenable

Let me say I'm not one to say US foreign policy is perfect or even good. Trying to spread democracy to people that don't want it (Iraq) was a bad idea for sure. However, I find the author pinning every bad world situation on US foreign policy failure somewhat disingenuous.

First, the book is VERY repetitive. Many points were repeated at least a dozen times.

Second, the book is very long on what happened, but very short on how and why. It reminds me of a weight loss book that spends 99% of the time listing the benefits of losing weight and then at the end it says "Eat less".

Third, the author compares the state of the world in 2016 to a very rosy outlook from 1993. For example, he says that there was much hope (not a quote but that was the gist) for peace in the middle east in 1993, but now it's so messed up it may " take decades" to resolve. Maybe the problem here is that his characterization of the ultra positive outlook for the middle east in 1993 was wrong. Maybe the problem is that these people have been fighting for thousands of years. Maybe the problem isn't US incompetence.

Fourth, the author blames every problem in the world on US incompetence in foreign policy. For example, he indicates that relations with Russia were great in 1993 (again, not a quote) but now relations with Russia are terrible. Well, maybe that has something to do with Boris Yeltsin being president in 1993 and Vladimir Putin being president now. Similarly with China, maybe relations with China are worse because China has become more intent on becoming a world economic power.
The author never seems to consider that there were any influences on various world situations other than
US foreign policy incompetence.

Dated

Written in 2013 went it shows its age. Author appears to have sourced opinions from a ton of different experts in the field, which can be useful to do, but is a bizarre choice in a book that markets itself as being critical of experts in that field. Wouldn't recommend for anyone not currently living in 2005.