Product Description

When Jeane J. Kirkpatrick died in December 2006, she left behind more than her legacy as a "heroine of conservatives." She had just completed work on this extraordinary survey of American foreign policy in the post-Cold War age: a bold and revisionist assessment of two decades of American interventions abroad -- a troubled period of small successes, tragic failures, and important lessons for our future.

Since the end of the Cold War, Kirkpatrick argues, America's relationship with the world has been especially compromised by its mutual distrust with the United Nations, and by continuing uncertainty over U.S. involvement in conflicts among rogue nations overseas. In Making War to Keep Peace, Kirkpatrick offers a tightly observed chronicle of the result: a period in which the United States has increasingly used force around the world -- to mixed and often challenging results. Tracing the course of diplomatic initiatives and armed conflict in Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, she illuminates the shift from the first Bush administration's ambitious vision of a New World Order to the overambitious nation-building efforts of the Clinton administration. Kirkpatrick offers a strong critique of Clinton's foreign policy, arguing that his administration went beyond Bush's interest in building international consensus and turned it into a risky reliance on the United Nations. But she also questions when, how, and why the United States should resort to military solutions -- especially in light of the challenging war in Iraq, about which Kirkpatrick shares her "grave reservations" here for the first time.

With the powerful words that have marked her long and distinguished career, Kirkpatrick explores where we have gone wrong -- and raises lingering questions about what perils tomorrow might hold.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #463071 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Released on: 2007-04-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Review
"A brilliant valedictory to a brilliant life and career." -- Dr. Edwin J. Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation

"An honest and penetrating analysis." -- Richard V. Allen, former national security advisor

"Kirkpatrick applies her exceptional knowledge of history to an analysis of the new geopolitical situation in the post-Cold War world." -- Edwin Meese III, former United States attorney general

"She has delivered us another historic work with a worldview which, as it was through her life, will be revered." -- Jack Kemp, former U. S. representative and secretary of Housing and Urban Development

"She was unique when alive, and this book establishes that she is still alive." -- William F. Buckley Jr., founder, National Review

"The U.S. would see with greater clarity if more individuals such as Kirkpatrick inhabited the inner circle." -- Richmond Times-Dispatch

"With clear and compelling argument, Jeane Kirkpatrick teaches us to be strong but careful in the use of force." -- George P. Shultz, former secretary of state

"unflinching. . . admirers and detractors will appreciate her analysis" -- Booklist

About the Author

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1981 to 1985 and a member of the National Security Council during the Reagan administration. She was a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the founder of Empower America, and a professor of government at Georgetown University. She died in December 2006.

Customer Reviews

Keeping Peace Where There Is None
We Americans have assumed that most of the world's peoples shared our goals and values, especially our need to be free. We've thought they had the same yearnings, concerns and ideals. September 11, however, should have taught us that what we believed were universal truths simply are not. "There are people committed to, and indeed driven by, goals and values that run violently counter to our own," writes Jean Kirkpatrick.

It is too bad for America that it isn't Ambassador Kirkpatrick running for President. She would have been a great one. Her clear thinking, moral values and ethics and her vast experience on the world political stage would have served her -- and us -- well. Fortunately we have the next best thing: Books that give us insight into her mind. "Right Versus Might," "The Reagan Phenomenon," "Political Woman," "Dismantling the Parties," "Leader and Vanguard" and now "Making War to Keep Peace," are a few of the titles that give us that insight.

In "Making War to Keep Peace" Kirkpatrick chronicles the period from the First Gulf War to the beginning of the current war in Iraq. She points out that the current war is simply an extension of the first -- finishing what we started, as it were. Therefore the war is sanctioned and legal under UN resolution 687, which contains the terms of the cease-fire, terms which Hussein violated repeatedly over a period of years.

"The legal authority to use force to address Iraq's material breaches was and remains clear, and is a matter of record," she writes. "Moreover, the United States and the United Kingdom had the strength of evidence that more attacks were impending if they did not take action." Part of that evidence (in addition to international intelligence reports from a variety of sources) included Hussein's chemical warfare against his own people as well as attacks on American planes flying UN missions over Iraq for the past decade.

In spite of what those eager for political power in the US would have us believe, President Bush WAS justified in going to war in Iraq and it is in the best interest of America and Americans that he (and we) prosecute that war to a victorious end.

To those who hold President Clinton up as an example of one who kept the peace she points out that on many occasions he sent our troops into war without the approval of Congress. In Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo the Clinton administration failed miserably and embarrassingly.

Although Ms. Kirkpatrick believes in the United Nations, the picture she presents of its recent leadership and actions does not convince me that Americans should continue to support that body. The power building antics of Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan have strained the credibility of the organization and cast it too often and too favorably in opposition to America's best interests. American troops have historically borne most of the military effort in the UN's "peacekeeping" efforts.

To Kofi Annan's statement that we should give our enemies a chance to join in improving world order so they would lose the urge to smash it, Kirkpatrick responds that he failed to explain how "one negotiates with groups whose intent is to smash the world and who cannot be dissuaded by invitations to enfranchisement. Islamic fundamentalism is an ideology of expansionist tyranny, propelled by and unrelenting will to dominate other nations, cultures and religions." She stopped short of mentioning that those fundamentalists are sworn to kill all infidels -- infidels being everyone who isn't an Islamist fundamentalist.

Pointing out that the protection of the rights stipulated in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are the heart of our national identity. As a nation we continue to struggle to ensure that those rights are enjoyed by everyone here. "Of course," she writes, "it is reasonable that those of us who enjoy the benefits of freedom are motivated to remember the millions who do not...Yet it is a different matter entirely to commit military resources to keep peace in such areas, where often no peace can be kept, or to build nations in our own image before they are ready for our freedoms -- or even want them."

The lesson we should have learned from the Reagan era, she writes, is that "historic conflicts between enemies can be won on moral force, without firing a single bullet or missile; that cultural, market, political and perhaps religious forces can be far more transformative in areas of the world where chaos and violence reign; and that America can contribute to the building of nations by any and all those means -- while preserving our military and reserving our sovereign right to wage war to maintain true peace."

Making War to Keep Peace
A wonderful read from the practical, principled perspective of a true patriot. This book should be required reading for all who seek the office of chief executive of the United States. Jeane Kirpatrick understood full well the stakes of committing a nation to war when necessary to preserve the compelling goal of global peace.

Keen observer of the history she helped write
Like Reagan, Kirkpatrick was a Democrat who did not leave the party as much as it left her. This book is really way too short given the amount of sweeping historical events that she lived through and even helped shape, but given the fact that the book devotes so little space to the current wars declared by the terrorists, I suspect that her 80 years were taking their toll, especially since she was so meticulous in providing support for her ideas as well as her going into great detail about the major issues she covered in the early chapters.
But the most important part of this book for me was she is someone who writes about the UN where she served as US Ambassador, and subsequent years, and shows it to really be beyond redemption as it has become such a horribly ineffective and wasteful swamp as well as counterproductive to the ideals of its founders.
Even in areas where she does not render her own opinion, she leaves the reader with a listing of facts which are so often neglected by those who want to rewrite history to their own liking.
It is unfortunate that she waited so long to write this book as it probably could have been twice as long and still be difficult to put down as this one is if she had lived longer.
Thank you, Madam Ambassador for all of your contributions in a life well-lived.