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On Shedding an Obsolete Past provides a much-needed and comprehensive critique of recent US national security policies in both the Trump and Biden administrations. These policy decisions have produced a series of costly disappointments and outright failures that have destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands around the world and cost US taxpayers astronomical sums of money. Bacevich provides urgent and critical insights into how these failures occurred and what needs to be done to prevent similar failures in the future. He reminds us that, by understanding the past, we can alter our current trajectory and transform the world for the better.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1 The Myth of the Reluctant Superpower -- 2 Globalization and Its Conceits -- 3 Policy by Default -- 4 Strategy of Openness -- 5 Full Spectrum Dominance -- 6 Gunboats and Gurkhas -- 7 Rise of the Proconsuls -- 8 Different Drummers, Same Drum -- 9 War for the Imperium -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

The purpose of U.S. foreign policy has, at least theoretically, been to keep Americans safe. Yet as we confront a radically changed world, it has become indisputably clear that the terms of that policy have failed. Washington's insistence that a market economy is compatible with the common good, its faith in the idea of the "West" and its "special relationships," its conviction that global military primacy is the key to a stable and sustainable world order - these have brought endless wars and a succession of moral and material disasters. In a bold reconception of America's place in the world, informed by thinking from across the political spectrum, Andrew J. Bacevich - founder and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a bipartisan Washington think tank dedicated to foreign policy - lays down a new approach - one that is based on moral pragmatism, mutual coexistence, and war as a last resort. Confronting the threats of the future - accelerating climate change, a shift in the international balance of power, and the ascendance of information technology over brute weapons of war - his vision calls for nothing less than a profound overhaul of our understanding of national security.

When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world's "indispensable nation," its "sole superpower," the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable. In the decades to come, Americans would put that claim to the test. They would embrace the promise of globalization as a source of unprecedented wealth while embarking on wide-ranging military campaigns to suppress disorder and enforce American values abroad, confident in the ability of U.S. forces to defeat any foe. Meanwhile, they placed all their bets on the White House to deliver on the promise of their Cold War triumph: unequaled prosperity, lasting peace, and absolute freedom. In The Age of Illusions, bestselling author Andrew Bacevich takes us from that moment of seemingly ultimate victory to the age of Trump, telling an epic tale of folly and delusion. Writing with his usual eloquence and vast knowledge, he explains how, within a quarter of a century, the United States ended up with gaping inequality, permanent war, moral confusion, and an increasingly angry and alienated population, as well, of course, as the strangest president in American history.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Introduction. Straying from the Well-Trod Path -- Part 1. Poseurs and Prophets -- 1. A Letter to Paul Wolfowitz: Occasioned by the Tenth Anniversary of the Iraq War (2013) -- 2. David Brooks: Angst in the Church of America the Redeemer (2017) -- 3. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and the Decline of American Liberalism (2017) -- 4. George Kennan: Kennan Kvetches (2014) -- 5. Tom Clancy: Military Man (2014) -- 6. Robert Kagan: The Duplicity of the Ideologues (2014) -- 7. Boykinism: Joe McCarthy Would Understand (2012) -- 8. Henry Luce: The Elusive American Century (2012) -- 9. Donald Rumsfeld: Known and Unknown (2011) -- 10. Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter: Tailors to the Emperor (2011) -- 11. Fault Lines: Inside Rumsfeld's Pentagon (2008) -- 12. Tommy Franks: A Modern Major General (2004) -- 13. Selling Our Souls: Of Idolatry and iPhones (2011) -- 14. Christopher Lasch: Family Man (2010) -- 15. Randolph Bourne: The Man in the Black Cape (2009) -- 16. William Appleman Williams: Tragedy Renewed (2009) -- 17. Reinhold Niebuhr: Illusions of Managing History (2007) -- Part 2. History and Myth -- 18. Saving "America First" (2017) -- 19. Kissing the Specious Present Goodbye (2017) -- 20. The Age of Great Expectations (2017) -- 21. American Imperium (2016) -- 22. History That Makes Us Stupid (2015) -- 23. Always and Everywhere (2013) -- 24. The Ugly American Telegram (2013) -- 25. The Revisionist Imperative (2012) -- 26. The End of (Military) History? (2010) -- 27. Twilight of the Republic? (2006) -- 28. What Happened at Bud Dajo (2006) -- 29. The Folly of Albion (2005) -- 30. The Real World War IV (2005) -- Part 3. War and Empire -- 31. Save Us From Washington's Visionaries (2015) -- 32. A War of Ambition (2014) -- 33. Naming Our Nameless War (2013) -- 34. How We Became Israel (2012)

"From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich offers a critical history of this ongoing military enterprise -- now more than thirty years old and with no end in sight. During the 1980s, Bacevich argues, a great transition occurred. As the Cold War wound down, the United States initiated a new conflict -- a War for the Greater Middle East -- that continues to the present day. The long twilight struggle with the Soviet Union had involved only occasional and sporadic fighting. But as this new war unfolded, hostilities became persistent. From the Balkans and East Africa to the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, U.S. forces embarked upon a seemingly endless series of campaigns across the Islamic world. Few achieved anything remotely like conclusive success. Instead, actions undertaken with expectations of promoting peace and stability produced just the opposite. As a consequence, phrases like "permanent war" and "open-ended war" have become part of everyday discourse. Bacevich weaves a narrative out of episodes as varied as the Beirut bombing of 1983, the Mogadishu firefight of 1993, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the rise of ISIS in the present decade. Understanding what America's costly military exertions have wrought requires seeing these seemingly discrete events as parts of a single war. It also requires identifying the errors of judgment made by political leaders in both parties and by senior military officers who share responsibility for what has become a monumental march to folly."--Back cover

Introduction : war without exits -- The crisis of profligacy -- The political crisis -- The military crisis -- Conclusion : the limits of power