This book is largely written to provide a new strategy for the next (presumably liberal Democratic) administration in meeting the U.S. security challenges related to terrorism. For Shapiro argues that the “Bush Doctrine” has been a failure and the next president needs a new set of ideas as opposed to merely new tactics, which candidate John Kerry assumed in 2004. The author maintains that the Bush Doctrine should be replaced with the idea of containment, whose principal author was George Kennan in the 1940s. As it did with communism and the former Soviet Union, containment would expose the failures of current anti-Western regimes and movements over time, and it would do so at minimal costs to the United States. Shapiro says the primary goal of any new strategy should be the preservation of America's democracy.
Most of the book is a series of criticisms of the Bush administration's war on terror. Although other authors have focused more on the doctrine of preemption and the administration's unilateralism, Shapiro associates the Bush Doctrine mostly with the idea of regime change. He offers a sustained critique of the administration's numerous and egregious failures in Iraq. But for Shapiro, it is the idea of regime change that is flawed. In seeking to promote democracy, the United States should realize that forcibly changing another regime is itself an undemocratic action. Moreover, this policy entails such high costs that it threatens to undermine America's own democracy over time.
Shapiro spends much of the book arguing that containment is the best strategy in the new age of terrorism, for, as Kennan recognized, it avoids costly foreign adventures and promotes a positive image of the United States as a strong, nonaggressive power. Containment has worked with Iraq before 2003, Iran, other rogue states, and even Hezbollah and Hamas. This strategy, as Kennan claimed, should also involve engagement and diplomacy, which Shapiro particularly recommends with respect to Iran and Hamas. Shapiro acknowledges that a transnational movement like al Qaeda is more difficult to deter than states, but he says that most suicide terrorists have not been motivated by Islamic fanaticism, and al Qaeda operates according to strategic calculations. The best way to contain al Qaeda is to pressure states that give it sanctuary.
Shapiro's book offers some wise advice. Although his partisan point-scoring is likely to provoke strong counter-jabs from both conservatives and leftists, he is correct in denouncing the Bush Doctrine. Nevertheless, it should be noted that few scholars of international relations supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and even the Bush administration in effect abandoned the idea of regime change. A more succinct indictment of the Bush Doctrine and call to re-establish containment as the dominant American strategy can be found in John Ikenberry's 2002 essay in Foreign Affairs.
The problems mostly involve Sharpiro's support for containment. He fails to see that September 11 resulted from a failure of containment. After flirting with recognizing the Taliban regime in 1996, the Clinton administration saw its odious nature and instead practiced containment. Moreover, the issue that Osama bin Laden claims led him to attack the United States – its stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia – was a result of Washington's efforts to contain Iraq and Iran. Shapiro gives scant attention to the big issue of Iran's nuclear program. Although he is probably correct that a nuclear-armed Iran can be deterred, he ignores the problem that such a situation will likely lead to collapse of the non-proliferation regime. Not only will Arab states attempt to acquire the bomb, but they could turn out to be as unstable as nuclear-armed Pakistan. Shapiro does not address the big threat of nuclear terrorism emanating from Pakistan as well.
Another problem with Shapiro's argument is that it mirrors the Bush administration's obsession with Iraq and does not adequately address the difficulties of dealing with transnational terrorists like al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction. After all, the current crisis in U.S. foreign policy emerged as a result of September 11. Unlike Kennan, Shapiro does not adequately define who is the adversary. He fails to recognize that containing non-state actors, who are difficult to defer, may require taking preemptive action. The most vexing aspect of the book is Shapiro's claim that al Qaeda itself should be contained. Instead, it should be destroyed! If the United States could crush the Japanese state after Pearl Harbor, why should a transnational terrorist organization with no legitimacy be allowed to survive after the devastation it caused on September 11? Moreover, why should Shapiro be outraged that Bush after September 11 demanded that the rest of the world support the United States in confronting al Qaeda and not be neutral? al Qaeda's challenge to the fundamental principle of international politics that state sovereignty entails that only states possess the capacity for large-scale violence justified Bush's violation of the principle of neutrality.
Containment as a foreign policy is also problematic in that it does not fit with a number of the other challenges that the United States faces. It is ironic that Shapiro places emphasis on Kennan in discussing containment, for Kennan disapproved of the way the United States implemented it throughout most of the Cold War. For Kennan, the key to understanding international politics was power, and during the Cold War the Soviet Union was the big power that challenged the United States. However, today the different jihadist groups and rogue states are not a big power; indeed, as a region the Islamic world is weak. Thus, realists like Robert Pape may be following Kennan's logic in arguing that the United States should disengage from the region in order to reduce threats from it. A policy of containment invariably would look at much of the Islamic world in hostile terms, yet the best policy for dealing with it and undermining al Qaeda is probably to help it become more connected to and successful in the larger globalized world. Finally, containment ignores the huge challenges of a rising China and India and a declining economy and technological base in the United States.
