The Fourth Power: A Grand Strategy for the United States in the Twenty-First Century - Softcover

Hart, Gary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195300858 ISBN 13: 9780195300857

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Today, even as America asserts itself globally, it lacks a grand strategy to replace "containment of communism." In this short, sharp book, Gary Hart outlines a new grand strategy, one directing America's powers to the achievement of its large purposes. Central to this strategy is the power of American ideals, what Hart calls "the fourth power." Constitutional liberties, representative government, press freedom--these and other democratic principles, attractive to peoples worldwide, constitute a resource that may prove as important to national security and the national interest in this dangerous new century as traditional military, economic and political might.

A bracing vision of an America responsive to a full spectrum of global challenges, The Fourth Power calls for a deeper understanding both of the threats we face and the profound strengths at our disposal to fight them.

About this title

About the Author:

Gary Hart represented Colorado in the U.S. Senate from 1975 to 1987. He is the author of seventeen books, has taught at Yale, and lectured at the University of California and Oxford University, where he earned a doctor of philosophy degree in politics in 2001. As co-chair of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century, he was credited with forecasting a 9/11-type attack. He resides with his family in Kittredge, Colorado.

Review:

"The Fourth Power [offers] sweeping recommendations for how America should orient its foreign policy in the 21st century. Hart's timely central argument an alternative to both the neoimperialist impulses of the Bush administration and the creeping Kissingerian realism of the Kerry campaignis that the traditional military, political and economic powers of American foreign policy should be constrained by and imbued with a fourth power, America's unique principles. To those who advocate a crusading foreign policy of preemption to 'rid the world of evil' and spread democracy--even at the point of a gun--Hart argues that the first casualty would often be America's moral authority: 'There is a vast difference between advocating, as I do, that America live up to its own principles and advocating, as the Bush administration does, that the rest of the world live up to America's principles.'"--The New York Times Book Review

"Hart offers a conceptual framework in which a 'fourth power--the power of [our] principle[s]' must be added to traditional American economic, political and military power as a major strategic asset internationally.... In their current formulation, [Hart's ideas] could prove important as soon as next year. An active Kerry for President campaigner, Hart could be a senior appointee in a Kerry administration." --The Washington Post Book World

"The Fourth Power is a well-reasoned, trenchant extended essay about the place in the world for the United States of America.... His manifesto makes so much sense, a cynic is tempted to say, that it will never become the foundation of U.S. government behavior."--The Denver Post

"Extraordinarily thought-provoking. Hart writes with great clarity and directness, yet with profound sophistication... Bush himself and his principal foreign policy advisers would be well served by reading and contemplating this book.... It provides definitions, a vocabulary, for talking about the future, both foreseeable and unforeseeable. And right now, this is not being done well on either side of the national political debate."--The Baltimore Sun

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0195300858
• ISBN 13: 9780195300857
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200