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POLITICA >>Blowback | ||||
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Johnson, C. 2000. Blowback - the costs and consequences of American empire. Little, Brown & Co. UK. Rating: JJJ About the Author: Chalmers Johnson is the president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. Books by the same author: MITI, Japanese Miracle and Japan: who governs? |
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Review "Blowback" refers to a term initially coined by the CIA to describe the consequences on the USA of their own foreign policy decisions. Based on case studies centred around his region of expertise (the far East), he predicts disastrous returns for the last few decades of US foreign policy. Johnson warns of the dangers of continued US military presence in Saudi Arabia and actions such as the bombing of Afghanistan in reprisal for the Kenyan US embassy bombings. The book, written in 2000, correctly predicted that the returns for these actions would involve more terrorist reprisals by bin Laden, although of course nobody could imagine what terrible form his vengeance would take. Johnson argues that in order to avoid a vicious spiral of blowback and counter-blowback, negotiated political solutions are required, not military action. Indeed, this ideal forms the central theme of the book, which he uses to plead for a more enlightened foreign policy based on other factors than power relations. Alltogether an insightful and rational critique of Western diplomacy. |
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