A Path Out of the Desert - Some Comments

I recently posted a few words about Kenneth Pollack's A Path Out of the Desert on my Facebook page.

A Path out of the Desert. Terrific book on grand strategy for the U.S. in the Middle East. The author is Kenneth Pollack. This is one of the few books I've read that suggest to me that I really need my own copy. Pollack is way beyond military solutions for the problems of the Arab Muslim world, and, based on my experience, he's right on about the need to reform education.

Bibliographical note: Pollack, Kenneth M. A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East. New York: Random House, 2008. xlvii + 539 pages.

One of the strengths of this book is that it delivers most of what it promises. When most people, like the retired colonels and generals on various TV networks, talk about "strategy," they don't really mean strategy. Sometimes they're addressing tactical questions, sometimes they're addressing theater problems, but those aren't matters of strategic scope. A real strategic principle, like the "Anaconda" strategy of the American Civil War, or containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, takes into account the broad political and economic features of the situation, and the interaction of initiatives and challenges on various fronts.

For example, it makes no sense to speak of a "strategy" for Afghanistan. For our efforts in Afghanistan to succeed, we need a strategy for dealing with Islamic extremism throughout the Muslim world. We need principles to work in Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kirghizia, Pakistan, and India, as well as in Afghanistan itself. We need to integrate our Afghanistan policy into our general strategy. The problem at the moment is that we don't seem to have a grand strategy.

Although Pollack confines himself to the Arab Middle East, with some references to Turkey and Iran, the general principles he enunciates, as well as his prescriptions for action, are applicable from Morocco to Indonesia, from Somalia to Bosnia, wherever the Islamist ideology is opposed to American interests.

Read this book! Then we can discuss it.

More later,

Glenn A. Knight