In this book, for which the writer interviewed every living former secretary of state, Farrow argues that the repercussions of this reliance have been profound.įarrow divides 'War on Peace' into two sections. Trump, whose idea of diplomacy is to tweet at North Korea that, 'Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded,' has taken fondness for the military to a new level. Bush handed Iraq reconstruction and democracy-building activities to 'uniformed officers with the Coalition Provisional Authority, reporting to the secretary of defense.' Even Barack Obama surrounded himself with generals to a then-unprecedented degree and 'sold more arms than any other since World War II.' 11, 2001, 'the State Department was 20 percent short of staff.' In the 1990s, under Bill Clinton, the U.S.'s international affairs budget was cut 30 percent, so that, on Sept. Vollmann is looking into the futureįarrow correctly notes that the trend began long before Donald Trump. In 'War on Peace,' he assesses the impact of this trend on America's standing throughout the world. During his years in government, first under Richard Holbrooke in the Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and then as an adviser for global youth issues under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he saw the U.S.'s growing reliance on military leaders to set foreign policy and a diminished use of what he calls old-school diplomacy. One imagines that, had he been asked to fill out the survey, Farrow would have given a similar answer. According to the final report, respondents questioned whether the Trump administration and Tillerson's team 'understand the role the Department of State plays in forwarding the interests of the United States in the world.'

Ronan farrow war on peace