Ian Shapiro's new book is Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy Against Global Terror.
Here is part of a Q & A with the author about the book:
What is a policy of containment? What is it designed to do, and why do you think it so urgently needed?
Containment's main goal is to secure Americans and their democracy into the future. A secondary goal is to promote the spread of democracy around the world. Containment is a national security policy based on the recognition that resources are scarce, and that we can not and should not try to run the world. It emphasizes that war should be a strategy of last resort when America's vital interests are threatened. Adversaries should be contained if at all possible by measures short of war: economic sticks and carrots, diplomatic pressure, taking advantage of rifts among them, cooperation with allies, international institutions and-where feasible-relevant regional powers. We should aid the spread of democracy primarily by demonstrating its superiority on the ground. Where possible, we should also support indigenous democratic movements against dictatorships. Containment is urgently needed because the Bush Doctrine currently guiding American national security policy, while unsustainable in the long run, is damaging our national security interests right now.
Read more of the Q & A at the Princeton University Press website.
--Marshal Zeringue
