Why America Misunderstands the World: National Experience and Roots of Misperception

by Paul Pillar

Overview

Being insulated by two immense oceans makes it hard for Americans to appreciate the concerns of more exposed countries. American democracy's rapid rise also fools many into thinking the same liberal system can flourish anywhere, and having populated a vast continent with relative ease impedes Americans' understanding of conflicts between different peoples over other lands. Paul R. Pillar ties the American public's misconceptions about foreign threats and behaviors to the nation's history and geography, arguing that American success in international relations is achieved often in spite of, rather than because of, the public's worldview.

Drawing a fascinating line from colonial events to America's handling of modern international terrorism, Pillar shows how presumption and misperception turned Finlandization into a dirty word in American policy circles, bolstered the "for us or against us" attitude that characterized the policies of the George W. Bush administration, and continue to obscure the reasons behind Iraq's close relationship with Iran. Fundamental misunderstandings have created a cycle in which threats are underestimated before an attack occurs and then are overestimated after they happen. By exposing this longstanding tradition of misperception, Pillar hopes the United States can develop policies that better address international realities rather than biased beliefs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231165907
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	02/16/2016
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Paul R. Pillar is nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University. He served in several senior positions with the CIA and the National Intelligence Council and is a retired army reserve officer. He is the author of Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform; Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy; and Negotiating Peace: War Termination as a Bargaining Process.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. The American Prism
2. Behind the Ocean Moats
3. Abundance and Power
4. The Successful Society
5. Searching for Monsters to Destroy
6. Unending Misperception
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Robert Jervis

Paul Pillar is one of the few people who have the government experience and the scholarly accomplishments to be able to analyze how and why the US so often builds its policies on badly flawed views of the world--and of itself. He shows that America indeed is exceptional, although not in the way that political leaders have it.

Stephen Walt

Why America Misunderstands the World confirms Paul Pillar's status as one of the smartest and sanest writers on U.S. foreign policy. His forceful but fair-minded analysis explains how good fortune made America very powerful, but also left Americans ill-equipped to understand how politics works outside their borders. The result? Repeated foreign policy failures and a remarkable inability to learn from them. This book should be required reading for students seeking fa career in the foreign policy establishment, and especially those who hope to occupy the Oval Office.

Editorial Reviews

Alexis de Tocqueville, Louis Hartz, Richard Hofstadter, George Kennan, Reinhold Niebuhr and Walter Lippmann, among others, have claimed that Americans have a distinctive view of politics—national and international. In his fine and courageous book, Pillar, a former senior intelligence official, agrees. Drawing on the insights of many of these luminaries, he shows how the American worldview contributes to misperceptions of other countries' motives and actions and, consequently, to blunders abroad.

The New York Times Book Review - Rajan Menon

Paul R. Pillar is one of the few people who have the government experience and the scholarly accomplishments to be able to analyze how and why the United States so often builds its policies on badly flawed views of the world—and of itself. He shows that America is indeed exceptional, although not in the way that political leaders would have it.

Robert Jervis

Fine and courageous book.

New York Times Book Review

Pillar has the required eclectic background to produce what is a landmark work on the psychological variables affecting military/diplomatic policymaking throughout U.S. history.

The European Legacy - Karl W. Schweizer

Richly persuasive and powerfully written.... Why America Misunderstands the World is a work that should be an essential, basic read for any interested observer of American foreign policy.

Choice

Pillar's is one of the best books on this important subject I have ever read.

Chronicles

Richly persuasive and powerfully written.... Why America Misunderstands the World is a work that should be an essential, basic read for any interested observer of American foreign policy.

CHOICE

A well-thought-out examination of the United States' distinct history and its psychological, policy-shaping consequences.

Arab Weekly

Paul R. Pillar raises interesting and important questions about the preconceptions drawn from America's own national experience.... Every country has such preconceptions, but Pillar argues, most persuasively, that America's are particularly potent.

Survival

This book should be required reading for all presidential candidates.

Foreign Service Journal - Gordon S. Brown

Why America Misunderstands the World confirms Pillar's status as one of the smartest and sanest writers on U.S. foreign policy. His forceful yet fair-minded analysis explains how good fortune made America very powerful but also left Americans ill-equipped to understand how politics work outside their borders. The result? Repeated foreign policy failures and a remarkable inability to learn from them. This book should be required reading for students seeking a career in the foreign policy establishment, and especially those who hope to occupy the Oval Office.

Stephen Walt

A formidable and influential scholar offers a fresh and distinctive take on the idea that U.S. foreign policy is ultimately an expression of 'us' rather than 'them.'

Andrew Bacevich

02/15/2016
Former intelligence officer Pillar (nonresident senior fellow, Ctr. for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Foreign Policy program, Brookings Institution; Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy) discusses the unique exceptionalism that America possesses regarding its position on the political world stage. Owing to certain advantages that come more from circumstance than morality, such as being geographically isolated and therefore protected from other nations, as well as having a large, fertile country within which to grow, Americans have come to believe that more than these natural advantages have helped to create the attitude that the United States is particularly entitled to having its way economically and politically. Pillar's argument is that the lens through which America sees itself is now that of a well meaning and somewhat superior entity and that this mind-set adversely impacts how international relations play out between us and the rest of the world. VERDICT Recommended for the general reader who has an interest in international relations, particularly in regard to how the United States may, in fact, be perceived by other countries.—Krista Bush, Shelton, CT

Library Journal

2015-12-17
Understanding the naïve, distorted prism through which the United States views the rest of the world. In this scholarly book, Pillar (Center for Security Studies, Georgetown Univ.; Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform, 2011, etc.) examines some of the national characteristics and proclivities that encourage Americans to see the world in overly optimistic, Manichaean terms and the dangerous impact thereof on foreign policy. With the "moat" of two vast oceans separating the American continent from the troubled, crowded European theater—and while enjoying the bounty of massive natural resources without enemies in proximity—Americans tend to project a benevolent view of the world and expect the rest of the world to comply. America's "exceptionalism"—an ingrained sense that the nation is unlike any other, founded on enlightened principles, free of nasty imperial history, and therefore superior—sets it on a collision course with the rest of the world, which does not share its sense of entitlement. Part of what Pillar sees as America's "uncorrected ignorance" was generated early on, before America became a global power, without the "close and continuous interaction or competition with other countries that would have challenged American ideology and American conventional wisdom." The country's long period of invulnerability from foreign threats impedes it from sharing in other countries' real security fears, engendering insensitivity and bewilderment, while the sharp distinctions between good and bad—e.g., presidents calling the enemy the "evil empire" and "axis of evil"—harken back to a period of heightened religiosity. Pillar argues that this profound lack of self-awareness has had a detrimental effect on American foreign policy by working from the demonizing presumption that "the adversary is always up to no good" (e.g., Iran), exacerbating common perceptions about "foreigners." Furthermore, partisan competition often compounds avoidable misunderstandings. Although academic and largely unspecific, the book offers much fodder for the running debate about America's role in the world.

Kirkus Reviews

This insightful book will be of use to any student of international relations and foreign policy, particularly at the introductory level. In fact, its clarity and conciseness makes it accessible to a wider, public audience who would do well to educate themselves on the foreign policies that are entwined in their lives.

International Social Science Review