Politics

America and the World: Conversations on the future of American foreign policy by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, moderated by David Ignatius

Item: America and the World
Author: Hugh White

February 2009, no. 308

Basic Books, US$27.50 hb, 292 pp

Politics

America and the World: Conversations on the future of American foreign policy by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, moderated by David Ignatius

by Hugh White •

February 2009, no. 308

It is easy to believe, in the glad confident morning of the new presidency, that not being George W. Bush will be enough: that to restore America’s place in the world, Barack Obama need only avoid the mistakes and repudiate the misdeeds of his discredited predecessor. If so, his task will be easy, and this book may help. But what if something more is needed?

America and the World, produced at speed, is a book for the moment. Over seven days between late February and early April 2008, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius sat down with two revered elders of the foreign policy establishment, and started them talking about American foreign policy. The results – taped, transcribed and (it seems) only lightly edited – were sent off to the publisher. And here they are, between hard covers and selling fast.

Hugh White

Hugh White is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at ANU and a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He studies Australian strategic and defence policy, and the regional and global security issues that most directly affect Australia. He has worked on Australian strategic, defence and foreign-policy issues for thirty years in a number of capacities inside and outside government, including the Deputy Secretary for Strategy in the Department of Defence 1995–2000, an adviser to Prime Minister Bob Hawke and to Kim Beazley. He was the principal author of Australia’s 2000 Defence White Paper. His recent publications include How to Defend Australia (2019, Black Inc.) and Power Shift: Australia’s Future between Washington and Beijing, published in Quarterly Essay 39 (2010). In the 1970s he studied philosophy at Melbourne and Oxford Universities.