The Price of Empire (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Thomas Mahnken, editor Cimbala, S.J., ed., Challenges to Deterrence: Resources, Technology, and Policy ........................................ 284 Fatemi, K., ed., U. S. -Mexican Economic Relations: Prospects and Problems ....................................... 286 Fisher, R. and S. Brown, Getting Together: Building a Relationship That Gets to Yes ........................ 272 Fulbright, J.W., The Price of Empire ............................. 262 Habeeb, W.M., Power and Tactics in International Negotiation ...... 263 Healy, D. , Drive to Hegemony ................................... 289 Henderson, P.G., Managing the Presidency: The Eisenhowever Legacy—From Kennedy to Reagan ............. 283 Khalaf, S., Lebanon's Predicament ................................ 293 Markovits and Silverstein, eds., The Politics of Scandal: Power and Process in Liberal Democracies ....................... 295 Nelson, D.N., Elite-Mass Relations in Communist Systems ............ 276 Plummer, B. G., Haiti and the Great Powers ....................... 289 Purcell, S. K., ed., Mexico in Transition: Essays from Both Sides of the Border ............................ 286 Roett, R., ed., Mexico and the United States: Managing the Relationship..................................... 279 Sabatier, R., AIDS and the Third World .......................... 275 Scheman, L.R., The Inter-American Dilemma: The Search for Cooperation at the Centennial of the Inter-American System ....... 270 Schatzberg, M.G., The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaire ............. 264 Segev, S., The Iranian Triangle: The Untold Story of Israel's Role in the Iran-Contra Affair ........................... 273 Shemesh, M., The Palestinian Entity, 1959-1974: Arab Politics and the PLO ..................................... 282 Taylor, A.R., The Islamic (Question in Middle East Politics .......... 297 Yost, D.S., Soviet Ballistic Missile Defense and the Western Alliance. . .267 261 262 SAIS REVIEW The Price of Empire. ByJ. William Fulbright. New York: Pantheon, 1988. 245 pp. $17.95/cloth. Reviewed by Marc Ballon, M. S.F.S. candidate, Georgetown University. Before the era of the constant campaign, political action committees, and video politics, senators concerned themselves with more important issues than whether or not they would be more telegenic if they wore red ties or smiled more. In those post-war pre-1970s years, the Senate was a place ofgreat intellectual ferment , where senators such as Richard Rüssel, Robert Taft, and Wayne Morse passionately and intelligently debated the great issues of the day. Of all the senators who served during that "golden era," none was as thoughtful, knowledgeable , and controversial as Arkansas'J. William Fulbright, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1959-74) and vociferous critic of the Vietnam War. In The Price ofEmpire (written with the assistance of Georgetown Professor Seth Tillman), a book bristling with interesting ideas, Fulbright shows that he has lost none of his ability to stimulate, educate, and sometimes infuriate. This is vintage Fulbright and well worth reading. The Price ofEmpire is Fulbright's attempt to formulate an American foreign policy agenda that would not only create a "kinder and gentler" United States at home but would also greatly contribute to peace abroad. As Fulbright correctly notes, the first step toward controlling the U.S. budget and freeing more money for social spending is for policymakers to reduce dramatically defense expenditures; the only way to justify reduced defense spending (Fulbright calls for an immediate $50 billion reduction) is for there to be a marked improvement in U.S. -Soviet relations. Accordingly, Fulbright has put forth a plan that would permit the United States and USSR to end the arms race and turn their attentions to the more important tasks of improving their economies and collaborating to solve regional conflicts through joint ventures and increased student exchanges. This is not as naive as it sounds. Fulbright, father of the Fulbright scholarship , cogently argues that through joint ventures and student exchanges, the United States and USSR "might in the process acquire some capacity for empathy ," stop seeing each other through ideological blinders, and consequently "develop a measure of confidence that we can cooperate on the basic issues we face in common." Certainly, more joint ventures and student exchanges alone cannot end decades of mistrust between the superpowers; they can, however, begin the process. Elsewhere in The Price ofEmpire, Fulbright offers some sensible suggestions for solving the Middle East conflict and vehemently argues against what he sees to be U.S. "arrogance of power" in Latin America and elsewhere in the Third World. Fulbright, ever the iconoclast, also rails against the "militarized economy...