Overview

"Sun Tzu, author of 'The Art of War', believed that the acme of leadership consists in figuring out how to subdue the enemy with the least amount of fighting—a fact that America's Founders also understood, and practiced with astonishing success. For it to work, however, a people must possess both the ability and the willingness to use all available instruments of power in peace as much as in war. US foreign policy has increasingly neglected the instruments of civilian power and become overly dependent on lethal solutions to conflict. The steep rise in unconventional conflict has increased the need for diplomatic and other non-hard power tools of statecraft. The United States can no longer afford to sit on the proverbial three-legged national security stool (""military, diplomacy, development""), where one leg is a lot longer than either of the other two, almost forgetting altogether the fourth leg—information, especially strategic communication and public diplomacy. The United States isn't so much becoming militarized as DE civilianized. According to Sun Tzu, self-knowledge is as important as knowledge of one's enemy: ""if you know neither yourself nor the enemy, you will succumb in every battle."" Alarmingly, the United States is deficient on both counts. And though we can stand to lose a few battles, the stakes of losing the war itself in this age of nuclear proliferation are too high to contemplate."

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9781412864237

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Reviews

Juliana Pilon is to be commended for pressing the question of American competence in carrying out its global engagement. As she rightly points out in her book, we need to fully engage both our fundamental powers in American foreign policy: the power of inspiration and, when and where needed, the power of intimidation. What is more, we should be able to get the right balance and shape the arguments in such a manner that we can achieve a non-partisan approach to foreign policy and employment of the military. </p> --General James Mattis, US Marine Corps</p> This is an important, well crafted, and compelling book. Juliana Geran Pilon explains disconnects between the instrumental use of violence and objectives in recent and ongoing conflicts. The neglect of the political and human nature of war has been a common cause of strategic failure as well as a common flaw in theories that oftentimes contribute to those failures. Indeed, recent wartime plans have exhibited a narcissistic approach, failing to account for interactions with determined enemies and other complicating political, cultural, historical and economic factors. Armed conflict is a competition and, as Dr. Pilon points out, winning the peace requires fighting across all contested spaces and considering the consolidation of military gains as an integral part of war. It is not enough to read <em>The Art of Peace</em>. We must also heed its lessons. </p> --H.R. McMaster, author of <em>Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam</em></p> Dr. Juliana Pilon is perfectly positioned to provide a clear and convincing way ahead. Bringing both formidable academic experience and a professional career spent in the field, she is that rare scholar-practitioner who speaks with equal credibility to our national leaders and the Soldier guarding a lonely outpost in mountains of the Hindu Kush. In <em>The Art of Peace</em>, Juliana sheds light on the shortcomings in our thinking about strategy, at the same time demonstrating that things were not always this way. More importantly, they need not remain so in the future. </p> --Colonel Michael Eastman, US Army (from the foreword)</p> </p>

Author Information

Juliana Geran Pilon is senior fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, USA. She has taught at several universities, managed two major nonprofit organisations, and authored several books.

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