America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder

Wise counsel for a constructive, tough-minded, and sensible foreign policy. Read and learn. -GEORGE SHULTZ, U.S. Secretary of State, 1982-1989 The world is tipping into chaos. Why? In this acclaimed and influential book, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Bret Stephens shows how the retreat of American power, orchestrated by Barack Obama, has created the power vacuums now being filled by our enemies. From Vladimir Putin's quest to restore the old czarist empire, to China's efforts to dominate the South China Sea, to Iran's nuclear ambitions, to ISIS's dreams of an Islamic caliphate, we have entered an era in which our foes no longer fear us and our friends no longer trust us. With his stylistic flair and analytical brilliance, Stephens explains the ideological roots of Obama's suspicions of American power. He demonstrates how a false belief in Ameriècan decline has led to a disastrous prescription of retreat, as if the cure for domestic weakèness is international weakness. In a pr