Why We Flounder

This book will, I predict, either provoke a storm of protest or meet the stoniest of silences. For it is an examination of American foreign policy that hardly mentions the existence of those nuclear weapons which many insist “must” bring about an entire change in the relations between nations, and the end of “power politics.” Molnar denies not only this assumption, but the validity of most of the other conceptions of our policymakers. In fact, he finds the American people (and to a lesser extent the British) organically ill-equipped to play their necessary role in today’s crisis. His book is an intelligent attempt to tell us why—and to draw the necessary conclusions.

Like Hans Morgenthau and Henry Kissinger, only more so, Molnar is a realist. And like them he is foreign-born—which may help him view America more objectively than most. Certainly, in his criticism of the failings of successive American Administrations, he goes far beyond these two. In his eyes, our failure to deal successfully with aggressive Communism, or even fully to understand it, is not, as many assume, merely the result of our inexperience and our reluctance to assume world leadership as a permanent role.

EM

About the Author

Edgar Ansel Mowrer

This book will, I predict, either provoke a storm of protest or meet the stoniest of silences. For it is an examination of American foreign policy that hardly mentions the existence of those nuclear weapons which many insist “must” bring about an entire change in the relations between nations, and the end of “power politics.” Molnar denies not only this assumption, but the validity of most of the other conceptions of our policymakers. In fact, he finds the American people (and to a lesser extent the British) organically ill-equipped to play their necessary role in today’s crisis. His book is an intelligent attempt to tell us why—and to draw the necessary conclusions.

Like Hans Morgenthau and Henry Kissinger, only more so, Molnar is a realist. And like them he is foreign-born—which may help him view America more objectively than most. Certainly, in his criticism of the failings of successive American Administrations, he goes far beyond these two. In his eyes, our failure to deal successfully with aggressive Communism, or even fully to understand it, is not, as many assume, merely the result of our inexperience and our reluctance to assume world leadership as a permanent role.