Blowback : the cost and consequences of American Empire / Chalmers Johnson.
By: Johnson, Chalmers
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Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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General Lending | MTU Bishopstown Library Lending | 327.73 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 00086039 |
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Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
This provocative and important book is a powerful account of the consequences of American global policies. The twenty-first century, Chalmers Johnson tells us, will be a payback world in which the United States will reap the global resentments it is now sowing.
'Blowback', a term that officials of the CIA first invented for their internal use, refers to the unintended consequences of American policies, and the dangers faced by an overextended empire that insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms. From America's role in Asia's financial crisis, to its early support for Saddam Hussein and its actions in the Balkans, Johnson reveals the misguided actions of a nation basking in its own triumphalism. In the wake of the Cold War, the United States has imprudently expanded the commitments it made over the previous forty years. In 'Blowback' Chalmers Johnson issues a warning: it is time for the American empire to demobilize before its bills become due.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-237) and index.
Blowback -- Okinawa: Asia's last colony -- Stealth imperialism -- South Korea: Legacy of the cold war -- North Korea: Endgame of the cold war -- China: the state of the revolution -- China: Foreign policy, human rights and trade -- Japan and the economics of the American empire -- Meltdown -- The consequences of empire.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
"Blowback": it's a term coined by the CIA to describe the unforeseen consequences of U.S. foreign policy. Chalmers, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, here takes us from Okinawa to the Balkans. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
This no-holds-barred indictment of what Johnson calls the post-Cold War American "global empire" is not for the faint of heart. Among the opening images is a plastic bag containing three pairs of bloodied men's underwear gathered as evidence from the brutal 1995 gang rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by two American marines and an American sailor, a crime that was officially passed off as an aberration but may qualify more accurately as another move in the endgame of, in Johnson's astringent phrase, "stealth imperialism." In his highly critical appraisal of the global U.S. military presence, Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and prolific commentator on Japan and Asia, focuses on the effects of "blowback," a term coined by the CIA to denote the unintended consequences of policies that were in many cases kept secret from the American public. From anti-Chinese pogroms carried out by U.S.-trained soldiers in Indonesia to the viciously suppressed 1980 pro-democracy demonstration in Kwangju, South Korea, Johnson examines the fallout from what he sees as American "economic colonialism." Detailed assessments of American engagement in Japan, Korea and China are coupled with closer-to-home observations on the liquidation of American jobs in places such as Birmingham, Ala., and Pittsburgh, the latter yet another consequence of the massive U.S. trade deficit with the countries of East Asia. Brazenly spending ever-swollen defense budgets, Johnson argues, the Pentagon is fueling an "antiglobalization time bomb" that could blow up at any moment. His chilling conclusion--backed by copious and livid detail--is that a nation reaps precisely what it sows. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reservedCHOICE Review
This is one of the polemics that appears from time to time purporting to identify and assess megatrends that never seem quite believable and usually turn out to be wrong, e.g., the "America is finished" school of the 1970s and the "Asian miracle" school of the 1980s. In the end, markets seem to assert their dominance in deciding both macroeconomic and structural economic performance, which together with technology have now come together with a vengeance in US economic and military performance in the 1990s--exceeding all expectations. Johnson (president, Japan Policy Research Institute, and author of several books, notably MITI and the Japanese Miracle, CH, Sep'82) places American power in a political context, with individual chapters on Okinawa, South and North Korea, and China and Japan. He takes a mostly critical view of the arrogance of US diplomacy, backed by unrivaled military and economic might. However, a little pride in the US is not misplaced, given an economy that over 20 years has been transformed into a high-performance growth engine and a foreign policy that has seen democracies blossom in the least likely of places. Nevertheless, Johnson makes valid points, and his particular perspective makes for interesting reading on a widely debated topic. Recommended for public and academic library collections. I. Walter; New York UniversityBooklist Review
A veteran, and veteran academic on China and Japan, offers a serious indictment of the security system the U.S. organized in East Asia circa 1950 to contain the communists. Convinced the time has arrived to close down bases, bring troops home, and renegotiate extant security treaties, Johnson examines, from a highly critical, almost excoriating viewpoint, the American presence in Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. He wants to connect with general-interest readers, perceiving them blinkered to the resentments engendered by U.S. military activity. When anti-Americanism erupts, Americans tend to be perplexed by it (why are those ingrates rioting?), they and their leaders believing their foreign policy to be animated by virtuous liberal values, not hegemonic self-interest. These occasional but persistent reactions Johnson calls "blowback," and his intimation of disasters to come, possibly wars, drives his insistence on dismantlement of the cold war security structures. This is edgy, unconventional wisdom that deserves hearing and debating. --Gilbert TaylorKirkus Book Review
In this timely book, noted Asian specialist Johnson (Japan: Who Governs?, 1994) addresses the effects of American global interventionism, delivering a grim warning that the United States will soon experience severe reprisals (or 'blowback') from the victims of government policies kept secret from the American people. Johnson begins his book with a confession. He admits that as a naval officer after the Korean War, and as an academic who studied the formation of Chinese communism, he was not in a position to witness the results of American power disinterestedly. In fact, he wholeheartedly shared the assumption that America was the necessary guarantor of world peace. Only after his pathbreaking exploration of Japan's economic renewal in MITI and the Japanese Miracle (1973) did he conclude that the US mission to protect the ``free world'' was a justification for empire. This insight became especially clear in the wake of the Cold War. That the US has not significantly reduced or adjusted its military position after the fall of the Soviet Union reveals, to Johnson, this country's imperialistic aims. Moreover, he argues that American fat-headedness is not just confined to the upper echelons of the State Department. From rape in Okinawa to the imposition of economic austerity in Indonesia (followed by the quick purchase of its industrial plant on easy terms), Johnson sees the imperialistic mentality as the defining style of American actions and expectations abroad. In order to curb imminent and massive blowback, he calls for a more humble American presence'both militarily and psychologically'in the world. However, one has to wonder about the value of Johnson's dissent: Is humility a realistic solution to the tangle of issues that this nation has persistently involved itself in for half a century? Engrossing and at the same time alarming, Johnson's well-researched book nevertheless presents an easy solution to fundamental problems that have usually forced great powers into catastrophic predicaments.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute & professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, has written numerous books on Japan & Asia including his classic "Miti & the Japanese Miracle" & "Japan: Who Governs?" He lives near San Diego.(Bowker Author Biography)