The Impact of the First World War on U.S. Policymakers: American Strategic and Foreign Policy Formulation, 1938–1942
Michael G. Carew. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014.
The United States, disenchanted with war, disenfranchised by financial crisis, and ready to embrace populism and isolationism faces dual challenges. A rising Asian power, seeking to up-end the established international order, and a series of protracted and controversial small wars.
Surprisingly, this is not a description of the current state of world affairs, but the picture that emerges from Carew’s study of the inter-war years, an era that saw U.S. policy makers faced with challenges that will resonate with their modern counterparts. But history does not repeat and it rarely rhymes, for the differences between 1938 and today are as stark as the similarities due in no small part to the legacy of the First World War.
Read the complete review originally published on The Strategy Bridge 19 March 2018
