Book Review—War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, Authored by Ronan Farrow

 

War on Peace—written by an acclaimed journalist and former diplomat of the United States of America, Ronan Farrow—deals with the neoliberal world order, created soon after the end of the Cold War Era with the emergence of the USA as the hegemon or the sole superpower of the world. The grandfather of the global order introduced us to the life of a unipolar world where one power rules and others obey.

This captivating book goes beyond the general and philosophical ways and throws light on the militarisation of US foreign policy, which has spoilt its influence for decades. The use of hard power over soft power is what led the US foreign policy towards decline. The once conventional diplomatic methods became obsolete with time. Moreover, the earlier public diplomacy or the economic one got replaced by the unconventional diplomatic means to achieve the standards of interests for the state. Besides, diplomacy died after decades of political cowardice by US officials. Its lust to undertake its relative gains, which are often driven by the realist school of thought, made it lose its previous standards and strong impression on the rest of the world. Additionally, it long ignored the evil side effects of its wrongdoings, which unfolded warfare and killed thousands of innocent lives.

Farrow interviewed almost all the living secretaries of state to provide accurate facts and figures to his readers; in-depth investigations have further moulded his manuscript. From Henry Kissinger to Rex Tillerson and other low-level diplomats, all have shared their own expertise and experiences of how America has worked in short-sightedness. His all-inclusive reporting publicised the hidden scenarios and made visible how the Pentagon and CIA took over the US foreign policy activities that were once covered by the top-level diplomats on the basis of soft power to demonstrate the international actors and form the inclinations through appeal and magnetism instead of coercion, power, and extortion. His richly informed narrative made it clear that US involvement in the world’s proxy wars and support for the rebel groups have further provoked the instability, but its lack of accountability is what gave rise to its deviltry and evilness.

Moreover, it was stated that the militarised foreign policy just contributed to more stumbling blocks, which resulted in imbalances in different departments of state and inconsistency in the diplomatic section. He interrogates the US foreign policy goals, which rest on its ideological pillars, exceptionalism theory that promotes the peaceful capitalist political philosophy, as well as expansionism, which helps the United States of America to maintain its hegemonic status over the globe. In addition to this, it was also mentioned and made clear that the bad situations and complications weren’t rooted in the US ideology but stemmed from the involvement of intelligence and military personnel in the foreign policy unit who couldn’t strike a balance between the triumphalism and declinism. They almost killed international diplomacy.

The foreign policy is also driven by the state’s economic, geographical, and political interests, but America’s far-right government didn’t leave any space for anything else and familiarised the world with the America First Policy, which contributed to a huge amount in its fall.

America has always faced alarming crises in history, but back then it had well-skilled diplomats to handle such circumstances tactfully and on the basis of low politics, which is the vital element of international politics. Moreover, militarising the foreign policy is something that lowers the status of the nation-state, as it is not the obligation of the military to handle the foreign affairs section of the state, and America prioritised its military means over the civilian methods to muddle through the global politics. They favoured policy initiatives that were dominated by the military planners and passed over the polished diplomats. Thus, America’s end of diplomatic values was the end of its influence on the world and the beginning of the rise of China—the most diplomatic of all states.