Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power by Victor Davis Hanson

Review by: Eliot A. Cohen

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 2002), p. 181
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20033104 .
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 Recent Books
They have also enjoyed full freedom in Not surprisingly for a prolific historian of
deciding how to treat their material, ancient Greece, Hanson believes that the
which has increasingly been made available rootsofWestern militarypredominance
tooutsideresearchers since1996.This liewith Hellenic culture and its legacies,
volume startswith the Iranian Revolution particularly its brand of rational, purposive
and the second world oil shock and ends thought,which rejectsexcessivereliance
with the fall of the Berlin Wall and on theology, custom, and tyrannicalpolitics.
militarism"-that
communism'sdemise in easternEurope. The traditionof "civic
It covers the fund's growing global per is, theWest's ability tomobilize citizen
spective, its efforts to cajole itsmajor soldiers and animate them with the disci
macroeconomic plineof collectiveendeavor-has helped
members into improved
policies, its approach to the international create an ascendancy that remains, in
debt crisis of the 1980s, and itsmovement Hanson'sview, secure.In the resurrected
into structuraladjustmentlendingin the "clash of civilizations" debate, thiswork
mid-198os. The account stops too soon is for those who think "theWest versus
to include the IMF'srole in the economic the rest" captures the issue.A powerful
fromcommunismto free
transformation argument that the smart money remains
markets.Among themore fascinating with theWest.
stories is the tension between the fund
and theUnited States during the rapidly AfghanistantheBearTrap:TheDefeat of a
growing budget deficits of the firstReagan Superpower. BY MOHAMMAD YOUSAF
An authoritativesource
administration. AND MARK ADKIN. Havertown:
for anyone studying theworld economy Casemate, 2001, 243 pp. $29.95.
of the 1980s. First published in 1992,this reissued
book is thememoir of the Pakistani
brigadiergeneralwho mastermindedthe
equipping and training of theAfghan
Military; Scientific, mujahideen in their struggle against the
and Technological Soviets in the 1980s.His coauthor, a former
ELIOT A. COHEN major in the British army, has polished
the general's prose, but it remainsYousaf's
book. A fascinating and generally believ
Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in able tale, itmakes a number of important
theRise of Western Power. BYVICTOR points.First, thehardinessandbellicosity
DAVIS HANSON. NewYork: of theAfghans were matched by a style
Doubleday, 2001, 492 pp. $29.95. of warfare with almost asmany drawbacks
This book ismore than a contribution to as strengths.Second, theSovietmilitary
the "decisivebattlesofWestern history" was poorlydisciplined,demoralized,
genre, for the author has chosen theword badly led, and unimaginative formost of
"landmark"
with care.He describesvividly the war. Third, the Soviets and their
more than two millennia of battles to Afghan clients hung on for a very long
underscoreanoverarchingtheme:the timedespite theseweaknesses.Fourth,
West's enduringmilitary superiority. despite abundant U.S. military aid, the

FOREIGN AFFAIRS March/April2002 [181]

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