EXCERPTS FROM SITTING ON BAYONETS...

A layman’s guide (from Preface):

Why this book? I wanted to explain today’s “war-on-terror” world to myself. Like many, I was perplexed by unforeseen forces in the West’s contest with jihadist Islam. The sudden 2011 wave of Arab uprisings, shaking both governments and political Islam, caught even experts off-guard. Before that explosion, politics and news cast still longer shadows, but little light. Unless you bought handy slogans, nobody seemed to offer a coherent overview. Politicians chattered about personalities, alliances, betrayals, combat needs, regional checker-boards, and fig-leaf exits. Journalists, especially on television, counted bombs, corpses and corrupt contractors. Both sources conveyed impressions of wavering hope, lingering despair, and unstoppable violence. But context? History? Hope? Except from rare media commentators, we got – and still mostly get -- the whats and wheres and whos, but very few whys and hows...

... I believe that the U.S. – still for some time the “indispensable nation” – can move from self-defeating, hegemonic militarism to successful, world-rebuilding strategies. I believe that its best traditions can still help lead to a more secure and civilized world. America must robustly resist the horrors of radical Islam. But it can and must seek reconciliation with mainstream Islam. And this – no doubt confounding macho militarists – it must do partly by supporting massively the critical role of Muslim women as peace-builders.

Who’s winning? (from Introduction):

Who’s winning the “war on terror?” Ponder that next time you’re surrendering shoes, belt, coins, liquids, dignity, sang-froid and sense of humor in the airport ‘security’ line. Osama bin Laden’s followers are ruining your trip, wherever you’re going. And they intend to spoil all your trips, forever. The only place they want you to fly to is Hell -- while they plan to land in Heaven to find 72 voluptuous, doe-eyed virgins. They calculate that their pure seventh-century beliefs, turbocharged by 21st-century technology, can capture the world’s richest (though no longer all-powerful) Atlantic nations. “Soft power” -- the power of compelling ideas, sensibly implemented -- is now real power. In the end, the “war on terror” is a contest of ideas for imposing power.

This book argues that over the past two generations, the United States has fallen in love with militarism. Not necessarily with war -- but it has embraced a cult of the military, an ethos claiming armed force as the main, or even only, solution to major international conflicts. America has lost sight of the power of soft power – the art and science of winning friends by attraction, co-option, manifest respect, goodwill, and especially practical support for local ideas.