Product Description

An account of the consequences of American global policies. The author argues that, in the 21st century, America will reap the global resentments it is now sowing. "Blowback", a term that officials of the CIA first coined for their internal use, refers to the unintended consequences of American policies and the dangers faced by an over-extended empire that insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the globe 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, Chalmers Johnson reveals the misguided actions of a nation basking in its own triumphalism. In the wake of the Cold War, the USA has imprudently expanded the commitments it made over the previous 40 years. In "Blowback", Johnson issues a warning: it is time for the American empire to demobilize before its bills become due.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1255572 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
If the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century may be a time of reckoning for the United States. Chalmers Johnson offers a troubling prognosis of what's to come. Blowback--the title refers to a CIA neologism describing the unintended consequences of American activity--is a call for the United States to rethink its position in the world. "The evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulation," writes Johnson. "The world is not a safer place as a result." Individual chapters focus on Okinawa (where American servicemen were accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in "Asia's last colony"), the two Koreas, China, and Japan. The result is a liberal-leaning (and Asia-centric) call for the United States to disengage from many of its global commitments. Critics will call Johnson an isolationist, but friends will say he simply speaks good sense. All will agree he is an earnest voice: "I believe our very hubris ensures our undoing". --John J. Miller

Review
'Blowback' is a term originally used by the CIA to describe the unintended consequences of American policies. In this devastating and controversial critique, Johnson explains how this concept looks set to challenge America's superpower status in the post cold-war era. Johnson lays out the dangers to the country's global hegemony caused by an overextended empire, overzealousness in acting as policeman in every corner of the planet, and the insistence on the use of American capital to force economic integration on its own terms. These policies unsurprisingly build up resentments, and the US government condemns attacks against American citizens and property as being the work of terrorists, illegal arms merchants and rogue states, when in fact they are often acts of blowback from earlier American 'imperial actions'. Similarly, blowback emanates from the outrage surrounding the victimization of foreign civilians by American service personnel in a continuous trail of 'military accidents' from Germany and Turkey to Okinawa and South Korea, nonchalantly brushed aside by the US government. However, Johnson chooses the main focus of Blowback to be on East Asia, rather than other high profile troublespots such as the Balkans, the Middle-East or Central America, as respect to the region's recent influence on the world's balance of power and its pivotal role in America's future economic harvest. Significant changes are clearly evident in Asia such as China's increasing attempt to emulate high-growth economies elsewhere in Asia, the reunification of the two Koreas and Japan's need to overcome its political paralysis. In this, Johnson argues that American's policy-making needs to undergo a radical overhaul to cope with a more self-confident China and a more independent Japan and responsibility has to be reassigned from military mavericks to ambassadors and diplomats in Asia. For too long, the US has relied on its carrier task force, its cruise missiles and its unfettered flow of capital for dealing with crises and desperately needs to seek more options. Blowback is informative, factual and largely unbiased, although it is sometimes difficult to agree with all of Johnson's statements and some of his links between the causes and consequences of blowback are highly debatable. For example, Johnson simply attributes the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie as retailiation for the 1986 Reagan administration's aerial raid on Libya that killed President Khadaffi's stepdaughter, when it is probably more likely to be the culmination of a multitude of motivations and chain of events. Despite these occasional flaws, Johnson's opinions are fundamentally sound and Blowback stands up as a not too taxing read for those interested in American foreign policy and its unofficial empire. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
CHALMERS JOHNSON, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, has written highly acclaimed books on Japan and Asia.

Customer Reviews

A Cold warrior turns his coat
This book is famous for prophesying 9/11 within the first few pages. It is difficult to ignore how accurate his predictions have been over the last 4 years.

Johnson is most interesting because of his background. As he recounts in the beginning of this book, he was originally an academic Cold warrior who felt that his work could contribute to the fight against Communism. Now he feels that those early sentiments were incorrect, he believes US "imperial" impulses were (and are) far more destructive in the long term.

If you read this book with an already sceptical view of American foreign policy you will find it far more informative than knee-jerk leftist polemics. Even those who firmly support US aims and ambitions may find these arguments compelling.

Stealth imperialism
In this hard-hitting analysis, Chalmers Johnson explains the goals and the hidden (from its inhabitants) functioning of the US hegemon: an empire based on military power and the use of US capital and markets to force global economic integration on US terms at whatever costs to others.

On the military front, the US population forgot G. Washington’s warning: ‘avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.’
The US intelligence and military establishment is close to being beyond civilian control and becoming an autonomous system, whose colossal budget with its juicy cost-plus contracts is only controlled by vested ideological and financial interests. This book shows clearly that US presidents, like Carter or Clinton, had not the power to oppose the Pentagon’s designs: perpetuate and develop the Cold War structures in order to consolidate its power. The ends justify all means as numerous intelligence or military interventions in the world show, which sponsored dictatorships, genocidal campaigns, war crimes, state terrorism and paramilitary death-squads. 90 % of all US weapons were sold, not to democracies, but to human right abusers.

On the economic front, globalization US style provoked economic disasters in South-Asia and South-America, throwing millions of people into poverty. However the US still urged its ‘allies’ to buy weapons! This kind of globalization, which provoked still more economic inequality, will not be forgotten for a long time (see W. Bello: Dilemmas of Domination.).
By overstretching its financial means (weapon systems are profligate economic waste), the US risks a long lasting downfall of the dollar.
The US and its population need an industrial not a military or intelligence policy, because a new rival hegemon points at the horizon: China, which will be the superpower of the 21st century. China will not be contained. The US will have to adjust to it.

In a world of hypocritical and gagged media, Chalmers Johnson’s much needed voice proposes human solutions for the world’s problems: ‘bring most overseas land-based forces home and reorient foreign policy to stress leadership through example, economic aid, international law, multilateral institutions and diplomacy, instead of military intervention, economic bullying or financial manipulation.’

With its surprising comparisons, Chalmers Johnson sent a solid warning to the actual US establishment. A nation reaps what its sows. The blowback could be horrendous.

This book is a must read.

Don't judge his book by it's title
I was really disappointed with this book. Both the title and the synopsis on the back made me think it was going to be a global analysis of US foreign policy and covert operations and their subsequent ramifications. But this never really occurred. Instead, in the book there is some of what I was expecting, but an awful lot analysis of the Far East during the Cold War.

Some of this seemed relevant, but I don't see there being much 'Blowback' from the likes of Japan or South Korea. He seems to skim over the parts of the world where there is potential for a greater amount of blowback, the Middle East and Africa for example.

It felt to me like Mr Johnson knows a lot about the Far East, but to sell a book, he gave it a provocative title and had the cover image of some middle eastern gentlemen setting fire to the stars and stripes.

Disappointing book. But to get informed about Japanese - US trade policy.... please read on.