Foreign Policy

Some time back, I really enjoyed George Packer’s “The Unwinding”, a gripping, depressing story about the collapse of America. So I thought I’d give “Our Man” a try. It’s a massive biography of Richard Holbrooke, an official involved in Vietnam, Bosnia and Afghanistan. Yup, that’s quite a stretch, in time and global ambition. And it doesn’t help that Holbrooke, though talented and dynamic, is a combative, unlikable character.

But what it does do, in totally convincing detail, is spell out the difficulty of making anything happen at all. The world of American foreign policy is huge and complicated, full of factions and personal rivalries, so that it’s amazing that anything actually gets decided at all.

Which is depressing, for those of us looking at Ukraine and wondering why the West always has to be on the back foot, always leaves the initiative to Putin with his bluffs and blackmail. Wouldn’t it be great, just once in a while, for us to do something daring and decisive, which really sets him back and makes him think again? But then you look at the two systems, at his freedom to act on impulse and our need to wait until everybody’s on board, and you realise there isn’t a chance.