The Imperial Republic

...Beside that coup, American-style invasions, such as police actions in the Dominican Republic, appear clumsy indeed...

...But Aron has fallen prey to a temptation, or perhaps it is a disease, that threatens only those to whom greatness has already come...

...It is especially regrettable because he has the talent for more profound thought...

...In this section, as in the first, Aron takes specific issue with New Left or "para-Marxist" interpreters of recent American foreign relations...

...In the first section Aron weighs the behavior of the United States in terms of his theory of international relations, as elaborated in his book of the mid-sixties, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations...

...But the book does not entirely succeed...

...It is quite another matter to assert that an invasion of Castro's Cuba could never have succeeded in the early 1960s, and to support this assertion in a footnote which reads in its entirety: "I spent some time in Cuba in 1961...

...As Aron sees it, the United States has been seeking a "middle way between globalism and isolationism" and has not yet found it...

...There are a few outright errors as well, e.g., when Jellinek calls the China White Paper of 1949 a "White Book...

...One reason, and this point relates to the American edition rather than to the Frenchoriginal, is that the translation by Frank Jellinek is flawed and tedious...

...And indeed, few books have been published in the United States to such acclaim as Raymond Aron's latest volume...

...Aron announces at the outset that he has written an essay, not a narrative, on American foreign policies and relations...

...in the course of this search America has at various times expanded and diminished its influence in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, sometimes out of feelings of responsibility, sometimes out of whim, self-interest, or even confusion, but not, as New Left historians claim, as part of a deliberate search for hegemony or as a function of imperialism...

...Worse than any errors or individual points of interpretation, though, is the tone of the book and the nature of its formulation...

...Some features of the book deserve the kind of praise they have received...

...Unfortunately, not all the praise is deserved, for The Imperial Republic is both more ambitious and less effective than many of Aron's earlier books...

...it merely displays better imperial technique, as in the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, an operation masterful for the small loss of life and modest repercussions which it occasioned...

...Internationally renowned scholar-author, timely subject, novel treatment—all seem guarantors of surefire success...

...Aron knows a great deal about the Atlantic community, both politically and economically, and he arrives at a number of insights into American policy and relations that will be especially striking to American readers accustomed to homegrown and therefore introspective assessment...

...He denies that any one goal dominated American foreigneconomic relations or that multinational corporations, those archvillains of countless revisionist scenarios, have secretly manipulated or controlled state policy...

...Unfortunately, the translation is not the worst feature of the book's discussion of American policy in China and subsequently in Asia...

...74) There is a difference between analysis and punditry, and sad to say, in this book Aron has crossed over into the latter...

...In the second section Aron examines the role of the United States and the dollar in the international and especially the Atlantic economy...

...They were both of course, says Aron, and so he has devoted separate and practically equal sections of his book to each aspect, the first to the "United States in the Inter-State System," and the second to the "United States in the World Market...

...As one of the grand old men of modern international relations in academia, he is entitled to think that his informal considerations on the subject will be interesting for a wide readership, and his scholarly attainments justify confidence in the validity of his analytic arguments...

...The dizzying heights of academic acclaim and intellectual achievement have in The Imperial Republic disturbed his ability to perceive the fine line between analyzing and pontificating...

...Already a prizewinner in France in 1973, The Imperial Republic has met critical praise even in the pages of the New York Times, where reviewers often have seen or thought of everything, even if they have not yet done it all...

...As Aron notes, the Soviet Union is not less prone than the United States to extend its influence and use coercion in postwar international relations...

...Were American foreign relations primarily political or economic in nature and motive...

...Aron seems plainly mistaken in his understanding of the China White Paper and then of American assumptions and intentions in East Asia during the Korean era...

...It is one thing to do as Aron does early in the volume, where he tests the revisionist critiques of American policy primarily in terms of logic and not of evidence...

...And Aron can say with authority what an American writer can say only at the risk of appearing partisan: that "there is no need to saddle the United States with the responsibility (for the cold war) in order to find Stalin innocent, for Stalin never aspired to any angelic quality and could not have cared less for any innocence...

...Aron has considered the two main strands of American foreign relations separately in order to resolve a difficult problem of postwar historiography...

...Without compendious apparatus or nit-picking detail he raises and answers some important questions relating to these interpretations...

...It is refreshing to read evaluations of cold war problems and policies that are detached emotionally, morally, and ideologically, as well as to be reminded of the many previous waves of revisionism in American historiography and public affairs...

...The grammatical particularity and precision of French becomes redundance and repetition in this translation...

...He could have, and should have, done better by his readers...