The Age of Illusions
Andrew Bacevich
Andrew Bacevich’s brief history of post-Cold War America is at least consistent and coherent. In brief, the end of the Cold War gave rise to great expectations of a spectacular peace dividend, which Bacevich imagines as a vision of Oz’s Emerald City. The United States would adopt a political “consensus” consisting of four elements: global neoliberalism, military empire, individual freedom, and presidential supremacy. The hubris this consensus was founded on would lead, with the swiftness of fate, to extreme inequality, endless war, anomie, and Donald Trump.
The overarching theme of the book is that of hubris. Greed, the use of military power, the exercise of personal choice, and Donald Trump (the id unleashed) would each, ultimately, reject all restraint. Such hubris was not created by Trump, or the media, but was instead the expression of public longings. “When all is said and done,” Bacevich concludes, “presidents don’t shape the country; the country shapes the presidency.” Responsibility for what happens next rests with the people. Readers may take what comfort from that they will.
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