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A Conservative’s View of American National Policy
A few months ago, Ricochet member Eric Hines told me that he’d written a book, which he planned to self-publish, about foreign and military policy. He wondered if I ever did any freelance editing. I said sure, of course — I never say “no” to work. So he hired me. (Full disclosure: He also later made a large contribution to my own adventure in self-publishing.)
You remember the Law of Slack, right? It should apply to e-mail and Skype, too. We ended up discussing his book — which really couldn’t be more timely — at length, in total violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Law of Slack. Every one of its chapters would be a great subject for debate on Ricochet. But at least you can read his side of the discussion. A Conservative’s View of American National Policy is now available on Kindle for $2.99.
Now, help me win an editorial debate. I kept trying to convince him that his offhand e-mails about the book should be in the book. He kept saying, “Why would anyone care about that?” He gave me permission to reproduce the exchange below. You tell me: Think a paragraph like this might be of interest to the reading public?
I also could order the entire airbase to flush, to launch everything it had even remotely flyable as quickly as it could. Believe me, you haven’t lived — not even in Paris with everything the Louvre has pictures of live all around you — until you’ve seen a SAC base flush, with its tankers on the go, the B-52s smoking down the runway so hard behind them that the first BUF is standing up on one wing breaking in one direction to avoid overrunning the last tanker still on the go, lumbering into the air and turning in its direction. …
I was hired to give editorial advice and I gave it. In my professional judgment, that would be a great first sentence. But in this case, he demurred:
I’ve already said I hate like hell writing about myself (it’s buried in one of my responses to one of your comments in your edits). But seriously — that sentence sounds like potboiler stuff, not a lead-in to a serious book.
He stuck with his own introduction:
This is the companion piece to A Conservative’s View of American Domestic Policy. Whereas Domestic Policy discussed what we as a nation should do within our borders, National Policy is about our actions on the global stage.
National and domestic policy necessarily dovetail; neither can exist without the other. For the purposes of this book, I’ll assume there to be no problems with domestic policy and that it fully and efficiently interlocks with national policy. Of course, this idealized assumption isn’t true, but the artificiality lets me focus on national policy.
My exposition centers on two things, the first of which is this: foreign and defense policy are more than closely related. They are not even mirror-images of each other; rather, they aren’t even tightly intertwined; they’re the same thing viewed from different perspectives. There are few, if any, aspects of foreign policy that do not inform defense policy, and there are even fewer aspects of defense policy that don’t affect foreign policy. We discuss these general policies and we have separate departmental heads representing them in the Executive Branch Cabinet only to facilitate our general understanding and the Cabinet Secretaries’ more efficient execution.
Accordingly, we need to understand the unity of foreign and defense policy as a single concept, not two related ones, then develop a unitary national policy that recognizes that necessary unity and that coordinates and maximizes the strengths of each, using each to compensate for the weaknesses of the other.
There’s a lot of ambient anti-trade and isolationist sentiment in the air these days. This book’s is a detailed exposition of the case to the contrary. So grab yourself a copy, send one to your elected representative, and let’s have the conversations we should have had about it on Ricochet.
(What do you think about the introduction? Was I right?)
Published in Foreign Policy, General
I agree with Eric “— that sentence sounds like potboiler stuff, not a lead-in to a serious book.”
When can I get a copy of the “potboiler” that begins with SAC flushing the bases?
I am Blessed to have met Eric and Mrs. Hines at several meet ups and have read portions of his books.
Eric’s books are outstanding, I believe this is his 5th.
Consuming his books requires commitment as they are serious works. These are not Mark Levin type conservative entertainment.
In person Eric and Mrs. Hines (she is also a fine author) are both very warm, generous, and friendly. They laugh easily and share great stories like the email.
I think you raise an interesting contrast between Eric’s personal story telling and the seriousness of his authorship in his books. I am confident he is in good editorial hands.
As to your question regarding the introduction I am torn.
I think Eric’s books are going to stand the test of time and be influential for years to come. These are not quick hit works of pop conservatism.
The introduction as he’s written it is consistent with the serious nature of his books.
Your points about the lead in using his email are valid and will hopefully entice more folks to sample the book and buy it (I believe these are only available as eBooks).
I don’t think using his email as the lead is boastful or distracts from the seriousness of his work, but respect his humility.
Yes
I’m almost inclined not to look the book over if he declines Ms. B’s advice on that quote. That’s a super exciting quote.
Manfred, look it over. You will not be disappointed.
IMHO, either introduction would work just fine…for conservatives reading it.
But…if I want to get my leftwing wacko B-i-L to read it, or, really, anyone who’s not cut from our cloth, I think Claire’s preferred intro would work better.
It’s a better hook to snag those who don’t share (or maybe who just don’t realize they do share) our perspective on foreign and defense policy.
Go with Claire’s intro Eric, especially if it is a serious read. A meat and potatoes book like yours benefits from a delicious appetizer – I found that made a serious book like the Thatcher biography easier to read. Visuals go a long way, humor where its appropriate. I have not read your books, but I am intrigued! Anther reason to have that Ricochet Library button – so much talent here!
Yes – agree
I think Mr Hines’ email has great panache but I can’t understand a word of it <sobs>.
Bet you could. Read it slowly and ask yourself, “What might that mean?”
(Strictly speaking, one of the acronyms shouldn’t be allowed here.)
And only as Kindle eBooks. I used to self-publish through a facility that formatted them in Nook format and pushed them through Barnes&Noble, but I’ve sold exactly zero Nook books.
For those who don’t have Kindle readers (and they’re pretty gee-whiz these days; although Nooks are no pikers), amazon gives away a free Kindle reader for use on PCs, smartphones, and laptops. It’s not as good as the Kindle reader itself, but it’s not crippleware, either. It’s an extension of the Gillette move to give away the razor and sell the blades.
Eric Hines
Didn’t read it. Do I need to have read it? Is trying to go forward with this book from where I am now like Laurel without Hardy? Abbott without Costello? Hall without Oates? Trump without a puerile, brain-damaged Fox News personality? I’d better put this back on the shelf before the bookstore clerk sees me and makes me buy it anyway.
Yowza!
Eric, Claire is trying to help you sell books to distracted knuckleheads like me.
You folks are too generous (sorry I’m late to the party; I just finished my taxes–what I live for in April…).
Regarding the Intro, too late–the thing is out. It’s self-published, and I could edit it in real time, but I ain’t a-gonna. I’ve already cast that die across the Rubicon.
Whatever acronym could you mean? SAC just means Strategic Command which, when it existed ran, among other things, our strategic nuclear-capable bombers and our nuclear-capable ICBMs.
BUF? But that’s just Big Ugly Fellow, an apt description of a B-52. Does someone have a potty-mouth mind? I was a USAF officer and a gentleman, I’d never use any other meaning. Brent, now, he’s Navy, and a pilot….
Ms Charing, I think the only other term that might be confusing is flushing a base. That’s an emergency situation: we’ve got warning that missiles and bombers are enroute, so everything that’s at all flyable, whether it’s combat capable or not–anything that can get into the air–is ordered to go, for survival. Those aircraft that are combat ready then execute their war orders, which at this early stage of an attack, means heading to a point by which they’ll get final authorization to proceed.
Normally, such a thing results in a mad scramble for the runway; who’s first goes first. SAC, hidebound by procedure as they were, though, organized the thing by aircraft type.
It’s also not an entirely safe thing to do, so it got exercised only rarely. Usually, they’d just do elephant walks: operationally capable aircraft (not the ones in the hangar for maintenance; no need to upset the maintenance schedule) taxi to the active runway (all of them, if the base has more than one), and then taxi back.
This particular base also was home to a squadron of interceptors, which was why I happened to be at the base when it flushed. The interceptors were my Weapons Controller squadron’s responsibility.
Eric Hines
Not at all. All my books are intended to be stand-alone.
Of course, you would benefit immensely were you to read all of them, though. Especially, having grown up in Joliet. I grew up in Kankakee. [g]
Eric Hines
You’ll have to talk to my wife. I’m probably going to write something about Just War Theory, but then it’s to fiction: a smart-alec private detective, then one about a vampire called Lefty because he only has his right fang, and then a sci-fi first contact effort.
Eric Hines
You might just recognize this resident of Wilmington, then.
Ooooh! Excellent! Can I edit that one?
That would be a great intro to a Tom Clancy* novel. Otherwise, as the first paragraph of a serious work, I find it clangy.
*The Red Storm Rising/Hunt for October Tom Clancy.
After my time. I grew up, more or less, in the dark ages of the last century.
Eric Hines
I’m sure we can work something out. [g]
Eric Hines
Okay, the intro Eric used was good, workmanlike prose, and a book like that I’d just settle into and read in sections.
The email sentence Claire pointed out? It has everything – dynamism, rapid pacing, an atmosphere of breathless excitement, a distinctive character voice, an exotic setting. It starts in media res, almost a necessity for today’s fiction, and immediately the reader has multiple questions (why? What does that stuff mean? What’s going to happen?) The reader doesn’t know what’s going on, but as with one’s reaction to a fleet of siren-wailing ambulances and fire engines going past, he’s sure as hell going to find out.
A book starting with a version of this passage would be hard to put back on a shelf. It totally passed my chills-down-the-spine test.
But it’s probably fiction, possibly really great creative nonfiction. Not really a good fit for a policy book.
Aviator. They’re better than pilots (ask Tom Wolfe).
Eric, it looks like all your books, including this one are available in iBooks as well.
Apparently. Amazon.com does seem to have started publishing in a variety of formats, not just its proprietary .mobi.
Eric Hines
I’ve read about a quarter of the book and have more than a few objections.
First, the author seems to go hook, line and sinker for the liberal view of international relations: democratic governments aren’t aggressive, do not start wars, and hence we should push for greater democratization because it will mean a more peaceful world. I think the argument is nonsense. Lebow makes the exact opposite argument and I tend to agree.
But it is worse than that because it totally blinds us to the world as it is and how to advance our own interests. The author buys the argument of friends, allies neutrals and enemies. It is only a partially useful way at looking at things. A more important way is: who can be useful and who can/will not. Britain and Canada may be friends, Germany and France may be allies as the author states (I would contend they also are friends), but none of them are particularly useful. Nato is less than useful — it is a huge liability for the US — because it can easily drag us into war that we do not want. This is particularly true if we consider to look upon Russia as an enemy, when Russia can be useful. The fetishization of democracy by the foreign policy establishment is largely responsible for blinding us to seeing how Russia can be, just as the anti-communism fetishists were blinded to how useful China could be in middle of Cold War.