Jeb Bush's Favorite Neoconservative Yale Class
Yesterday, Jeb Bush and Kevin Warsh chose to lead their Wall Street Journal column with a college shout-out:
"As the economy continues to struggle, we are reminded of a course offered at Yale University titled "Grand Strategy." Drawing on a weighty curriculum of history and philosophy, the course seeks to train future policy makers to tackle the complex challenges of statecraft in a comprehensive, systematic way. Clearly, U.S. economic policy is sorely lacking an effective grand strategy."
As a Yalie, it was heartening to see Bush and Warsh are populist by comparing our economic ills in a seminar undergraduate Ivy League. Jon has already taken place on the schoolboy "Grand strategic growth" argument in the column. Nevertheless, some aspects of the "grand strategy studies" class itself are worth mentioning.
The class is the story of a seminar that despite reference to Jeb, has nothing to do with modern economic policy.At Yale, Grand Strategy provides the neoconservative foreign policy through a lens thinly veiled Strauss: for example, Thucydidean "realism," says the containment of the Cold War, Sun Tzu justify the preemptive invasion of Iraq. The course was expanded by and receives millions of dollars from conservative financier Roger Hertog, and is led by two right-wing luminaries. The first is Charles Hill, an adviser to Kissinger and Giuliani, who left Washington after the involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.The second is John Lewis Gaddis, a brilliant scholar Cold War, but more recently known for cheerleading neoconservative voice and statements of the Bush doctrine. Anointed Yalies selected for the program (guest blogger was unfortunately the waiting list) to learn a different cast of characters: Bush Ambassador John Negroponte, the Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, and interventionist Walter Russell Mead. Kissinger jumps occasionally by a cat.
So how does a group of influential conservatives and / or get a bunch of rich Yalies left to take their Hertog-funded course? Simple.They begin an advertising campaign in the Journal. Then they are the class of a secret club, encourage students to cocktail hour, to give them thousands of grant, and - perhaps most - hands on special pins that select few can be to obtain degree. (Even the most liberal of undergraduate students can not resist a special pin.) Grand Strategy parlays social anxiety in teaching Straussian. This could explain why the seven members of the current class I talked about the course, six said they were concerned about the content or instruction.
John Lewis Gaddis - News
The second is John Lewis Gaddis, a brilliant Cold War scholar, but more recently famous for neoconservative cheerleading and vocal endorsements of the Bush Doctrine. Anointed Yalies selected for the program (this guest blogger was sadly wait-listed)
Even while the war was going on, as John Lewis Gaddis argues in his Strategies of Containment, US President Roosevelt was conscious of the risks of Soviet influence in post-war Europe. And, as it happens, Pakistan's duplicity in the fight against the
As soon as Bush was elected, long before the terrorist attacks of September, 2001, he tasked the Pentagon with the work of rewriting the National Security Strategy, which a professor of military history at Yale University, John Lewis Gaddis,
El eminente historiador John Lewis Gaddis sostiene que las “raíces de la doctrina de Bush” sobre la guerra preventiva se remontan a los documentos estatales de su admirado John Quincy Adams para justificar la sangrienta invasión a Florida en 1818,
Mine kilder er DIIS-rapporten og John Lewis Gaddis' bog ”Den Kolde Krig” fra 2005 med efterskrift af Uffe Ellemann-Jensen. Men det er da muligt, at BJ har ret i, at det er en myte - det vil vi måske få afsløret, når CFKF-rapporten udkommer.
Review of “The Cold War: A New History” by John Lewis Gaddis ...
Note 1: This book, published by Penguin Press in 2005, was the recent selection of our book club for discussion. Since it was my husband Jim’s selection, we were in charge of food, and in spite of the fact that I didn’t much like the book, at least I had lots of fun planning “cold war” food. As a bonus, I forgot to take the brownies to the meeting (decorated with dots to look like dominos, representing the domino theory of Communism), so we had many leftovers of an endorphin-elevating nature.
The rivalry of the “official” Cold War may have ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December, 1991, but John Lewis Gaddis still has an ax to grind. In his mind, the USSR was never anything but The Evil Empire, and the U.S. never had anything but good intentions. And the most important factor in striking down that Evil was none other than that alleged towering paragon of strategy and tactics, Ronald Reagan.
The Cold War: A New History provides an excellent example of the ideological biases of a historian creating a skewed misrepresentation of the facts about an era in order to conform with biased perceptions. This so-called “new history” is full of sweeping generalizations, unwarranted conclusions, and dubious assertions that scream out bias at every turn. I’m just going to point out a few that irritated me more than the rest.
Gaddis is an unabashed Reagan idolizer, although he himself is the only “authority” he can come up with to footnote when he bestows lavish praises upon Reagan. His thesis is that it was Ronald Reagan, more than anyone or any event, who was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War. In support of this dubious allegation, Gaddis asserts: “Reagan was as skillful a politician as the nation had seen for many years, and one of its sharpest grand strategists ever.” In a sentence worthy of Animal Farm , Gaddis declares about Reagan, “His strength lay in his ability to see beyond complexity to simplicity.”
Almost all other accounts tell a different story. Reagan’s biographer Lou Cannon wrote that Reagan came to the White House “notoriously ill-informed about foreign affairs” and that Bill Clark, his second national security advisor, found that he could only teach Reagan about issues by showing him movies.
Is going to start reading The Cold Way by John Lewis Gaddis :)
RT @: Read historian John Lewis Gaddis' interview on the Soviet response to Hiroshima: 
Read historian John Lewis Gaddis' interview on the Soviet response to Hiroshima: John Lewis Gaddis - Bookshelf
The Cold War, a new history
Evaluates the second half of the twentieth century in light of its first fifty years, chronicling how the world transformed from a dark era of international ...Surprise, security, and the American experience
In this provocative book, a distinguished Cold War historian argues that September 11, 2001, was not the first time a surprise attack shattered American ...The landscape of history, how historians map the past
The Landscape of History provides a searching look at the historian's craft, as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us ...We now know, rethinking Cold War history
Strategies of containment, a critical appraisal of American national security policy during the Cold War
Now this new edition of Gaddis's classic carries the history of containment through the end of the Cold War and beyond.Everyday Posts Directory
John Lewis Gaddis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Lewis Gaddis (born 1941 in Cotulla, Texas)[1] is a noted historian of the ... Gaddis is best known for his critical analysis of the strategies of containment ...
John Lewis Gaddis | Foreign Affairs
John Lewis Gaddis. Historians of the Cold War were powerfully influenced by fears that America was betraying its ideals in the course of that long struggle. ...
John Lewis Gaddis
John Lewis Gaddis on WN Network delivers the latest Videos and Editable pages for News & Events, including Entertainment, Music, Sports, Science and ...
John Lewis Gaddis: Biography from Answers.com
Works by John Lewis Gaddis (b. 1941) 1972 The United States and the Origins of the Cold War: 1941-1947
John Lewis Gaddis | Department of History | Yale University
John Lewis Gaddis. Robert A. Lovett Professor of History. Office: HGS 243. Phone: (203) 432 ... Professor Gaddis, who received his PhD from the University of Texas ...