The Archive
A collection of earlier writings on history, religion, and geopolitics. These pieces reflect my broader academic interests prior to focusing on fundamental analysis and investing.
Review of Munich, 1938 by David Faber
I really don’t like this book; I’m just going to state it from the beginning. I will never write a review for a book having read only half of it—in this case 230 pages. For me, I have to read the entirety of a book to write a good and comprehensive review. But I’m willing to make an exception for one simple reason: The title is completely misleading.
Photo by Alexander I. Velasquez (author’s copy)
Book Title
Category: Non-fiction, diplomatic history, politics
Page Count: 504 (Paperback)
Year of Publication: 2010 (Simon & Schuster Reprint Edition)
Rating: 1/5
10-Word Summary: A detailed diplomatic history between Britain and Germany from 1937-1938.
About Munich, 1938
I don’t like this book; I’m just going to state it from the beginning. I will never write a review for a book having read only half of it—in this case 230 pages. For me, I have to read the entirety of a book to write a good and comprehensive review. But I’m willing to make an exception in this case for one major reason: The title is completely misleading.
The title is Munich, 1938: Appeasement and World War II. Yet, Munich 1938 gets one or two chapters at the end of the book. And I get it: Faber is writing the buildup to Munich 1938 and all the diplomacy that preceded it. But Faber starts his account from November 1937. Why on earth would anyone start at November 1937? The logical place would be to start at 1933 because that is when Hitler comes to power and assumes the chancellorship in Germany.
Also, to understand Munich 1938, one would have to understand Hitler’s foreign policy ambitions and, hence, understand what lies in the pages of Mein Kampf. Yet, Faber never mentions Hitler’s famed book or even references his ultimate foreign policy objective of fighting the Soviet Union and destroying France. And because Faber starts his account so late in 1937, it’s impossible to understand why Hitler is even invading Austria and Czechoslovakia in the first place.
What about appeasement? Appeasement is never fully explained. Faber makes it clear that Chamberlain wanted to appease Hitler but not why he wanted to appease Hitler.
What about World War II? Everything in the book happens before World War II. I have no idea why World War II is even part of the title of this book.
The real title of this book should be: A detailed diplomatic history between Britain and Germany from November 1937 to October 1938; that’s all this book is. And I’m upset because I bought this book to understand appeasement, to understand why Chamberlain trusted Hitler’s promise at Munich, and to understand those who opposed appeasement. After all, appeasement is in the title of the book. You would think things like this would be explained. But no. I got none of that.
There are also so many people in this book—too many as a matter of fact. Because Faber condenses a dramatic eleven month history of diplomacy, his account is overly detailed and has so many people involved that it is easy to forget who most of them are outside of the major players in the account such as Hitler, Chamberlain, Eden, and so on. It makes for a very frustrating read having to constantly ask the question, “Wait, who is this again?”
Just about the only positive thing I have to say about this book is that Faber does know his stuff, and he gives a very detailed account of all of the diplomacy, both secret and public, that went on in both Hitler’s and Chamberlain’s cabinet from 1937-1938. Otherwise, this book was completely useless for me.
Should You Read Munich, 1938?
If you are looking for a book that will explain appeasement—what it was and why it became Britain’s foreign policy, the conflict between Chamberlain and Churchill, and the road to World War II, read Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War by Tim Bouverie (a review for this is coming soon). However, if and only if you are looking for an extremely detailed diplomatic history between Britain and Germany from November 1937 to October 1938, then this is definitely your book.
Review of Mein Kampf, Volume Two by Adolf Hitler
Whereas Volume One of Mein Kampf follows Hitler from his youth as a boy in his native Austria to his early career as a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, Volume Two is about the political philosophy and guiding principles of the party. It begins with a general philosophy of the state and its citizens and ends with recommendations for German foreign policy.
Photo by Alexander I. Velasquez (author’s copy)
Book Details
Category: Non-fiction, biography, memoir, politics, history, political philosophy
Translator: Ralph Manheim
Page Count: 317 (First Mariner Books Edition)
Year of Publication: 1999
Rating: 1/5
10-Word Summary: Adolf Hitler’s political philosophy and foreign policy for Germany’s future.
About Mein Kampf, Volume Two
Whereas Volume One of Mein Kampf follows Hitler from his youth as a boy in his native Austria to his early career as a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, Volume Two is about the political philosophy and guiding principles of the party. It begins with a general philosophy of the state and its citizens and ends with recommendations for German foreign policy.
I found it much more difficult to get through Volume Two than Volume One, and this is coming from someone who majored in philosophy as an undergraduate. I suppose the main reason for why it was difficult to get through it was because Hitler continues the same pattern of writing as in Volume One—ranting on the same political point for pages on end. Hitler could have summarized the philosophy of his political party—the NSDAP—in about thirty pages, fifty maximum. The fact that he took 317 pages to tell the reader the same things over and over again makes the reading experience dreadful.
Political Philosophy
One thing that does upset me is that most people, because they have never bothered to read Mein Kampf, are misled. Most people believe the Nazis were right-wing. The Wikipedia page for the entry “Nazi Party” claims that the party was far-right. Well whoever did the entry for the Wikipedia page didn’t take the time to read Mein Kampf, otherwise they wouldn’t have said that, as the Nazi Party was neither right nor left but somewhere in the center. Let’s break down the name of the party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, in two parts:
National
There is no doubt that Hitler was a nationalist. The whole purpose of the party is to rally the Germans to first eliminate the threat at home—the Jews—and then to set its sight on the enemy abroad: the Soviet Union. Overturning the Treaty of Versailles, building a great military, and destroying France were but means to these ends but not ends in themselves: The strength of a nation lies primarily, not in its weapons, but in its will, and that, before foreign enemies are conquered, the enemy within must be annihilated. (Page 682)
Socialist German Workers’ Party
In Chapter VII, “The Struggle with the Red Front,” Hitler discusses the NSDAP rallies and the struggles to win the German workers over from the Marxist/Communist camp to his Socialist party, highlighting the strategic use of the color red during the rallies:
The red color of our posters drew them [Hitler’s political opponents] to our meeting halls. The run-of-the-mill bourgeoise were horrified that we had seized upon the red of the Bolsheviks, and they regarded this as all very ambiguous. The German national souls kept privately whispering to each other the suspicion that basically we were nothing but a species of Marxism, perhaps Marxists, or rather, socialists in disguise. For to this very day these scatterbrains have not understood the difference between socialism and Marxism. (Page 483)
Hitler makes it clear in the passage above that there is a difference between socialism and Marxism, and that he was not a Marxist but a socialist. This is why, in Chapter XII, “The Trade-Union Question,” he is still in favor of trade unions, wants employers to make sure that workers are treated fairly, and envisions a classless German society united under a strong German nationalism—similar to his experience in the German army:
As things stand today, the trade unions in my opinion cannot be dispensed with. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions of the nation’s economic life…. The National Socialist State knows no ‘classes,’ but politically speaking only citizens with absolutely equal rights….The National Socialist employer must know that the happiness and contentment of his workers is the premise for the existence and development of his own economic greatness. (Pages 598-601)
Foreign Policy
Hitler’s foreign policy makes sense. That is to say, he understands that alliances form when there is a common interest between nations. Hence, he believes the best alliance for Germany is England, as it would be in England’s interest to keep France, their historic rival, from dominating the European mainland, and Germany can be their ally to check France’s power:
Anyone who undertakes an examination of the present alliance possibilities for Germany from the above standpoint must arrive at the conclusion that the last practicable tie remains with England…. A necessary interest on the part of England in the annihilation of Germany no longer exists today; that, on the contrary, England’s policy from year to year must be directed more and more to an obstruction of France’s unlimited drive for hegemony. (Page 618)
Though, for Hitler, an alliance with England could serve a greater purpose: It would defend Germany’s rear while Germany focused on destroying its greatest enemy—the Soviet Union, home of the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy for world domination:
In Russian Bolshevism, we must see the attempt undertaken by the Jews in the twentieth century to achieve world domination. (Page 661)
Points of Agreement
In Chapter Two, “The State,” I agree with much of what Hitler said about education. For example, he said that the youth should not be given too much head knowledge, but rather that education should consist primarily in teaching students character, will, and determination through physical activity (pages 408-412) with the final stage of education for all German males being mandatory military service (page 428). He also believed that education should be useful, and that schools were doing a bad job of teaching students useless information that they end up forgetting as adults (not much has changed). And he desired an education consisting of the classics: the Roman and Greek civilizations:
Especially in historical instruction, we must not be deterred from the study of antiquity. Roman history correctly conceived in extremely broad outlines is and remains the best mentor, not only for today, but probably for all time. The Hellenic ideal of culture should also remain preserved for us in its exemplary beauty. (Page 423)
Probably the point that resonated most strongly with me was Hitler’s rejection of hedonism and material pleasure as the most important principle of life:
It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god. Many things today may owe their existence solely to the longing for money and wealth, but there is very little among them whose non-existence would leave humanity any the poorer…. This, too, is a task of our movement…. Uphold the principle that man does not live exclusively for the sake of material pleasures. (Page 436)
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, Mein Kampf’s thesis is one rooted in deep conspiracy theories that have long been proven false. To say that the Jews are trying to take over the world is already a wacky theory, but to say that they are planning on the takeover via a communist plot rooted in the Soviet Union is beyond ridiculous. On top of that, the book is heavily Darwinist and Malthusian in its economic outlook, ideas that have since been discredited. (If you are a atheist, however, then I’m sure you might agree with many of Hitler’s Darwinist conclusions.)
Should You Read Mein Kampf?
No. Unless you are a scholar of Nazi Germany or have a deep fascination with Weimar Germany, the 1920s, the origins of the Second World War, Hitler’s political philosophy, and so on, there is nothing of actual substance in this book.
Review of Mein Kampf, Volume One by Adolf Hitler
If you want to understand Adolf Hitler, not what he did, but why he did, then this is a must-read. Only in the pages of Mein Kampf do we get in the mind of Germany’s future dictator and truly understand his motives and vision of reality—a vision stained by social Darwinism and anti-Semitism.
Photo by Alexander I. Velasquez (author’s copy)
Book Details
Category: Non-fiction, biography, memoir, politics, history
Translator: Ralph Manheim
Page Count: 370 (First Mariner Books Edition)
Year of Publication: 1999
Rating: 3/5
10-Word Summary: Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, political ideology, and future plans for Germany.
About Mein Kampf, Volume One
I’ve always wanted to read Mein Kampf, not because I’m some closet Nazi or an admirer of Adolf Hitler; rather, I’ve always wanted to read it out of sheer curiosity. This is even more true now than in the past because it’s becoming more difficult to find the book in stores. Amazon, where I bought my copy, stopped selling the book because Jewish organizations were complaining that Amazon was profiting off anti-Semitism. On eBay, my copy of Mein Kampf, which I bought on Amazon for $20 in 2020, is now going for prices as high as $550. And this trend will only continue so long as the book becomes harder to find.
But I will say this: If you want to understand Adolf Hitler, not what he did, but why he did, then this is a must-read. Only in the pages of Mein Kampf do we get in the mind of Germany’s future dictator and truly understand his motives and vision of reality—a vision stained by social Darwinism and anti-Semitism.
Volume One of Mein Kampf is autobiographical. Hence, the book starts with young Adolf’s upbringing in Vienna and ends with the early stages of the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party—or Nazi Party for short. But this is not autobiography for the sake of telling you his life story; this is autobiography for the sake of politics. Hitler will give bits and pieces of his life and then rant for pages on some political point until he eventually gets back to his autobiography for a few pages, and then he goes on another rant. This pattern continues until you get to the end of the volume.
For example, in his chapter on the World War, Hitler doesn’t discuss his experience as a runner in the trenches. Rather, he uses the chapter to discuss why Germany lost the war, and he rants for pages about how the war was lost on the homefront and not on the battlefield. He blames the pacifists, he blames the press, but most of all, he blames the Jews.
Understanding Hitler
The most important chapter for understanding Adolf Hitler’s beliefs and motives are to be found in chapters two and three where Hitler discusses the period of his life spent in Vienna. After the death of his father and mother, Hitler moved to Vienna to pursue his dreams of architecture.
While the young Hitler worked as a building laborer, many of Hitler’s co-workers were members of the Social Democratic Party: a Marxist political party consisting of members of the working classes whose goals were to grant the working classes more political rights. His co-workers tried to convince him to join a trade union. Trade unions had only thirty years earlier won the right for workers to strike in industrialized nations such as Great Britain. But Hitler despised their ideas because, for them, the government, laws, and schools were nothing but tools to oppress the working classes:
These men rejected everything: the nation as an invention of the ‘capitalistic’ (how often was I forced to hear this single word!) classes; the fatherland as an instrument of the bourgeoise for the exploitation of the working class; the authority of the law as a means for oppressing the proletariat; the school as an institution for breeding slaves and slaveholders…. There was absolutely nothing which was not drawn through the mud of a terrifying depth. (Page 40)
But what Hitler took notice of was how effective and successful their demonstrations and trade union strikes were because of their use of force on their employer. Hence, Hitler concluded that the only way to combat their use of force was to use a greater amount of force in return. In the words of Hitler: Terror at the place of employment, in the factory, in the meeting hall, and on the occasion of mass demonstrations will always be successful unless opposed by equal terror. (Pages 43-44)
But not only did Hitler believe that force and terror were effective methods of governing, he also believed that the masses needed a strong leader to guide that force. His belief was that the masses needed a leader or commander, tolerating no other political party other than the that of the leader’s.
His beliefs were confirmed while he sat and listened in on a session of the Austrian parliament. During the session, he came to the belief that democracy was ineffective because responsibility could only rest on the individual and not in the majority of a body of individuals. Hence, when something in the country went wrong, no one could be said to be truly responsible for what happened.
And it was on the streets of Vienna where he developed his two major beliefs while reading primarily from political pamphlets, as well as books and newspapers: social-Darwinism and anti-Semitism.
His anti-Semitism, especially, is all over Mein Kampf. Why did Germany lose the First World War? They were betrayed on the homefront by the Jews. Who was responsible for the evils of Marxism? The Jews. Why did Imperial Germany collapse into the hated Weimar Republic? It’s what the Jews wanted. And this goes on and on until finally, in chapter eleven, “Nation and Race,” he explains in detail why he despises the Jews so much.
Hitler states that the Jews have always been money-lending people only interested in self-preservation, the opposite of the Aryan-descended Germans who sacrificed themselves for the sake of preserving their race. Even though the Jews have always bounced around from civilization to civilization throughout history without a home of their own, they have always preserved themselves by lending money at high interest rates, thereby destroying the various working and lower classes of society in every and any civilization they root themselves in.
But their latest plan, according to Hitler, is world domination. He cites The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion (Page 307) as leaked proof that the Jews were secretly conspiring to dominate the world. Their plan was, after the industrial revolution, to enslave the working classes, since the they owned the means of production (i.e. the factories). Once Jews made the working classes toil endlessly in factories, the working classes would strike to ask for more political rights. The Jews would then give them an offer they couldn’t refuse: Marxism. Through Marxism, the Jews could then take political control of these groups of unhappy people and have them, ultimately, seize the government. By then spreading this movement to other nations, such as what the Soviet Union was doing in spreading communism to other nations, the final goal of world domination would be achieved.
Hitler says all this without citing a shred of evidence. As a matter of fact, some of the only proof he cites is the above mentioned Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, which has long since been proved to be a fabricated document, and the lectures of a self-taught economist by the name of Gottfried Feder who would later write The Manifesto for Breaking the Financial Slavery to Interest and would later become Hitler’s State Secretary at the Reich Ministry of Economics.
Final Thoughts
I could say much more, but I will save it for my upcoming book since I have a whole chapter on Adolf Hitler, the decisions he made that led the world into the Second World War, and how he developed his beliefs that got him there. But if this was the 1920s and someone had asked me to summarize Mein Kampf in one sentence, I would say: “A disgruntled former German soldier explains his political ideology which involves conspiracy theories as to why the Jews were the reason Germany lost the World War and why Jews are the real enemy of both Germany and the world.”
Review of The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is one of the greatest books I have read in my life. Sometimes I would just shake my head and pause my reading because I had to think about whether Huntington was some sort of fortune teller given how eerily accurate his prediction of the 21st century geopolitical landscape was when he published his book back in 1996.
Photo by Alexander I. Velasquez (author’s copy)
Book Details
Category: Non-fiction, political science, national & international security, international relations, international diplomacy
Page Count: 352
Year of Publication: 2011 (Paperback Edition)
Rating: 5/5
10-Word Summary: Civilizations have replaced ideologies as the driving force of geopolitics.
About The Clash of Civilizations
Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is one of the greatest books I have read in my life. Sometimes I would just shake my head and pause my reading because I had to think about whether Huntington was some sort of fortune teller given how eerily accurate his prediction of the 21st century geopolitical landscape was when he published his book back in 1996.
Huntington was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard University and chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He was also director of security planning for the National Security Council in President Jimmy Carter’s administration, as well as the founder and coeditor of Foreign Policy.
The Clash of Civilizations is divided into five parts: Part I covers the first three chapters where Huntington argues that the most important distinction between peoples in the post-Cold War world is civilization and not ideology. For example, World War II was an ideological war featuring German Nazism, Italian Fascism, and Soviet Communism, while the Cold War was an ideological battle between the Communist East led by the Soviet Union and the capitalist West led by the United States. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the age of ideologically driven geopolitics had come to an end and was replaced with what Huntington proposes is the new paradigm of geopolitics going into the 21st century: civilizations. And the most important element of civilizations, that which divides nations and populations more than any other element, is religion.
Hence, in Part II, Huntington details that the upcoming geopolitical conflicts will be between civilizations due to the religious, and therefore political and cultural, differences. For example, the late 20th century featured the Islamic Resurgence, where Arab governments turned to Islam to enhance their political and spiritual authority and to gather popular support. The Iranian Revolution from 1978-1979 is the most famous example of this. Islamic law replaced Western law, Islamic codes of behavior, such as the banning of alcohol and proper female covering, replaced Western codes of behavior. But the interesting thing Huntington points out is that here in the West we call this Islamic “fundamentalism.” The irony is that these Islamic laws come from the prophet Muhammad himself, either from the Qur’an or from the hadith: the sayings and practices from the prophet Muhammad. If the Qur’an is supposed to be the literal word of God as Muslims believe it to be, then not following Islamic law is not following the will of Allah. All this to say that there is no middle ground: Western values inherently clash with the will of Allah.
Yet, the main idea in Part II is not necessarily the clash with Islam. Rather, the main idea is that the West is in decline—both in influence and military power. Henry Kissinger eerily says the same thing in Diplomacy, another famous book published two years earlier in 1994, where Kissinger also predicts how the geopolitics of the 21st century will be shaped.
Not only is the West in decline, but rapid economic development in Asia beginning with Japan in the 1950s and continuing into the mid-1990s with the rapid economic growth in China meant another threat to the West in the form of a Chinese-led world order in East Asia. Given Asian belief that Asia will surpass the West economically, growing Asian belief in the cultural superiority over the West, and the need for Asian nations to find common ground in Asia, it was clear to Huntington that Asia and its values will threaten the weakening Western-led world order.
This leads into Part III, where Huntington explains that the international relations of the 21st century will revolve around countries grouping themselves around the lead states of their civilizations. For example, the West, though in decline, will continue to be led by the United States, while East Asia will rally around the leadership of China, and the Baltic and Orthodox states will unite around Russia.
And in Part IV, Huntington explains that the West’s desire to maintain its military superiority through policies of nonproliferation and counterproliferation and the West’s desire to spread political values such as democracy and human rights will inevitably lead to conflicts with Islamic governments and East Asian governments. This is why Bill Clinton failed to halt the North Koreans from acquiring nuclear weapons and why the Japanese government distanced themselves from the United States’ human rights policies in the 1990s.
Part V ends the book on a somber note: The United States must affirm and preserve its Western identity and create stronger relations with other Western nations based on similar cultural and religious heritage. But the West must “Recognize that Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in a multicivilizational world”(Page 312). Hence, it’s best to leave China to East Asia and leave the Baltic states to Russia.
Should You Read The Clash of Civilizations?
I cannot do this book justice in a 1,000-word review. I have tried to summarize the book through the narrative of international relations, but this book is so much more than that. For example, Huntington discusses in great depth the civilizational conflicts that happen within the borders of one nation, such as the ones that happened in Yugoslavia—a conflict among the Catholic Croats, the Bosnian Muslims, and the Orthodox Serbs. And he discusses the problems that lead to decay within a civilization, such as the growth in crime, the growth in divorce, and the weakening of the work ethic.
If someone who knew nothing about geopolitics or international relations could only read one book to understand everything happening in the 21st century, I would say that this is the book to read. Huntington’s writing is great, he backs his assertions with great detail, but most importantly, his analysis is proving to be correct.
Review of The Third Revolution by Elizabeth C. Economy
If one had to compare Xi Jinping with any of his predecessors, the only comparison should be with Mao Zedong. Whereas Mao’s strategy for China was based on continual revolution, Xi’s leadership strategy is based on continual corruption and the need to rid the Communist Party of it. Hence Xi’s amendment of the Constitution in 2018 to abolish the two-term limit on the presidency—if he leaves, then the corruption will only continue, or so goes Xi’s rationale.
Photo by Alexander I. Velasquez (author’s copy)
Book Details
Category: Non-fiction, foreign policy, history, international diplomacy, international relations
Page Count: 251 (Paperback Edition)
Year of Publication: 2019
Rating: 5/5
10-Word Summary: A guide to Xi’s political and economic transformation of China.
About The Third Revolution
In 1990, Deng Xiaoping gave his 24-character strategy for China: “observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership,” and the rest of the Chinese leadership succeeding Deng have maintained this position—that is, until we meet Xi Jinping.
Elizabeth C. Economy, C. V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and her book The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State is a great summary and guide to Xi’s political and economic transformation of China. The book was recommended by H. R. McMaster, former National Security Advisor to former President Donald Trump, in his course Assessing America’s National Security Threats (for which a review is soon to come), so I knew the book would most likely live up to expectation. And I was right.
Xi’s ultimate goal is his Chinese Dream: doubling incomes by 2020 and recapturing China’s historic centrality and greatness in the international system; in short, the rejuvenation of the China. Yet what Economy makes clear from the start that Xi’s method of attaining his goals is different from that of his predecessors. Here is Economy in her own words:
“What makes Xi’s revolution distinctive is the strategy he has pursued: the dramatic centralization of authority under his personal leadership; the intensified penetration of society by the state; the creation of a virtual wall of regulations and restrictions that more tightly controls the flow of ideas, culture, and capital into and out of the country; and the significant projection of Chinese power. It represents a reassertion of the state in Chinese political and economic life at home, and a more expansive and ambitious role for China abroad.” (Page 10)
The rest of the book goes on to detail Xi’s strategy. The second chapter focuses on Xi’s concentration of political power. Economy makes it clear that if one had to compare Xi with any of his predecessors, the only comparison should be with Mao Zedong. Whereas Mao’s strategy for China was based on continual revolution, Xi’s leadership strategy is based on continual corruption and the need to rid the Communist Party of it. Hence Xi’s amendment of the Constitution in 2018 to abolish the two-term limit on the presidency—if he leaves, then the corruption will only continue, or so goes Xi’s rationale.
But my favorite chapter was the third. In the words of Economy: “China doesn’t have the Internet, it has a ‘Chinanet.’” (Page 55) According to the Beijing News in 2013, there are an estimated 2 million employed to monitor opinion on the Internet and censor content. The freedom of information is in opposition to the values of the Communist Party, and hence it should not surprise us that China is aligned with other nations, such as Russia, that share that same belief. Yet Xi’s excuse to the rest of the world for the censorship is a libertarian one: Every nation should be free to determine its internet policy without interference from other states.
Chapter four details Xi’s economic reforms and their results: higher levels of debt, the consummation of valuable credit, and fewer new jobs, and chapter five highlights the fact that China is a nation of innovation—not invention—and the Chinese government is all too willing to accept suboptimal innovation so that Chinese firms—and not foreign firms—can have the lions share of the market; in the case of batteries, this means a lot of waste and inefficiency.
Chapter six is a great summary of Xi’s war against pollution, one that silences activists who go against or challenge the government’s environmental policy and one that fails to develop the political and economic incentives necessary to control pollution. And chapter seven details China’s growing international presence: their failure at soft power, their aggressive military action in the region, especially in the South China Sea, and their lack of global responsibility. The final chapter ends with Economy’s recommendations for U.S. policy toward Asia, and how it can advance its interests in light of Xi’s assertiveness.
What I Liked
Elizabeth C. Economy is a great writer. It’s rare that I read through an entire book without puzzling at a sentence or two trying to decipher what the author was trying to say, but Economy’s book is clear and unambiguous throughout.
And Economy writes the facts, details, and statistics regarding Xi’s policies, mostly without following up with a statement of value such as: This policy is good or this policy is bad. The reader is left to determine for themselves what they make of Xi’s policies, no doubt having to do with the fact that the Council of Foreign Relations takes no stance on policy issues; and it’s refreshing to read from someone who will tell you the facts without their own political biases surfacing on the page.
Finally, though there were a lot of details and statistics that, though necessary to include, could easily bog down the reader and cause the mind to drift, most of the chapters include a final section that summarize the main points so that the reader could review the most important information.
Should You Read The Third Revolution?
If you haven’t been keeping up with China for the last ten years and are looking for an authoritative source on Xi Jinping and what he has been up to, then look no further. This book is your one-stop source for all things China from 2012 to 2019. If you decide to read the book, I highly recommend getting your hands on the paperback edition, as this edition was updated with figures and statistics up to 2019 as opposed to the hardcover’s figures and statistics dating to 2018.
Review of The Hundred-Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury
Pillsbury concludes the book discussing what a China led world order would look like in the year 2049, assuming China is successful at supplanting the USA as the world’s leading superpower—a future where internet censorship is normal, a future with significant air pollution and contamination, not to mention cancer villages, and a future where China proliferates weapons to America’s enemies for profit.
Photo by Alexander I. Velasquez (author’s copy)
Book Details
Category: Non-fiction, history, international diplomacy, national & international security
Page Count: 244 (Paperback Edition)
Year of Publication: 2015
Rating: 5/5
10-Word Summary: China’s secret strategy to replace America as the global superpower.
About The Hundred-Year Marathon
Everything you think you know about China is probably a lie; they are a foe—not a friend. That previous sentence captures the tone as laid throughout Michael Pillsbury’s book.
For background, Pillsbury is the director of the Center for Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute and has served in eight presidential administrations. He has also held senior positions in the Defense Department and is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. So it’s no surprise that in the opening pages, Pillsbury notes that the CIA, the FBI, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and an agency of the Defense Department reviewed the book prior to publication to ensure that no classified information would be leaked to the public. In sum, Pillsbury knows what he’s talking about when he writes about China.
The book opens up with a chapter on the false assumptions people have about China, such as that China is on the road to democracy, that China wants to be like the USA, and that China hawks are weak. He reinforces this point in the following chapter by describing the Chinese strategy during the Warring States period, lessons that include inducing complacency to avoid alerting your opponent, manipulating your opponents’ advisors, being patient and waiting decades or longer to achieve victory, avoiding being encircled by others, and never losing sight of shi: a Chinese concept that roughly means “the alignment of forces” so as to take advantage of the timing of events for the opportunity to strike or to take advantage of the enemy.
Every chapter that follows these first two chapters highlights China’s strategic use of the above strategies from its opening up with the USA beginning with Mao Zedong until the present day. Pillsbury argues that the USA is merely a tool for China, China’s ba, roughly equivalent to the word “tyrant,” that China will use to wipe out its rivals until eventually it, too, will be wiped out like the tyrants of the Warring States period. The most reliable intelligence gained from Chinese spies confirm this suspicion. As a matter of fact, Chinese history is being rewritten to cast the USA as China’s archvillain. Abraham Lincoln was nothing but an imperialist, and Saddam Hussein was, in reality, the voice of reason—or so goes the narrative portrayed by China’s government.
The Chinese government is also hard at work to prevent foreign journalists from covering any news that would be unfavorable to China in the international community, and Chinese journalists are hard at work doing their best to establish pro-China views overseas. China is also building their military strategy, what Pillsbury calls the “Assassin’s Mace,” to defeat the superior American military. This strategy includes the strengthening of cyber warfare, supporting the use of biological warfare, and building up the equipment used to destroy American satellites. Given that the USA still holds the military superiority in terms of technology and strength, China needs every asymmetrical advantage to win a hypothetical war between the two superpowers.
Pillsbury concludes the book discussing what a China led world order would look like in the year 2049, assuming China is successful at supplanting the USA as the world’s leading superpower—a future where internet censorship is normal, a future with significant air pollution and contamination, not to mention cancer villages, and a future where China proliferates weapons to America’s enemies for profit. It’s a grim thought experiment that, quite frankly, is upsetting to people such as myself who take advantage of free speech daily by simply logging on to the internet and browsing its contents without worrying that the government is keeping me from reading or watching things that go against their narrative.
What I Liked
What was striking to me was how much I couldn’t help but believe the author. Michael Pillsbury himself claims, on more than one page, that he too wanted to believe in China. Here is Pillsbury in his own words:
“Like many working in the U. S. government, I had heard the democracy story for decades. I read about it in countless books and articles. I believed in it. I wanted to believe in it. My faith was shaken in 1997, when I was among those encouraged to visit China to witness the emergence of “democratic” elections in a village near the industrial town of Dongguan. While visiting, I had a chance to talk in Mandarin with the candidates and see how the elections actually worked. The unwritten rules of the game soon became clear: the candidates were allowed no public assemblies, no television ads, and no campaign posters. They were not allowed to criticize any policy implemented by the Communist Party, nor were they free to criticize their opponents on any issue…. Violations of these rules were treated as crimes.” (Pages 8-9)
There were also more shocking revelations made by Pillsbury, claims such as top colonels in the PLA who were promoted shortly after publishing a manuscript titled Unrestricted Warfare advocating for the use of biological and chemical weapons to defeat stronger nations such as the USA. Keep in mind that The Hundred-Year Marathon was published five years before the outbreak of COVID-19, so there’s some food for thought.
Should You Read The Hundred-Year Marathon?
The ideal reader for this book is someone who is becoming skeptical about the future of Sino-American relations but is not quite over the hump. This book may just push you over edge and into the anti-China camp.