One of the books on my (very) long list is Without Warning by John Birmingham. The premise of the book, as described on booklist is fascinating:
Birmingham’s acclaimed Axis of Time trilogy, an alternate history of World War II, now seems a mere warm-up for this blockbuster set on the eve of the second Gulf War. On March 14, 2003, as coalition forces ready their assault on Iraq, a massive energy wave envelops the continental U.S. and portions of Canada and Mexico. Quickly dubbed the Disappearance by baffled onlookers, the wave mysteriously obliterates all life forms, human and animal, within its shimmering borders. As politicians and scientists try to make sense of the anomaly, some foreign observers, including Iraqis, start celebrating, while others descend into chaos. Birmingham follows the volatile developments through the eyes of an American general in Guantánamo Bay, near the wave’s perimeter; a city engineer in Seattle, the only major U.S. city left unscathed; and an American secret operative fending off assassins on the streets of Paris. While Birmingham’s shocking premise may unnerve some American readers, a story line replete with full-throttle action should appeal to Anglophones everywhere. --Carl Hays
Without America, the world descends back to the jungle, where "might makes right." It is axiomatic on the far left that America has always been the foremost proponent of "might makes right" and that, in fact, American "imperialism" has been the source of a great deal, if not most, of the problems in the world. Those who celebrate what America's mastery of the sea lanes, trading lanes, has done for peace and prosperity around the globe, as well as America's role in maintaining some semblance on international order after the break down of the Soviet Empire, have been concerned for some time that the President's apology tours have suggested a disinclination to continue America's traditional role. In fact it appears that President Obama has a point of view amenable to the idea that American "imperialism" is the problem rather than part of the solution for the world's problems.
In the 1970s under President Carter, we were able to have a limited empirical test of the proposition that America's international involvements were on balance of negative consequence to the world. We are still dealing with the outcome of Carter's failures. It appears likely that Obama's disinclination to make difficult decisions, to lead in any way beyond verbal exhortation, may well give us another opportunity to test the conjecture that America, when wielding leadership, is on balance deleterious to the global environment and that an ineffective America is preferable to an America that leads.
From the President's seeming inability to make significant strategic decisions on Afghanistan, to his continual repetition of vague sound bites in lieu of specific policy proposals (on healthcare, cap and trade, stimulus bill, and any number of other proposals) he offers nothing less than the appearance of being a politician with no real sense of either how complex or how difficult the problems facing America and the world are, or the necessity of exercising strong leadership. President Obama continues to act as if the enemy of America is Fox News and the Republicans, as if we have no external enemies but only people we have wronged and those we have wronged by supporting their oppressors. As a result he looks irresolute and ineffective. In the world of competing interests, good intentions do not suffice. More worrisome than an effective President whose policies I disagree with is a President who fails because he does not understand the fragility of our civilization or the difference between sweet sounding oratory and consequential actions.
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