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“Fluent, well-timed, provocative. . . . Filled with gritty, shrewd, specific advice on foreign policy ends and means. . . . Gelb’s plea for greater strategic thinking is absolutely right and necessary.” — The New York Times Book Review
“Few Americans know the inner world of American foreign policy—its feuds, follies, and fashions—as well as Leslie H. Gelb. . . . Power Rules builds on that lifetime of experience with power and is a witty and acerbic primer.” — The New York Times
Power Rules is the provocative account of how to think about and use America’s power in the world, from Pulitzer Prize winner Leslie H. Gelb, one of the nation’s leading foreign policy minds and practitioners.
From one of the nation's leading foreign-policy minds comes a provocative new account of how to think about—and use—America's power in the twenty-first century.
Inspired by Machiavelli's classic The Prince, Leslie H. Gelb offers illuminating guidelines on how American power actually works and should be wielded in today's tumultuous world, writing with the perspective of four decades of extraordinary access and influence in government, think tanks, and journalism. He argues that Washington risks losing the essential lifeblood of its national security—its power—unless American leaders relearn the lessons of how to use that power. Contrary to runaway fashion, Gelb argues that the world is not flat, power is not soft, and that we have not entered a post-American era in global affairs. The United States remains far and away the most powerful country in a world where power remains sharply pyramidal. But the U.S. is not the dominant power, and it can't dictate to others.
Gelb persuasively shows that America's future power must be based on the principle of mutual indispensability: Washington is the indispensable leader because it alone can galvanize coalitions to solve major international problems (and all nations know this), while other key nations are indispensable partners in getting the job done. The reality is this: succeed together or fail apart. Washington will also fail if it forgets that power is still, as in the days of Machiavelli, about pressure and coercion, carrots and sticks. Reason, values, and understanding are foreplay, but not the real thing. Gelb provides an incisive look at the major U.S. foreign-policy triumphs and tragedies of the last half century, and offers practical rules on how to effectively exercise power today. Power Rules is an impassioned challenge to both liberals and conservatives and a plea to reclaim the true meaning of power and the essential role of common sense in solving global problems.
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Critical Praise for
Power Rules
"This book is a must-read not just for President Obama, but for anyone who wants to understand how the new administration can improve its odds of strategic success."
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Jacob Weisberg
"Leslie Gelb has as much experience in foreign policy as anyone alive. Unlike most writers in this field, he isn’t afraid to use plain language and say what he means. And he doesn’t mind making powerful enemies."
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George Packer
"Les Gelb tells it like it is: making US foreign policy and using American power are common sense, not rocket science. Incisive and thoroughly compelling, Power Rules is rich in colorful stories as well as in sound advice for our president and our people."
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Brent Scowcroft
"Power Rules provides a much-needed antidote to the ideological fevers that have ravaged American statecraft in recent years. Leslie Gelb’s reflections on power, its effective use, and its limitations are shrewd, trenchant, and refreshingly devoid of either cant or partisanship."
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Andrew Bacevich
"Les Gelb, one of America’s most distinguished practitioner-observers of foreign policy, brilliantly explains how a series of administrations weakened our nation’s security, and shows how we can reverse this trend. . . . Power Rules is an indispensable book for the new era."
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Richard Holbrooke
"A smart and lively new book."
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Fareed Zakaria, The Washington Post
"Few Americans know the inner world of American foreign policy—its feuds, follies, and fashions—as well as Leslie H. Gelb. . . . Power Rules builds on that lifetime of experience with power and is a witty and acerbic primer."
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Michael Ignatieff, The New York Times
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