U.S. Interventionism

Radical critics of American foreign policy often look to America’s socio-economic structure for the source of recent foreign policy failures, while reformist critics blame the decision-making structure. The critics’ prescriptions range from altering the pattern of ownership of the means of production to giving Congress more authority to make policy. In Intervention and Revolution Richard Barnet eschews the analyses and prescriptions of both groups and seeks to explain America’s policy predilections in terms of the values and interests of the national security bureaucracy and to offer arguments for an alternative set of values. His is a radical critique aimed at “the hearts and minds” of reformers.

Mr. Barnet discerns in American policy a consistent pattern of unilateral interventionism to suppress insurgent movements around the world. He proceeds from a detailed examination of four postwar interventions (Greece, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, ...