| Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations |  | Author: John Bolton
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Category: Book
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Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 157,454
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Threshold Editions Hardcover Ed
Pages: 496
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.6
Dewey Decimal Number: 341.2373
ASIN: B001C2FSGQ
Publication Date: November 6, 2007
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Product Description
With no-holds-barred candor, the straight-talking former ambassador to the United Nations takes readers behind the scenes at the UN and the U.S. State Department and reveals why his efforts to defend American interests and reform the UN resulted in controversy. A veteran of three Republican administrations and a nominee for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Bolton shows how the U.S. can lead the way to a more realistic global security arrangement for the twenty-first century and identifies the next generation of threats to America.The son of a Baltimore firefighter and the first person in his family to go to college, with scholarships to Yale University and Yale Law School, John Bolton studied with preeminent conservative thinkers Robert Bork and Ralph Winter. After law school, he experienced the "Reagan Revolution" firsthand in Edwin Meese's justice department -- where the American judiciary was fundamentally reshaped. His diplomatic skills were honed working with Secretary of State James Baker during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and serving in the administration of President George W. Bush as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs. In this revealing memoir, he candidly recounts his appointment in 2005 as Ambassador to the United Nations, his headline-making Senate confirmation battle, which resulted in his recess appointment, and his sixteen-month tenure at the United Nations. Bolton offers keen insight into such international crises as North Korea's nuclear test, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, the genocide in Darfur, the monthlong negotiation that produced the controversial end of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and more. Recounting both his successes and frustrations in taking a hard line against weapons-of-mass destruction proliferators, terrorists, and rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, he also exposes the operational inadequacies that hinder the UN's effectiveness in international diplomacy and its bias against Israel and the United States. At home, he criticizes the pernicious bureaucratic inertia in the U.S. State Department that can undermine presidential policy. A fascinating chronicle of the career of a distinguished lawyer and diplomat who has fought to preserve American sovereignty and strength at home and abroad, Surrender Is Not an Option is the candid memoir of one of America's outstanding statesmen that is sure to become required reading for everyone interested in international affairs.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
 Revealing to the max..... November 7, 2007
Robert Busko (North Carolina)
168 out of 199 found this review helpful
If you come to Surrender is Not an Option feeling that the U. N. has outlived its usefulness and is counter to the best interests of the United States, then everything you probably already believe will be reinforced by what Mr. Bolton has to say. If you feel that the United Nations is a valid and worthwhile organization, get ready to have your beliefs challenged.
Assuming John Bolton isn't an out and out liar (which I could never believe) and that he has some hidden agenda in writing this book, the information contained here is earth shaking. That it comes from someone who actually went to work there for over a year makes what he has to say even more believable.
Surrender is Not an Option is an indictment of crooked world leaders and a system that works to enslave, not free. It is a must read for all those that blame America for everything.
I highly recommend Surrender is Not an Option.
Excellent and Bold November 6, 2007
Winston (Canada)
113 out of 138 found this review helpful
A bold testimony and un-deniable evidence on the uselessness of the United Nations and US State Department. Loss of Mr. Bolton as the ambassador to that world body was/is a big loss for those people who deeply care about the freedom and security of the western world. The book is a must read for those who think positively about the United Nations. It'll change your view about that corrupt international organization which Mr. Bolton desperately tried to salvage. Good Book!
Truth is the only option!!!!!!!! November 8, 2007
Dr. Cardinal (Free of the Mountains!!!!!)
61 out of 75 found this review helpful
I am no wide-eyed neocon. I am your typical middle of the road type. I have to say that given my political leanings, I wasn't expecting to be impressed with this book. I wasn't, not at all. But reading this book gave me a new appreciation for the hard work Bolton undertook as our representative to the UN. Bolton faced an extremely difficult battle trying to ensure that the UN would give American interests a fair chance. For too long, our country has paid the bills for this corrupt organization and got little in return for our efforts. Well, I guess we get scorn and mistreated at the hands of others, but that's really about it. Bolton illustrates how this worked out during his tenure. He also points out why giving into world opinion will prevent the world from achieving its highest purposes. In the process, it becomes clear that we should rethink our involvement in this body, for it cant work to protect our interests.
Ignoring This Book is Not an Option. February 19, 2008
Adam Goldman (Orlando, FL)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Just when you thought that another book on international relations would be too arcane and narcoleptic to be noticable to the general population, think again. Ever read an article in the press about why the Bush administration opposed controls on biological weapons, and wonder what were they smoking? Bolton deftly slices through the falsifications authored by the Ministry of Information at the New York Times and CNN, and reveals how, through diabolical skill, certain European and Third World advocates incrementally seek to cut the heart out of American sovereignty and right to defend itself. Bolton's discussion regarding the ABM treaty is particularly engrossing. Not unexpectedly come well-known critiques of the stultifying State Department bureacrats who are more concerned with appeasing ill-tempered (and often corrupt) world "community" diplomats than defending their own country, which by the way pays their mortgages in Fairfax and Arlington counties.
Even more interesting are the perhaps inevitable episodes of acrimoniousness among super-achievers such as Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld. President Bush remains above the fray and like a dad coming home from work, comes to find his kids aren't playing so well together. Another interesting fringe benefit from reading this book is that one comes away with a deep education in the art of surviving a bureacracy - be it government or private sector. The lessons are palpable and wholly applicable to any sphere.
"Not an Option" is not a meditation on the fine points of multipolar international political theory. Rather, it is an unsentimental yet reflective, just-tell-me-the-facts-ma'am work of what actually happened when Bolton was in the shark tank. Whether you are writing a doctoral thesis for your Ph.D. in international relations or you drive a delivery truck in Chicago, you'll find this book entertaining and very satisfying. You'll want to keep the light on the nightstand on a little bit longer with this one.
Adam Goldman
Lake Mary, Florida
A great patriot tells it like it is. Recommended. November 23, 2007
MegaReader (Virginia, USA)
34 out of 45 found this review helpful
There are basically two groups of people in this country, when it comes to the big topic of relations with allies, the UN, and US global diplomacy.
One group feels we need to "reach out" to allies and listen to them before formulating policy (or, perhaps just do what they want, so they'll stop hating us), respect and follow "international law", and for the most part, subordinate our considerable power to international institutions, which mostly means the United Nations.
The other group believes there is no such thing as "international law", it being a catchy buzzword for a collection of politics, largely unenforceable treaties, and anti-US "norming" by non-state actors; no such thing as an "international community", an absurd construct that implies a a global "consensus" which doesn't exist but from which we're constantly accused of being "isolated"; that yes, of course we should have allies and friends but pleasing them should not come before defending and promoting our own national interests, and that the UN is a corrupt and unaccountable bureaucracy which oscillates between "total uselessness" and "serious liability to the United States" - an organization that, if we're going to continue participating in at all, should at least be forced to serve as a useful tool of American interests, as was clearly the intent at its founding.
Of course, those are opposite ends of a continuum, and there are many people in the middle.
John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the UN, is the world's leading proponent of the latter camp - the UN skeptics who don't necessarily think we should ditch the UN, but who do believe strongly that we should be leveraging the UN to extend American power, and should more strenuously fight the UN's ongoing evolution into the key global collection point for anti-US propaganda and policy.
If you are already a Boltonite (as I am, obviously), you will not only find this book convincing and authentic, but hugely refreshing, too, in confirming what you believe, backing it up with facts and the "inside scoop", and articulately stating the fundamental arguments against US submission to the UN or "international community" agenda. I have so many times asked myself questions like: Why exactly do we care what Belgium thinks? What specifically is an "international community", and where does it live? What gives the UN, an unelected colony of bureaucrats who we don't get to choose, evaluate, hold accountable, or fire, the right to pass judgment on or influence the policies chosen by democratic peoples via their elected representatives (in the US and elsewhere)? Is that not completely antithetical to the basic thrust of history since the 18th century - power to free people, expressed through their elected officials? Aside from the dismal practices of the UN, even the underlying theory of the UN is such a huge step backwards: subordination and gradual erosion of the sovereignty of freely-elected governments to a secretive, unelected elite. That should bother people a lot more than it does, and is a point made very articulately and persuasively in Bolton's book. Finally, UN skeptics ask what all those UN committees, memoranda, reports, "high level groups", "special rapporteurs", etc. etc., actually accomplish - would the world be any worse off if it was all just tossed in the garbage? With so many people, worldwide and in the US, too, supporting the UN monstrosity, it's easy to feel self-doubt as a UN skeptic, because not many of us have the self-confidence and knowledge-base of a John Bolton. Well, this book will get like-minded people back on track and confident that, yes, in fact, the special rapporteurs and high level groups and UN special committees - all of it is a bunch of pointless nonsense, or worse, basically a way for second-rate European powers to regain through soft power and "norming" what they've already lost in the arena of hard power, combined with a way for thousands upon thousands of anti-US bureaucrats all over the world to come together in one place to do some serious US ankle-biting, and maybe score some gains for their own countries' or regions' interests while harranguing us for pursuing our own. All under the banner of the UN, with its post-WW2 legitimacy and grandeur which we bestowed on it, and continue to fund. And house.
If you are one of the "We need to work with the International Community" or "we need to respect international humanitarian law" (whatever that is!) crowd, you'll probably disagree with most of this book, or just plain not understand what the heck Bolton is talking about.
It's a damn shame Bolton's out of the US government. It really is. He is a unique individual with a powerful voice. Without him, the current administration is adrift. He was the antidote to the sappy, Europhile lefists running the State Department, along with a third or so of the US public, who are falling all over themselves trying to meet an impossible, insatiable global demand for apologetic regret on the part of the US for being what it is - successful, powerful, and dominant. I highly recommend this book to people who want to learn the real deal about Bolton and the incredibly tedious, and implacably obnoxious, American-power-sucking institution known as the United Nations.
P.S. I was quite taken aback by how funny this book is. Bolton has some superbly witty and humorous observations on many topics in government and diplomacy, and especially, as you'd expect, the United Nations. I literally laughed out loud at least a dozen times. Sounds strange, but it's true. There's just a level of poignant directness in this book that leads to some very amusing and telling observations about politics.
I start many, many books on current events and politics, but I rarely finish them, usually getting bored after around 100-150 pages. This book - I read every single word on every page, and I'm going to go back and reread it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
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