Peace Works: America's Unifying Role in a Turbulent World

(Hardback)

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Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria - a quarter-century of stumbles in Americas pursuit of a more peaceful and just world. American military interventions have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, yet we rarely manage to enact positive and sustainable change. In Peace Works: America's Unifying Role in a Turbulent World, ambassador and global conflict leader Rick Barton uses a mix of stories, history, and analysis for a transformative approach to foreign affairs and offers concrete and attainable solutions for the future. Drawing on his lifetime of experience as a diplomat, foreign policy expert, and State Department advisor, Rick Barton grapples with the fact that the U.S. is strategically positioned and morally obligated to defuse international conflicts, but often inadvertently escalates conflicts instead. Guided by the need to find solutions that will yield tangible results, Barton does a deep analysis of our last several interventions and discusses why they failed and how they could have succeeded. He outlines a few key directives in his foreign policy strategy: remain transparent with the American public, act as a catalyzing (not colonizing!) force, and engage local partners. But above all else, he insists that the U.S. must maintain a focus on people. Since a countrys greatest resource is often the ingenuity of its local citizens, it is counterproductive to ignore them while planning an intervention. By anchoring each chapter to a story from a specific conflict zone, Barton is able to discuss opportunities pursued and missed, areas for improvement, and policy recommendations. This balance between storytelling and concrete policy suggestions both humanizes distant stories of foreign crises, and provides going-forward solutions for desperate situations. The book begins and ends in Syria the ultimate failure of our current approach to foreign policy, and with devastating consequences.

Reviews

"Immersed inmore than 40global conflicts over the past 25 years, Ambassador Rick Barton is among the world's most skilled and experienced diplomats and peace-builders. His honest reflections and deep understanding of the lessons he learned challenges traditional approaches and defines smart new global options." -- Senator George J. Mitchell
For four decades and through forty conflicts, Rick Barton has served his country all over the world. Can America really bring peace to peoples and places that have known only war Yes it can, but only by humility, patience, and perseverance. In this elegantly written and thoughtful book, Ambassador Barton shows us how. -- Evan Thomas, author of "Ike's Bluff" and "Being Nixon"
"Rick Barton tells stories that are simultaneously heart-wrenching and hopeful. Even as we scale back the grandeur of U.S. global ambition, this book offers valuable lessons about when, where, and how we can make a meaningful difference in many of the worlds most dangerous and chaotic places." -- Anne-Marie Slaughter, President & CEO, New America
Haiti was a byword for chaos in 1994 when the UN Security Council authorized the restoration of President Bertrand Aristide to power. This provided Rick Barton, a singular American diplomat, with an opportunity to test some innovative thinking to make local people the primary concern when countries teeter on the edge of an abyss. There are important lessons in this fascinating memoir that todays global leadership should take to heart. -- William Lacy Swing, Director General, The UN Migration Agency (IOM)

Author Bio

Rick Barton currently teaches at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, where he serves as the co-director of Princetons Scholars in the Nations Service Initiatives and Ullman Fellowships. He has served as an American ambassador to the United Nations and the Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees at the U.N., and was the first Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stabilization Operations under President Obama. He has led conflict management initiatives in crisis zones across the globe, in countries as diverse as Haiti, Iraq, Nigeria, and Turkey. Barton has published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Boston Globe, and numerous other international outlets. He has been a frequent guest on news shows ranging from NPR to The OReilly Factor.