Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025 by Mark Palmer

From the Publisher

This book argues that global peace will not be achieved until the world's remaining dictatorships are gone. Under their harsh regimes, millions have gone to their deaths, and nations have been driven into poverty, famine, and despair. This book tells of the last dictators, the strategies and tactics necessary to oust them, and the need to empower the people of every nation.

Publishers Weekly

The only problem with President Bush's axis of evil label is that it doesn't extend far enough, argues Palmer, in this primer to promoting democracy around the world. Palmer outlines an arc of dictators, running west from North Korea to China, Syria and Algeria and then south to Angola. Palmer (who accepts a tripartite division of the world into free, partly free and not free countries) has little stomach for either diplomatic efforts in the name of realpolitik, which he believes pacifies dictators, or widespread boycotts, which he believes punish entire nations for the misdeeds of a few in government. Palmer, the U.S. ambassador to Hungary when communism collapsed more than a decade ago, builds on his experiences there to provide a list of what government, diplomats, nongovernmental organizations and the media can do to unseat dictators. He supports a broad-based approach, including a corporate fund to supply prodemocracy groups, a U.N. center to promote democracy, and a focus on the Middle East and China. He's also not shy about promoting U.S. military involvement, both covert and otherwise, if necessary. But Palmer avoids the vexing issues, such as whether U.S. involvement has always been wielded judiciously and why so much of the world resents American power. As a result, while action-oriented American patriots will find a lot to like in this book, others-no matter what their political stripe-may find it simplistic. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

This former diplomat, Reagan speech-writer, and democracy activist makes a dramatic call for a final global campaign to oust the world's remaining autocratic regimes. His case for action goes beyond the war on terror to include the wider array of maladies linked to dictatorship: famine, refugees, poverty, environmental degradation, corruption, war, and genocide. Inspired by the democratic transitions in Eastern Europe (which he witnessed as U.S. ambassador to Hungary), Palmer articulates a vision of a fully democratic world in which most of the world's most thorny challenges — violence in the Middle East, the dangerous flashpoints along the Taiwan Strait and the Korean demilitarized zone — suddenly become more tractable. He challenges the prevailing scholarly wisdom about the potential for democratic change, arguing that uprisings are possible in even the most backward authoritarian states — if only the United States and its partners provided proper encouragement. He also rejects the priorities of traditional geopolitical thinking, which values the stability of strategic partnerships with countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia regardless of their lamentable domestic failings. Let the debate begin.

Library Journal

A former American ambassador to Hungary, Palmer is a member of the board of the nonpartisan Freedom House, which works for nonviolent political change. Here he argues that the promotion of democracy should be the top national security priority. Businesses should unite to exercise their economic power, repressed populations should be educated about the advantages of democracy, dictatorships should be outlawed and tyrants arrested and tried in international courts, and ambassadors should use their embassies as centers to push for freedom. Thus, the people would be the ones to bring about internal change. Palmer discusses 45 countries and recommends programs that would force their dictators out of power. Some readers will view these programs as unrealistically fanciful or as another means of spreading capitalist globalization and American imperialism. Certainly, their success would depend on the particular situation, as even Palmer recognizes. Nevertheless, this work offers a welcome alternative to some of the mailed-fist policies of today. Suitable for all libraries.-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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