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Mises.org The Mises Review   Smart Power: Toward a Prudent
Foreign Policy for America  Ted Galen Carpenter  3 2008 Volume
14, Number 3  [Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for
America. By Ted Galen Carpenter. Cato Institute, 2008. Xi + 258
pages.]  Ted Galen Carpenter has given us, on the whole, an
excellent and very useful book; but it contains a crucial flaw.
The book, which collects essays and columns that Carpenter has
written since 2002, offers a devastating criticism of the Bush
administration's foreign policy. As Carpenter ably shows, Bush's
foreign policy has failed dismally at protecting America's vital
interests. Quite the contrary, Bush's meddling in matters that
do not properly concern us, the bloody and costly Iraq war
foremost among them, has weakened rather than enhanced our
security position. Unfortunately, Carpenter does not always
follow the principles he expou