George W. Bush's election and the confusion and fear that followed Sept. 11, 2001, combined to allow a small group of radical intellectuals to seize control of US national security policy. Foreign policy experts Halper (Cambridge U.) and Clarke (Cato Institute)--mainstream Republicans and former cold warriors--show how an inexperienced president was persuaded to abandon his campaign pledges and the bipartisan diplomacy that had managed the Soviet threat for half a century and adopt a neo-conservative foreign policy emphasizing military confrontation and "nation building." The costs, the authors argue, have been great and the benefits few. Their analysis lays out how incremental changes have created a huge shift in just a few years, and why the casualty is America's moral authority. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Read Less