Obama's Wars
Recently I finished reading Bob Woodward's latest book entitled Obama's Wars. It's the story of President Obama's first major policy decision, deciding how many troops to send to Afghanistan. The book is filled with a tremendous amount of detail, perhaps too much information. On the one hand, it is very impressive how many sources Woodward has. He gives the most minute details of confidential meetings between the Obama security team, as well as the various personality alliances and clashes between the major players. On the other hand, the book can seem tedious, often containing too much detail. On some secondary points it seems as if Woodward will spend pages describing something that could be told in a sentence or a paragraph at best. I suppose the thing I wonder about is why anyone would ever talk to Bob Woodward, knowing that what they say will end up on the pages of his book, and how a government would tolerate senior civil servants who are so willing to discuss such confidential matters with a well-known reporter to the point where confidential memos are quoted verbatim.
Unless this is a subject of interest to you, or if you want to find out the mechanics of how a major policy decision of this nature is made, I can't recommend this book. President Obama comes across as either very meticulous and careful, or a ditherer depending on your perspective and affinity for the man. Joe Biden is portrayed as a contrarian windbag, Defence Secretary Gates as a survivor, Hillary Clinton as a hawk, and many of the Pentagon brass as cogs in the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned of. While these character insights are interesting, what was said in this book's 380 pages could have been said using much less ink and paper. I give this book a 6 out of 10.
Unless this is a subject of interest to you, or if you want to find out the mechanics of how a major policy decision of this nature is made, I can't recommend this book. President Obama comes across as either very meticulous and careful, or a ditherer depending on your perspective and affinity for the man. Joe Biden is portrayed as a contrarian windbag, Defence Secretary Gates as a survivor, Hillary Clinton as a hawk, and many of the Pentagon brass as cogs in the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned of. While these character insights are interesting, what was said in this book's 380 pages could have been said using much less ink and paper. I give this book a 6 out of 10.