The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy

Over the past quarter century, U.S. foreign policy has been nothing if not ambitious: from fighting terrorists and spreading democracy to toppling adversaries and expanding security guarantees, Washington has spent trillions abroad. The results, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Stephen Walt argues, have been deeply disappointing. But why? In his new book, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy, Professor Walt exposes the inner workings of the foreign policy elite across the Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations and shows how they have been able to avoid accountability, keep discredited ideas and policies in vogue, and maintain influence despite past blunders.