Image credit: Penguin Press
Image credit: Penguin Press
If I had to characterize Gen. Hayden's The Assault on Intelligence: American National
Security in an Age of Lies as a food, or a food component, I'd say it's bran: it's
meant for more mature audiences, and you don't eat it because it's tasty; you eat it because
it's good for you.
Also, too much at once can become hard to chew.
I should have guessed that a book written by a Four-Star General would contain heavy
doses of history. Gen. Hayden shows he was an astute student of the same: In his description
of different administrations he served, he offers four paradigms of American presidency,
as framed by Walter Russell Mead in his 2001 book, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and
How it Changed the World. Gen. Hayden bins President Trump squarely in the camp of
President Andrew Jackson and those of his ilk: largely uninterested in foreign affairs
until his ire is provoked, and with a foreign policy generally informed by intense
patriotism. I find the comparison helpful, because it offers a lens through which the
Trump Administration's actions may be viewed — put another way, it offers some kind
of paradigm for the behavior, which is better than simply wondering what the Hell
will happen next.
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