Today, even as America asserts itself globally, it lacks a grand strategy to replace "containment of communism." In this short, sharp book, Gary Hart outlines a new grand strategy, one directing America's powers to the achievement of its large purposes. Central to this strategy is the power of American ideals, what Hart calls "the fourth power." Constitutional liberties, representative government, press freedom - these and other democratic principles, attractive to peoples worldwide, constitute a resource that may prove as important to national security and the national interest in this dangerous new century as traditional military, economic and political might. Writes Hart: "The idea that government exists to protect, not oppress, the individual has an enormous power not fully understood by most Americans who take this principle for granted from birth. Far more nations will follow us because of the power of this ideal than the might of all our weapons." Against those who view America's noblest values as an inconvenience or even hindrance to the exertion of influence abroad, Hart warns that we ignore principle only at our peril. Such an approach may serve short-term goals, but there are costs; among them is the compromising of a crucial strategic asset, America's fourth power. Certain objectives require a military response--few serious people would disagree. The question is "whether America's purposes are best achieved through empire and force or through principle and persuasion." To suggest the former, Hart argues, is to misread both history and our current revolutionary age, one where terrorism, the internationalization of markets, information technology, eroding nation-state authority and other realities demand not doctrines of superstate unilateralism and preemption but rather appreciation for new collective security structures, international regulatory bodies, even forms of collaborative sovereignty. Applying the best insights of strategy to statecraft, Hart finds fuzziness, overreaching, and "theological" simplicity in America's current foreign policy. Nor does he believe the war on terror, necessary in the near term, will itself serve to chart America's larger strategic course. A bracing vision of an America responsive to a full spectrum of global challenges, The Fourth Power calls for a deeper understanding both of the threats we face and the profound strengths at our disposal to fight them. Since the end of the cold war, assorted pundits have bemoaned America's supposed lack of a strategy for a drastically altered world order. Of course, the emergence of Islamic terror groups and the shock and devastation of 9/11 made this lack seem even more critical. Hart is a former senator and presidential candidate who has recently written and lectured extensively on foreign policy. Hart fears that containment of communism has been supplanted by a blatant strategy of empire as the basis of American foreign policy. Although Hart avoids anti-Bush polemics, he clearly rejects what he regards as the unilateral, even bullying efforts by the current administration to promote our geopolitical interests. As an alternative, Hart promotes a foreign policy designed to advance the "fourth power"--that is, the power^B of core American values, including representative government and individual liberty. The attractiveness and dangers of an idealistic foreign policy are evident. One can argue that Wilson's combination of idealism and ignorance led to disaster at Versailles. Still, Hart states his case with eloquence and generally sound reasoning, and his assertions deserve to be seriously considered. Jay Freeman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved " The Fourth Power [offers] sweeping recommendations for how America should orient its foreign policy in the 21st century. Hart's timely central argument an alternative to both the neoimperialist impulses of the Bush administration and the creeping Kissingerian realism of the Kerry campaignis that the traditional military, political and economic powers of American foreign policy should be constrained by and imbued with a fourth power, America's unique principles. To those who advocate a crusading foreign policy of preemption to 'rid the world of evil' and spread democracy--even at the point of a gun--Hart argues that the first casualty would often be America's moral authority: 'There is a vast difference between advocating, as I do, that America live up to its own principles and advocating, as the Bush administration does, that the rest of the world live up to America's principles.'"-- The New York Times Book Review "What is refreshingly absent is any hint of rancor, political grandstanding or high-pitched vitriol. Instead, the readers are taken through an exceptionally well-crafted national security hypothesis... The Fourth Power is sharp and eloquent."-- Boulder Daily Camera "Hart offers a conceptual framework in which a 'four