Peter Dale Scott's brilliantly researched tour de force illuminates the underlying forces that drive U.S. global policy from Vietnam to Colombia and now to Afghanistan and Iraq. He brings to light the intertwined patterns of drugs, oil politics, and intelligence networks that have been so central to the larger workings of U.S. intervention and escalation in Third World countries through alliances with drug-trafficking proxies. This strategy was originally developed in the late 1940s to contain communist China; it has since been used to secure control over foreign petroleum resources. The result has been a staggering increase in the global drug traffic and the mafias associated with it—a problem that will worsen until there is a change in policy. Scott argues that covert operations almost always outlast the specific purpose for which they were designed. Instead, they grow and become part of a hostile constellation of forces. The author terms this phenomenon parapolitics—the exercise of power by covert means—which tends to metastasize into deep politics—the interplay of unacknowledged forces that spin out of the control of the original policy initiators. We must recognize that U.S. influence is grounded not just in military and economic superiority, Scott contends, but also in so-called soft power. We need a "soft politics" of persuasion and nonviolence, especially as America is embroiled in yet another disastrous intervention, this time in Iraq.

"Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and current English professor, analyzes an important aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Scott does point to sources and relationships that are often ignored by works relying on standard archival materials." - CHOICE

"Praise for the work of Peter Dale Scott: Cocaine Politics For the evidence that narcotics . . . have been instruments of U.S. foreign policy, you simply have to read Cocaine Politics. This, one of the most enlightening books of the year, will redefine your usage of the silly term 'drug war.''''" - The Nation

"Praise for the work of Peter Dale Scott: Deep Politics and the Death of JFK Staggeringly well-researched and intelligent overview not only of the JFK assassination but also of the rise of forces undermining American democracy—of which the assassination, Scott says, is symptomatic...." - Kirkus