War
Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster, £25

THIS is a fascinating, though rather frightening book from former Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward. The fright value has markedly increased since the publication of the book and the election of Donald Trump to serve a second term as US president.

An Establishment journalist, Woodward had a ring-side seat in the Biden White House as it sought to navigate a path through Russia’s war in Ukraine, and then the hostilities in the Middle East following the October 7 attacks in Israel. Interestingly, most sections on what is going on in the White House are then followed by Trump’s take on the situation.

Biden is shown to be a fairly astute operator, born of a long career at the top of US politics. He is determined not to be pushed around by his own military chiefs, seeing how predecessors in the Oval Office have been to ill-effect. Most notable in this respect was president Barack Obama’s decision in 2011 to send another 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, at the behest of the military.

Then vice-president Biden opposed the policy, urging Obama to stand up against the military. But he didn’t. The war went on for another 10 years.

Biden’s approach meant he made it clear that US troops would not be deployed in Ukraine, though Woodward points out this could have been a strategic error, emboldening the hostility of Vladimir Putin towards Ukraine.

The US approach under Biden was to use diplomatic pressure and superior intelligence insights to exert power and influence. Add to that, of course, the seeming unlimited and largely unconditional supply of weaponry into the theatres of war. In this way US influence could be maximised using proxies to actually fight the war on the ground.

One notable element of this approach saw the US in 2023 scouring the world for 155mm artillery shells for Ukraine. Later, Israel also needed this ammunition.

One thing Woodward never mentions is just what a bonanza for the arms industry the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have been, in no small part due to the US policy.

In the case of Gaza, the US seem exasperated most of the time by the behaviour of Benjamin Netanyahu: “When the White House needed something from Israel there were two approaches. Either the secretary of state went and tried to beat it out of Bibi [Netanyahu] or the president called him. Often neither worked,” writes Woodward.

In the early days after October 7, Netanyahu wanted to strike against Hezbollah. The Biden administration were worried this would immediately escalate the conflict into a much bigger Middle East war, including Iran. The Israelis were steered off this path although they they have gone down that route more recently.

Another interesting insight is how many of the Arab states blamed Israel for the growth of Hamas, which it favoured over the Palestinian Authority. Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan all blame Israel for the development of Hamas and are happy to see Israel deal with Hamas, but not at the cost of all Palestinian lives in Gaza.

The most frightening elements of this book relate to the looming threat of nuclear weapons and another Trump presidency. The US certainly believed Putin may use nuclear weapons, particularly if he were losing in Ukraine.

On Trump, Woodward recalls the former president’s call in June 2020 to fire on Black Lives Matter protesters.

A very sobering note is the list of senior staff under Trump last time who have asserted that he should not be president again or even be on the ballot. Many of these people are viewed as those who restrained the more wild and dangerous tendencies of the first Trump presidency. Second time around, they won’t be there. What makes these warnings all the more apposite is that the period covered by the book precedes the presidential election, and now the reality is four more unrestrained years of a Trump presidency.

Woodward has provided a comprehensive insightful book looking at the workings of the Biden presidency, while also warning of what may be to come. Stylistically, the spelling out of every name and secret procedure can become a little tiresome, an overemphasis on the self-importance of a declining empire.

There are also, unsurprisingly, no moral judgements relating to wars supported and fuelled by the US — but who would expect that? What Woodward does do is provide a positive take on the Biden presidency in terms of keeping the US safe. The hardly hidden warning is that the next four years could be anything but safe for the US or the rest of the world.