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Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

William Blum (Goodreads Author)

3.94 · Rating details · 770 ratings · 58 reviews

"Bravo! A vivid, well-aimed critique of the evils of US global interventionism, a superb antidote to officialdom's lies and propaganda."-Michael Parenti

"Rogue State forcibly reminds us of Vice President Agnew's immortal line, 'The United States, for all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the country.'"-Gore Vidal

"Bill Blum came by his book title easily: He simpl

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Paperback, 3rd edition, 393 pages

Published October 1st 2005 by Common Courage Press (first published 2000)

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Jan 01, 2015 Reid rated it it was amazing

Shelves: war, review, international-relations, 5-stars, empire, 2015, politics, history

How can this not be the best book ever published? It stands for everything the US is supposed to stand for.

From the intro:

“Between 1945 and 2005 the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US has caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.”

“...Saddam Hussein does not share ou ...more

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Dec 27, 2007 Resposito rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone

This book changed my life. I have always been interested in the different cultures that make up the U.S. but did not know much about the culture that single-handedly dominates our landscape and has been doing so for the past 50 years-WAR. This book sheds light on our government. Rogue State sheds light on "our" nation's outlook towards every other country and gives a brief description of the entanglements/interests we have been in since the 1940s. This is a must read for anyone or everyone, espe ...more

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Apr 25, 2008 Ross rated it it was amazing

Draw your own conclusions but as a collection of [very deliberately selected] facts this presents a coherent indication of why the US faces some of the international / trans-national / and internal points of view. In UK we too often fail to take a true interest in US internal politics and fail to anticipate the 'why' behind American foreign policy. DON'T base your view on this book but DO take it as a starting point for your own enquiries. AP.

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Sep 08, 2019 Denise rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2019

An excellent book to beat people blithely proclaiming US forces to be always, by default, "the good guys", declaring the US to be absolutely, non-negotiably "the greatest country in the world" and spouting other such hubris-fuelled fantasies over the head with. One might wish to add John Tirman's Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars, assorted works by Noam Chomsky, and at least half a dozen other titles I can think of off the top of my head to the pile for good measure. The ...more

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Jun 15, 2012 Anthony rated it it was amazing

Solid compilation of several decades of skulduggery. Every president of every nation on the planet should follow the example set in this book. a case study on Machiavelli. What a happy world it would be (excuse the sarcasm). I reference Blum's compilation in my own book "Dioxinomics: The Myth of Superpower in the Age of Dioxin." Soon, we will know what total anarchy looks like at the hands of every popinjay sovereign on the planet.

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Aug 02, 2011 Ahmad rated it really liked it

This book is shorter more concise version of Killing Hope which makes it more readable.

Will shatter the 'good guy' myth if you read it. As shocking as it reads, most of it seems to be backed up by government references.

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Jan 22, 2017 Randall Wallace rated it it was amazing

Ho Chi Minh wrote at least eight letters to Truman and the State department saying how he loved the Declaration of Independence, and could we help him be free of the French? Historically hating the “threat of a good example”, the U.S. watched Minh’s success and then bombed parts of Vietnam and Laos back into the stone ages. To the world, it promised Vietnam 3.25 billion in reconstruction aid but in the end paid nothing. In fact, Vietnam was forced to pay back America $145 million in debts for Am Ho Chi Minh wrote at least eight letters to Truman and the State department saying how he loved the Declaration of Independence, and could we help him be free of the French? Historically hating the “threat of a good example”, the U.S. watched Minh’s success and then bombed parts of Vietnam and Laos back into the stone ages. To the world, it promised Vietnam 3.25 billion in reconstruction aid but in the end paid nothing. In fact, Vietnam was forced to pay back America $145 million in debts for America’s costs of waging war against it. This, Blum says, is the legal definition of extortion. An article in the U.S. News and World Report once said “Civilian casualties are not… news. The fact is they accompany wars.” This hypocrisy becomes stunning when we contrast this with the news value of 9/11, where most casualties were civilian. Only American deaths apparently matter. Of course, if that were true then our media decades ago would have reported on the hundreds of cases of government’s radiation experiments involving unsuspecting American citizens, military personnel, as well as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. The United States has internationally “literally millions of experimental subjects” worldwide deliberately infected with Agent Orange in Korea and Vietnam, none of which receives any media attention. Those civilian victims don’t matter like 9/11’s for two reasons. 1. They aren’t American. 2. Yes they are victims, but they are victims of our nation’s actions. American newspaper editors know they will get hundreds of emails in complaint when they show pictures of civilian casualties – and so they don’t. Blum then shows a lot of examples of how the military has repeatedly endangered its own soldiers with deliberate infections, biological and chemical toxins, D.U. exposure and a long list of nasties. He says if the government can’t care for the health of its soldiers historically, how can we expect it to care for civilians in other countries? Blum (who himself worked in the US state department) shows that no one can rise to any position in the U.S. foreign policy establishment without being “inordinately cruel and remorseless” – the more you read about our foreign policy past with Blum and Chomsky, the more you will agree. A Defense Department planning paper from 1992 says we must deter all “potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” Thanks largely to media silence, the greatest threat to the world’s environment and future prosperity has been the U.S. Military. According to the LA Times, it destroyed the drinking water of Guam. Everywhere our military goes, pollution and destruction follows with the joy of millions of more gallons of untreated raw sewage in the oceans. Today’s military has but three goals: 1. Serve U.S. corporations 2. Stop all societies developing alternatives to capitalism (no threats of a good example are tolerated) 3. Expand the empire. The Blum explains how we always knew we were ahead of the Russians and that the Cold War was thus a fake front, by quoting from actual internal documents. Thanks to the PATRIOT Act, if anyone tries to influence any policy change in America and the government can say it somehow felt “intimidated”, that civilian will get arrested and be open to forfeiture and beyond. Any guesses on how chilling to dissent that could become in Donald Trump’s tiny hands? M. L. Mencken told us back in 1920 that the aim of politics is to keep the populace alarmed. General Douglas MacArthur told us in 1957 that he had never seen a time when the “perpetual” fear created by the government was warranted. Arnold Toynbee in 1961was concerned that America had become like Rome, in that we were now about inequality, injustice, and happiness for the few. Blum shows a 1995 internal document stating that the U.S. had to act like a madman so few rivals would want to engage. Then he discusses all the assassinations done with U.S. help, and how America was so upset when Rushdie got a fatwah but no one cared that U.S. led similarly unfair but larger fatwahs against Allende, Castro, Sukarno and others. There has not yet appeared any “legal or moral argument to explain why the United States and its officials should be exempt from international law and justice.” In this amazing book, you watch as America keeps intervening in someone else’s Civil War (China, Greece, Vietnam, etc.). You see how one can ever know what Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, Iran, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Chile, and dozens of other countries could have been like today without the decades of unrelenting American interference. Iraq was a non-radical secular society with frequent happy intermarriage between Sunni and Shia. Then America came… The Philippines had a chance at real independence in 1898. Then America came… Iran loved Mossadegh in 1951. Then America came… The names change, the story stays the same. Great book…
...more

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Jun 06, 2013 Jonathan rated it liked it

“Rogue State” is a quick run-down of the unseemly things that the United States did between 1945 and 2000. The first 90 pages cover major foreign human rights violations by the American government and the support of human rights violations in other countries. The next 30 pages focus on our use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as depleted uranium, cluster bombs, and other bombings of civilian populations, and our encouragement of chemical/biological weapons in other countries “Rogue State” is a quick run-down of the unseemly things that the United States did between 1945 and 2000. The first 90 pages cover major foreign human rights violations by the American government and the support of human rights violations in other countries. The next 30 pages focus on our use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as depleted uranium, cluster bombs, and other bombings of civilian populations, and our encouragement of chemical/biological weapons in other countries. The next 110 pages focus on all the ways in which we've tried to interfere with the governance of other nations, specifically through military intervention, intervening in elections, UN vetoes, and a whole host of CIA malfeasance. The book then ends with a 30-page rundown of the ways in which the American government limits democracy within its own borders.

Overall, the number of ridiculously immoral things that can be attributed to the American government over that 65 year period becomes stunning.

In some sense the book feels thrown-together. There's no clear flow, and subjects are often wedged in just to get them in there. In that sense it feels like a reference manual for American atrocities. However, the writing isn't too dense and the author throws in dark humor regularly, so it's still a decent read.

As far as accuracy of the facts goes, there isn't nearly enough room to adequately reference all the accusations, though there are a decent number of references. I can say from my own study of history from many different sources that I didn't see anything particularly controversial within the pages. The truth of specific events here and there might be in question, but the overall tactics and types of incidents are certainly part of the history of the American government. The author does a decent job of distinguishing between cases where there is evidence that the US government committed the acts in question and when there is only the suggestion that they may have done so.

This book was written in 2000. Strikingly, that was before 9/11, the “War on Terror”, the Patriot Act, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Abu Gharib, Guantanamo Bay, the torture of terror suspects, the assassination of US citizens, drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and the exposure of almost universal NSA spying. It is clear that the tactics employed from 1945 to 2000 have not abated in the slightest. In fact, the final two paragraphs of the book show an almost prescient foreshadowing by the author of what was about to come:

“In place of finding a commie under every bed, they now find a drug possessor, user, dealer, shipper or courier. Instead of the Soviet Evil Empire, they now see Rogue Nations out there, Outlaw Nations, Pariah States—enemies need catchy name—with their regiments of terrorists, supporters of terrorists, acquaintances of terrorists, nuclear smugglers, questionable asylum seekers and other anti-American and un-American types. In place of civil rights agitators, the Authority Juggernaut now zooms in on youth gangs, immigrants, environmentalists, welfare recipients, prisoners, and a host of other folks with a glaring deficit of political power.

What keeps most Americans from being shocked by the shredding of the Bill of Rights is that they have yet to feel the consequences, either personally or through someone close to them. It would appear, however, that they only have to wait. America's foreign groupies, in the meantime, remain blissfully unaware of the above and in need of a reality transplant.”

The foreign groupies only needed 3-5 more years to finally lose their unawareness. Most Americans took another 10 years after that, but it looks like they may finally be getting the message as well. ...more

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Jan 23, 2015 Tony Santo rated it liked it

A good insight into the United States mostly unethical and immoral interference in foreign countries, from the 1940's to the present time. There are so many instances cited in this book, that at times reading it can get monotonous. Some accusations against the United States may sound like an opinion, stated to top off a previously stated powerful thesis. There are so many accusations, so profound at times that the reader can clearly imagine a book researched and written in-depth on every one of ...more

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Apr 24, 2010 La pointe de la sauce rated it it was ok

Shelves: history

Rogue State should be renamed 1001 Reasons To Hate America. I have an issue with these books because granted, U.S foreign policy has been far from ideal with assasination attempts on most pro-communist leaders during the Cold War, but to make the assertion that the CIA planned an assasination attempt on Charles de Gaulle (president of France) in 1965 is absolutely ridiculous.

This and many other historically inaccurate assertions are made in the book written by William Blum, a seriously pissed ...more

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Apr 11, 2008 Carlofan rated it it was amazing

Great book for anyone interested in 'real' American foreign policy.

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Jul 10, 2020 Reid rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This book acts as a fiery answer to a lot of the dumb reactionary points that liberals and conservatives bring to the table when speaking on capitalism and the history of its use in the U.S. global hegemony. Part of what made it such a compelling read was the truely impassioned language, which has always been shunned by political academia. The author was unafraid of injecting meaning and emotion into the mass account of our evil empire, quite literally 'spitting' facts. No, it isn't the same kin ...more

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May 28, 2014 A. Sacit rated it really liked it

Shelves: int-politics

Investigative journalist William Bloom explains how US, behind a well publicized but false facade of democracy and human rights rhetoric, is engaged through its secretive agencies (CIA, NSA, and other affiliates), in endless number of subversive and criminal activities throughout the world in the form of coups, election frauds, invasions, spying, bombings, sabotage, assassinations, torture, bribery, kidnappings, drug trafficking, money laundering, looting, and so on since the WWII. The justifica ...more

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Sep 25, 2010 Steve rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: politics

An unsettling catalogue of nasty deeds - assassinations, torture, tyrant-funding, electoral meddling and the like - all apparently carried out or supported by the United States from the 1940s to the present day. Its concise and country-organized approach makes this an accessible book, with events listed, bullet-pointed, summarised and referenced, rather than lost in a wall of words (à la Chomsky). Blum clearly understands that it becomes more difficult to dismiss specific episodes as 'deviations ...more

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Jun 02, 2017 Venatici rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The horror and terror of US global imperial interventionism. A terrifying and chilling book.

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Feb 27, 2020 Vivek Singh rated it it was amazing

Anything by Blum is totally recommended to everyone. He is one those guys whose every work is worth the read. I would even advice you all to read his "Anti Empire Reports" available on his website.

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Jul 09, 2019 Robert rated it did not like it

Nothing but grist for MSNBC and the rest of the I Hate America crew. He pretends to be objective, but really it's nothing but unsubstantiated hokum, America bashing, and Hillary-style excuses about things being possible.

Anyone who would besmirch the US's role in defending South Korea is an utter drooling idiot. The CIA is behind everything, Soviet research said so-and-so, how dare the Americans bomb the Chinese embassy. There's a convenient forgetting of pretty much everything.

Mr. Blum, just e ...more

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Aug 22, 2017 Syed Shah rated it it was amazing

One of the best books detailing American hypocrisy in international politics and the dirty wars it has conducted in the contemporary era. From Iran to Latin America to Africa, William Blum takes you into the hidden facts of the government toppling, violence infused history of the world that America led secretly. Some statistics that will blow your mind in this short read - Borat was right to call it America's "War of Terror" but one thing he didn't highlight was that it had been going on for man ...more

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Apr 10, 2020 Jonathon Moore rated it really liked it

Shelves: political, military

“No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.”
― William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

This quote sums up the book. If you can imagine anything horrible - it is documented in this book as the US doing it with the when, why, and how.

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Jan 16, 2020 Steve rated it really liked it

Worryingly enlightening. Anyone who wants to understand America and its role in the world should read this.

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Jul 07, 2020 Steve Watson rated it it was amazing

This book was amazing. If every American knew the truth they would be very ashamed of their governments, both Republican and Democrat.

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Mar 10, 2012 Tariq Mahmood rated it liked it

Shelves: american-imperialism

William Blum is in the same class as Michael Moore only Michael has more style, wit and backs his examples with clever analysis which William tends not to have. The book is filled with numerous examples and resembles more of a reference book than an analytical one which the cover promises. Nevertheless the genre is an important one as not a great number of White writers are writing about their own kind. And they are the only ones who can make any difference in the public opinion. I found the boo ...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Tristan Broomhall rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, politics

The format of the book isn't particularly engaging, but it isn't supposed to be. It reads as a long list of charges against the U.S. separated into different categories, clinically documented, referenced and only briefly commentated on. The author's voice is present, along with his bias, but the analysis is on the mark and once all of the evidence is presented the book is succinctly concluded and the reader's left aghast, baffled and more than a little angry. A must read, especially as a primer ...more

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May 02, 2015 Arie Prasetyo rated it really liked it

We all know the US bullied its way toward superiority throughout the final half of the 20th century. This book opened up my eyes on just how far this lone rogue superpower would go to protect its ill-gotten hegemony.

Torture, kidnapping, harboring war-criminals, financing insurgencies, weapons and military aids. Sounds like a plot from a Hollywood spy movie. But underneath our world, there are men with bloodied hands, directing the order of our world. Often on the lives of thousands.

As Blum quote ...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Mike rated it liked it

Shelves: us-empire, reference

This is a really good book for reference material. When you want statistics or specific data in a discussion of US empire, this is the book to reach for. When you need to pick a year and say where the US was currently invading you open up the book to the chapter on invasions. While it's great as a reference book, he doesn't do much in terms of theoretical analysis. He is simply trying to convince everyone of his thesis of American Empire. If you're sitting on the fence, this is a book for you. I ...more

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Apr 19, 2011 Rob rated it liked it

Shelves: politics, non-fiction, read-in-2011

(7/10) Basically a thorough compilation of all the misdeeds and vile shit done by the CIA, the US, and other such acronyms since the end of World War II. Some of it was familiar to me but some of it is new, the kind of things that goes unknown to even the standard discipline. The major issue is that the book is such a disorganized lump of facts: after a while it becomes hard to read and you become a bit numb. An informative and striking book, but I would reccomend sticking to Blum's better work ...more

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May 07, 2008 Mel added it

Yes, another book I have to read for school. It's interesting, but hard to get through. There's just so much info packed into a couple hundred pages. It's a book about the United States and the "close encounters between [us] and alien nations" and how they are "of the cruelest kind. I haven't finished it yet, but it seems okay. Guess there's a lot of stuff out there that they don't teach you in school!

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Jun 11, 2011 sologdin rated it liked it

Shelves: leftwing-polemical, us-empire

kind of the standard left critique of US foreign policy these days. nutshells the much more impressive Killing Hope in a quick chapter, and includes essays on various topics, such as how the US meets its own definition of 'rogue state' (similar to Chomsky's later argument that the US also meets its own definition of 'failed state' and George's earlier argument that the Us meets its own definition of 'terrorism').

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Apr 24, 2013 D rated it liked it

If the United States’ government does not care about the health and welfare of its own soldiers, if American leaders are not moved by the prolonged pain and suffering of te wretched warriors they enlist to fight the empire’s wars, how can it be argued, how can it be believed, that they care about foreign peoples? At all.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Jun 28, 2007 Christian Brown rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics

If you want a book that will open your eyes and give you a fresh perspective on why the rest of the world may not like us very much, then read this book. It talks about the CIA and what that agency with the help of our leaders has done throughout the world to make us a bit resented. A really good book to get another perspective on our country.

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About William Blum

William Blum

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Jewish-American writer and critic of US foreign policy.

William Blum got wide media coverage, when his book "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" was recommended by Osama Bin Laden in a speech.