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 al liances with drug-trafficking proxies. The result has been a staggering increase in global drug traffic. Thus, the author argues, the exercise of power by cover t means, or parapolitics, often metastasizes into deep politics - the interplay of unacknowledged forces that spin out of the control of the original policy ini tiators. Scott contends that we must recognize that U.S. influence is grounded n ot just in military and economic superiority but also in so-called soft power. W e need a soft politics of persuasion and nonviolence, especially as America is e mbroiled in yet another disastrous intervention, this time in Iraq.

彼得-戴尔-斯科特（Peter Dale Scott）这本经过出色研究的游记阐明了从越南到哥伦比亚，再到现在的阿富汗和伊拉克，推动美国全球政策的潜在力量。他揭示了毒品、石油政治和情报网络交织在一起的模式，这些模式对于美国通过与贩毒代理人的联盟在第三世界国家进行干预和升级是非常重要的。其结果是全球毒品贩运量惊人地增加。因此，作者认为，通过掩护手段行使权力，或者说准政治，往往会演变成深层政治--不为人知的力量的相互作用，使之脱离了最初的政策制定者的控制。斯科特认为，我们必须认识到，美国的影响力不仅建立在军事和经济优势上，也建立在所谓的软实力上。我们需要一种说服和非暴力的软性政治，特别是在美国又一次陷入灾难性干预的时候，这次是在伊拉克。