G.T. Dempsey

From the Embassy

George Dempsey served in the American Embassy in Dublin as First Secretary for Political Affairs, and it was here that he experienced the ‘overtly-expressed contempt’ in which American foreign policy is widely held in Ireland. His book is a robust and incisive defense of American foreign policy as well as a devastating attack on prevailing Irish misconceptions about the use of American power in an increasingly dangerous world. In particular, Dempsey demonstrates that Ireland’s political, academic and media elites have allowed a self-justifying leftist fixation on the United States to destroy the integrity of its foreign policy debate. Dempsey argues strongly on a case-by-case basis that America’s foreign policy has been, and remains, based on sound moral and political principles and that it is not the United States but its critics who have questions to answer about the correct response to enemies of democracy and freedom. Dempsey’s criticisms and findings and cautions are equally applicable to those who would condemn American actions abroad wherever they might be found, including within the United States itself.

From the Embassy

(Dublin: Open Republic Institute, 2004)

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