Three former government officials rethink the foreign policy decisions of America's leaders as they detail their failures and inadequacies and propose effective new moves the nation could make to self-correct. The authors of Our Own Worst Enemy, each of which have held high positions in the State Department and Pentagon, argue that for more than 20 years the United States has been experiencing a nervous breakdown concerning the making of foreign policy.

As foreign policy continuously becomes more partisan and ideological, and each president disavows his predecessor as he starts anew, the authors describe how America has watched its leaders repeatedly trap themselves in foreign policy debacles.

Within the pages of this book, I.M. Destler, Leslie H. Gelb, and Anthony Lake propose clear and effective measures by which America may extricate itself from the political quagmire it is repeatedly placed in.