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Samantha Power’s Pulitzer-prize winning book "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide analyzes the weak US response to the genocides of the last 30 years in Cambodia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. She demonstrates that US actions fell far short of the “never again” sentiment after the Holocaust and delves into the reasons why.

As background, she first describes the Turkish genocide of nearly a million Armenians in 1915. She briefly discusses how the US reacted to Nazi atrocities, a subject most readers will be familiar with. Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer whose family perished in the Holocaust, came up with the term “genocide” and, in 1948, persuaded the United Nations to pass the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Though many nations quickly ratified the treaty, domestic opposition, mainly concerned about infringement of American sovereignty, delayed full US ratification until 1988.

Power follows a consistent pattern in discussing the US response when genocide has occurred. After providing the historical backdrop, she describes the warning signs that American perceived beforehand. Then, as the killing commences, journalists and government experts gradually became aware of what’s happening, and that information flowed up the chain of command. Power presents the discussions within the US government and how the US chose to address, or avoid addressing, the suffering that was taking place. Finally, she reveals what happened in the aftermath of the genocide.

She starts with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who killed 2 million of their citizens from 1975 to 1979. US media attention was limited, because of the regime’s secrecy and because Americans didn’t want to think about Southeast Asia following the Vietnam War. The US barely condemned the atrocities. Cold War concerns were also prominent, as the US was focused on maintaining a good relationship with China, a supporter of Cambodia. Even under Jimmy Carter, the US response was quite passive. Surprisingly, George McGovern, who strongly opposed the Vietnam War, was one of the few Americans advocating US intervention to stop the genocide.

In 1987 and 1988, the Iraqi government killed almost 100,000 Kurds. After those gassings and deportations occurred, the US increased support for a program giving Iraq $1 billion in credits to support American farm products. The US was mainly interested in shoring up Iraq to prevent an Iranian victory in the Iran-Iraq War, and issued weak condemnations blaming both Iran and Iraq for the Iraqi assault on its own citizens. After the war ended and more information emerged, the US Senate passed substantial sanctions against Iraq, but pressure from the executive branch, along with agricultural and manufacturing interests doing business with Iraq, blocked those sanctions from becoming law.

Three large chapters discuss Yugoslavia in the 1990’s: early Bosnia, late Bosnia, and Kosovo. The US government acknowledged and condemned what was going on, even if they avoided using the term “genocide” so they’d feel less of an obligation to act. In Bosnia, according to Power, the Serbs were committing genocide against Muslims who were defending themselves, and she dismisses, as distortions, claims that everyone there was guilty of atrocities. Within the State Department, low-level domain experts were clamoring for intervention while top officials, in the aftermath of Somalia, refused to get involved. The US, Western Europe, and the UN all responded weakly to initial Serbian aggression, convincing the Serbs that they could continue the ethnic cleansing without any serious punishment. Power was pleased with the US intervention in Kosovo, which she attributes to political pressures on Bill Clinton. Power, who spent time in Bosnia reporting on its horrors, takes a strong stand supporting US involvement, dismissing the objections other have made without really addressing them.

Finally, she describes the murder of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda in 1994. Besides refusing to intervene, the US blocked the deployment of UN peacekeepers in fear that US troops would somehow get pulled in. On the NSC, Richard Clarke, best known for overcoming government obstacles to fight terrorism, used his bureaucratic skills to thwart plans for addressing the Rwanda genocide. Power argues that a small peacekeeping force could have stopped the machete-armed Tutsis from murdering so many people, while the US refused to send over a plane that could jam the radio signals giving instructions to the killers.

The book closes with a description of the subsequent war crime trials. Power concludes that the US had the knowledge and ability to curtail the post-war genocides, but lacked the will to act. A Problem from Hell is an excellent, though depressing, analysis of that failure to act and its horrible consequences.