In The Problem of Asia, the celebrated American naval historian and strategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, analyzes the geopolitical structure of world politics at the dawn of the twentieth century. Mahan wrote his book at a time when the United States was emerging as a world power, having recently acquired overseas territories as a result of its victory in the Spanish-American War. It was a call to America and its leaders to break with the intellectual tradition of Washington's Farewell Address and to recognize that U.S. security was tied to the balance of power in Asia as well as Europe.

Four years before the outbreak of the First World War, the world famous naval historian and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan warned of the approaching conflict. In The Interest of America in International Conditions, Mahan recognized that Germany's effort to add a strong navy to its already powerful land army threatened to upset the balance of power that had prevented a major war in Europe since 1815. He understood that American security could be endangered if Germany dominated the European continent.

In 1946, William Bullitt, the fi rst U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, U.S. ambassador to France at the outbreak of the Second World War, and onetime close advisor to FDR, wrote the fi rst book-length, comprehensive analysis of the emerging Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the war, as the book's new introduction by Francis P. Sempa points out, Bullitt had repeatedly urged President Roosevelt to wage war with a view toward the postwar balance of power. Bullitt recounts in this volume how the United States missed opportunities to block Soviet geopolitical gains...

This collection of essays and reviews on national security, geopolitics and war combines a broad historical and geopolitical overview of U.S. national security policy with commentary on historical events and biographical sketches of historical figures.