Warlords are individuals who control small territories within weak states, using a combination of force and patronage. In this book, Kimberly Marten shows why and how warlords undermine state sovereignty. Unlike the feudal lords of a previous era, warlords today are not state-builders. Instead they collude with cost-conscious, corrupt, or frightened state officials to flout and undermine state capacity. They thrive on illegality, relying on private militias for support, and often provoke violent resentment from those who are cut out of their networks. Some act as middlemen for competing...
Warlords are individuals who control small territories within weak states, using a combination of force and patronage. In this book, Kimberly Marte...
The United States, Barry R. Posen argues in Restraint, has grown incapable of moderating its ambitions in international politics. Since the collapse of Soviet power, it has pursued a grand strategy that he calls "liberal hegemony," one that Posen sees as unnecessary, counterproductive, costly, and wasteful. Written for policymakers and observers alike, Restraint explains precisely why this grand strategy works poorly and then provides a carefully designed alternative grand strategy and an associated military strategy and force structure. In contrast to the failures and...
The United States, Barry R. Posen argues in Restraint, has grown incapable of moderating its ambitions in international politics. Since th...
What is the role of intelligence agencies in strategy and policy? How do policymakers use (or misuse) intelligence estimates? When do intelligence-policy relations work best? How do intelligence-policy failures influence threat assessment, military strategy, and foreign policy? These questions are at the heart of recent national security controversies, including the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq. In both cases the relationship between intelligence and policy broke down with disastrous consequences.
In Fixing the Facts, Joshua Rovner explores the complex interaction...
What is the role of intelligence agencies in strategy and policy? How do policymakers use (or misuse) intelligence estimates? When do intelligence-...
In The Dictator's Army, Caitlin Talmadge presents a compelling new argument to help us understand why authoritarian militaries sometimes fight very well and sometimes very poorly. Talmadge's framework for understanding battlefield effectiveness focuses on four key sets of military organizational practices: promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management. Different regimes face different domestic and international threat environments, leading their militaries to adopt different policies in these key areas of organizational...
In The Dictator's Army, Caitlin Talmadge presents a compelling new argument to help us understand why authoritarian militaries sometimes f...
For both the United States and United Kingdom counterinsurgency was a serious component of security policy during the Cold War and, along with counterterrorism, has been the greatest security challenge after September 11, 2001. In The Soul of Armies Austin Long compares and contrasts counterinsurgency operations during the Cold War and in recent years by three organizations: the US Army, the US Marine Corps, and the British Army.
Long argues that the formative experiences of these three organizations as they professionalized in the nineteenth century has produced distinctive...
For both the United States and United Kingdom counterinsurgency was a serious component of security policy during the Cold War and, along with coun...
At first glance, the U.S. decision to escalate the war in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, China's position on North Korea's nuclear program in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the EU resolution to lift what remained of the arms embargo against Libya in the mid-2000s would appear to share little in common. Yet each of these seemingly unconnected and far-reaching foreign policy decisions resulted at least in part from the exercise of a unique kind of coercion, one predicated on the intentional creation, manipulation, and exploitation of real or threatened mass population movements.
In...
At first glance, the U.S. decision to escalate the war in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, China's position on North Korea's nuclear program in the late 1...
High-security organizations around the world face devastating threats from insiders trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilities, and materials. From Edward Snowden to the Fort Hood shooter to the theft of nuclear materials, the threat from insiders is on the front page and at the top of the policy agenda. Insider Threats offers detailed case studies of insider disasters across a range of different types of institutions, from biological research laboratories, to nuclear power plants, to the U.S. Army. Matthew Bunn and Scott D. Sagan outline cognitive and...
High-security organizations around the world face devastating threats from insiders trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilit...
Many of the world's states--from Algeria to Ireland to the United States--are the result of robust national movements that achieved independence. Many other national movements have failed in their attempts to achieve statehood, including the Basques, the Kurds, and the Palestinians. In Rebel Power, Peter Krause offers a powerful new theory to explain this variation focusing on the internal balance of power among nationalist groups, who cooperate with each other to establish a new state while simultaneously competing to lead it. The most powerful groups push to achieve states while...
Many of the world's states--from Algeria to Ireland to the United States--are the result of robust national movements that achieved independence. M...
Strategic Adjustment and the Rise of China demonstrates how structural and domestic variables influence how East Asian states adjust their strategy in light of the rise of China, including how China manages its own emerging role as a regional great power. The contributors note that the shifting regional balance of power has fueled escalating tensions in East Asia and suggest that adjustment challenges are exacerbated by the politics of policymaking. International and domestic pressures on policymaking are reflected in maritime territorial disputes and in the broader range of...
Strategic Adjustment and the Rise of China demonstrates how structural and domestic variables influence how East Asian states adjust their...
Why has the United States, unlike every other 20th-century world power, failed to settle on a durable system of military service? In this lucid book, Eliot Cohen studies the enduring problems of America's methods of raising an army.
Why has the United States, unlike every other 20th-century world power, failed to settle on a durable system of military service? In this lucid book, ...