Foreign Wars

As American interests assumed global proportions after 1945, policy makers were faced with the challenge of prioritizing various regions and determining the extent to which the United States was prepared to defend and support them. Superpowers and developing nations soon became inextricably linked and decolonizing states such as Vietnam, India, and Egypt assumed a central role in the ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.

From a celebrated military historian, a powerful, “highly recommended” (Library Journal, starred review) account of the most pivotal year of the Vietnam War—the cataclysm that “continues to haunt American politics and culture” (Publishers Weekly). The Vietnam War was the greatest...

American Presidents in Diplomacy and War chronicles the major foreign policy crises faced by twelve American presidents in order to uncover the reoccurring patterns of successful and less successful uses of diplomatic, economic, and military power. In this book, Thomas R. Parker reveals how America's most successful leaders manage events instead of allowing events to control them.

Do leaders make history or does history make leaders? A deep dive into how we define, seek, and become leaders. We live in a period of leadership in crisis. At home, and across the globe, we sense that unqualified and irresponsible individuals are being elevated to positions of power, strong men...

A companion to Oliver Stone’s ten-part documentary series of the same name, this guide offers a people’s history of the American Empire: “a critical overview of US foreign policy…indispensable” (former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev); “brilliant, a masterpiece!” (Daniel...

Has the United States been a force for liberty around the world? Should it be? And if so, how? To answer these questions, Christopher A. Preble traces the history of US foreign policy from the American founding to the present, examining the ideas that have animated it, asking whether America's policy choices have made the world safer and freer, and considering the impact of those choices on freedom at home.

Written by award-winning technologist and entrepreneur Matt Hrushka The Ad War reveals the inner workings of Online Advertising and exposes a growing conflict between advertising networks and their own consumers. Learn how the demand for relevance has led the industry into a perilous struggle with privacy and control that could ultimately change the way we use the internet.

Throughout the world, oppressive regimes are being uprooted and replaced by budding democracies, but one exception remains: The People's Republic of North Korea. The Kim family has clung to power for three generations by silencing dissidents, ruling with an iron fist, and holding its neighbors hostage with threats of war. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has come closer than ever to creating a viable nuclear arsenal, but widespread famine and growing resistance are weakening his regime's stability.

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Winner of the 2018 Truman Book Award A gripping narrative of the Truman Administration's response to the fall of Nationalist China and the triumph of Mao Zedong's Communist forces in 1949--an extraordinary political revolution that continues to...

Amidst all of the criticisms of America's war in Iraq, one essential voice has remained silent . . . until now. In his groundbreaking new memoir, Wiser in Battle, LTG (Ret) Ricardo S. Sanchez, former Commander of Coalition Forces in Iraq, reports back from the front lines of the global War on...

A blistering critique of the gulf between America's soldiers and the society that sends them off to war, from the bestselling author of The Limits of Power and Washington Rules The United States has been "at war" in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade. Yet as war has become normalized, a...

Ryan Hass charts a path forward in America's relationship and rivalry with China rooted in the relative advantages America already possesses. Hass argues that while competition will remain the defining trait of the relationship, both countries will continue to be impacted - for good or ill - by their capacity to coordinate on common challenges that neither can solve on its own, such as pandemic disease, global economic recession, climate change, and nuclear nonproliferation.

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE “Unforgettable . . . a book about Putin’s Russia that is unlike any other.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain From a Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker, a groundbreaking portrait of modern Russia and...

The United States is addicted to crude oil. In this book, Andrew Price-Smith argues that this addiction has distorted the conduct of American foreign policy in profound and malign ways, resulting in interventionism, exploitation, and other illiberal behaviors that hide behind a facade of liberal internationalism. The symbiotic relationship between the state and the oil industry has produced deviations from rational foreign energy policy, including interventions in Iraq and elsewhere.

Preparing for the next war at an unknown date against an undetermined opponent is a difficult undertaking with extremely high stakes. Thus, outside of their own combat, militaries have studied foreign wars as a valuable source of battlefield information. Through a series of in-depth case studies of the US Army, Navy, and Air Force, Brent L. Sterling creates a better understanding of the dynamics of learning from "other people's wars", determining what types of knowledge can be gained from foreign wars, identifying common pitfalls, and proposing solutions.

Here is the story of political prisoners finally freed in December 2014, after being held captive by the United States since the late 1990s. Through the 1980s and 1990s, violent anti-Castro groups based in Florida carried out hundreds of military attacks on Cuba, bombing hotels and shooting up...

In House of War, the bestselling author James Carroll has created a history of the Pentagon that is both epic and personal. Through Carroll we see how the Pentagon, since its founding, has operated beyond the control of any force in government or society, undermining the very national security...

When Michael Scheuer first questioned the goals of the Iraq War in his 2004 bestseller Imperial Hubris, policymakers and ordinary citizens alike stood up and took notice. Now, Scheuer offers a scathing and frightening look at how the Iraq War has been a huge setback to America's War on Terror...

2007 Audie Award Finalist for the Judges’ Award: Politics Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind takes you deep inside America's real battles with violent, unrelenting terrorists—a game of kill-or-be-killed, from the Oval Office to the streets of Karachi. Ron...

America's most distinguished commentator on foreign policy, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, offers a reasoned but unsparing assessment of the last three presidential administrations' foreign policy. Though spanning less than two decades, these administrations covered a vitally important turning point in world history: the period in which the United States, having emerged from the cold war with unprecedented power and prestige, managed to squander both in a remarkably short time.