President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink takes up the banner of attributing the end of the Cold War to the foreign policy acumen and foresight of Ronald Reagan. Indeed, it suggests that Reagan possessed a remarkable perspicacity that allowed him to perceive the world's historic changes on the horizon well before others did, and that this, plus his innate optimism, helped him lead the United States toward a better future.
Finley’s work is part of a long and glorious tradition of satire in the world of military and foreign affairs. Her books are a welcome mental break for modern audiences, but the wellspring of military and diplomatic satire was already deep. For autocratic societies, where censorship is a defining characteristic, satirists walk fine lines to say quiet thoughts out loud.
For a relatively short volume, Intelligence and the State manages to fill a range of gaps in the existing literature on the intelligence community. First and foremost, it provides a timely look at the issues confronting both policy makers and intelligence analysts that will only grow more relevant as technological advances increase the volume of raw information available to the intelligence community. Second, it offers the reader a condensed history of the European and American experiences with developing intelligence communities that would otherwise require combing through a range of academic literature. Finally, author Jonathan House leverages his decades of experience as a U.S. Army intelligence officer with valuable advice that can alleviate some of the pressures on the intelligence community and help the national security establishment avoid missing warning signs in the current environment.
Written in the style of an engaging spy thriller, the story takes the reader through a series of events involving real individuals with capabilities and intentions to harm others. The plot in a nutshell: a handful of individuals inspired–and in some cases trained–by al-Qaeda attempted to smuggle liquid explosives on board U.S.-bound transatlantic flights. If successful, they would have destroyed multiple aircraft, murdered thousands of people, and increased public fear worldwide about aviation travel. The economic toll could have been comparable to that of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the end, the most impactful thing these plotters did was provoke a change in aviation security wherein passengers can no longer bring over three ounces of liquids through the airport security checkpoints. This is a story, certainly a compelling one, about the failure of a terrorist plot.
In Korea: The War Before Vietnam, Callum A. MacDonald writes with short, sharp clarity. The precision of his writing does not take away from necessary details or the importance of the Korean War in international history, especially for those involved in that conflict. The book is driven by a narrative told through official documents, robust secondary sources, and scholarship developed over nearly 35 years.
Deconstructing Dr. Strangelove: The Secret History of Nuclear War Films is a fresh study that attempts to answer these intriguing questions. Through a close reading of a cluster of “Cold War nuclear crisis films,” which is described as “a staple of the Cold War popular cultural milieu from the 1950s to the 1980s,” this clearly written and thought-provoking book explores how these screen narratives depicted the nuclear weapons apparatus and strategic decision-making.
My initial reaction—if we can call two years of brooding initial —is exactly why we need more poetry about the experience of modern war. We need it for catharsis, communication, and reckoning. We need more poetry that forces us to wrestle in the cobwebs and the debris of the darkest corners of the attic. We need to reflect in the mirrors, be they clear, clouded, or cracked, that we find locked away in the trunk. Garcia gave me a key. Maybe it will work for you as well.
In the beginning, being a fighter pilot was all about having what later came to be called “the right stuff:” good eyesight, excellent hand-eye coordination, good stick and rudder skills, and aggressiveness. Fino goes to great lengths to demonstrate that over the course of next three decades these skills did not necessarily change, but they did evolve as pilots had to contend with increasingly complex aircraft systems. The history of fighter aviation rapidly became the struggle to understand automation.
It was America’s good fortune—Manifest Destiny if you will—to rise on a temperate continent with abundant resources. Great Britain ceded its empire in part because it could trust and rely on the United States. America does not share this luxury. Pragmatism must be America’s watchword, for neither isolationism nor unilateralism will work.
In examining another’s ethics and morals, the question often comes up that given the possibilities of time travel, would you be capable of killing Hitler in his youth or prior to his rise to power? The simple answer is yes, while others try a more nuanced approach of convincing Hitler of his promise as an artist, to the inane of stealing his wallet to make his life just a touch more uncomfortable. Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle takes an alternate approach.
