Download or read book Fateful Decisions written by Karl Inderfurth and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Security Council is the most important formal institution inthe government of the United States for the creation and implementation offoreign and defense policy. The Council's four principal members - thePresident, Vice President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense - areresponsible for incredibly vast decisions of war and peace, diplomacy,international trade, and covert operations. Yet, despite its obvious importance,the NSC has been subject to relatively little scholarly scrutiny, and remainsmisunderstood by most IR students. This edited collection, built upon the firstedition originally published under the title Decisions of the Highest Order atBrooks-Cole, presents a collection of seminal articles, essays, and documentsdrawn from a variety of sources, that will offer revealing coverage of keytopics such as the rise of the National Security Adviser to a position ofprominence, key challenges to the NSC, and the role of the NSC in a post-ColdWar environment.

Download or read book Running the World written by David Rothkopf and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never before in the history of mankind have so few people had so much power over so many. The people at the top of the American national security establishment, the President and his principal advisors, the core team at the helm of the National Security Council, are without question the most powerful committee in the history of the world. Yet, in many respects, they are among the least understood. A former senior official in the Clinton Administration himself, David Rothkopf served with and knows personally many of the NSC's key players of the past twenty-five years. In Running the World he pulls back the curtain on this shadowy world to explore its inner workings, its people, their relationships, their contributions and the occasions when they have gone wrong. He traces the group's evolution from the final days of the Second World War to the post-Cold War realities of global terror -- exploring its triumphs, its human dramas and most recently, what many consider to be its breakdown at a time when we needed it most. Drawing on an extraordinary series of insider interviews with policy makers including Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, senior officials of the Bush Administration, and over 130 others, the book offers unprecedented insights into what must change if America is to maintain its unprecedented worldwide leadership in the decades ahead.

Download or read book Inside the National Security Council written by Constantine Christopher Menges and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 1988 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book White House Warriors How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War written by John Gans and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revelatory history of the elusive National Security Council shows how staffers operating in the shadows have driven foreign policy clandestinely for decades. When Michael Flynn resigned in disgrace as the Trump administration’s national security advisor the New York Times referred to the National Security Council as “the traditional center of management for a president’s dealings with an uncertain world.” Indeed, no institution or individual in the last seventy years has exerted more influence on the Oval Office or on the nation’s wars than the NSC, yet until the explosive Trump presidency, few Americans could even name a member. With key analysis, John Gans traces the NSC’s rise from a collection of administrative clerks in 1947 to what one recent commander-in-chief called the president’s “personal band of warriors.” A former Obama administration speechwriter, Gans weaves extensive archival research with dozens of news-making interviews to reveal the NSC’s unmatched power, which has resulted in an escalation of hawkishness and polarization, both in Washington and the nation at large.

Download or read book The UN Security Council written by David Malone and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nature and scope of UN Security Council decisions - significantly changed in the post-Cold War era - have enormous implications for the conduct of foreign policy. The UN Security Council offers a comprehensive view of the council both internally and as a key player in world politics. Focusing on the evolution of the council's treatment of key issues, the authors discuss new concerns that must be accommodated in the decisionmaking process, the challenges of enforcement, and shifting personal and institutional factors. Case studies complement the rich thematic chapters. The book sheds much-needed light on the central events and trends of the past decade and their critical importance for the future role of the council and the UN in the sphere of international security.

Download or read book Keepers of the Keys written by John Prados and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 1991 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of how the National Security Council was transformed from a small advisory board under Truman, virtually to supplant the State Department under Nixon, and then to conduct covert, illegal operations under Ronald Reagan.

Download or read book The Reagan Files written by Jason Saltoun-Ebin and published by . This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: President Reagan and his top foreign policy advisers held over 350 National Security Council meetings during which they fought, debated, and eventually decided the course of American foreign policy. Benefiting from significant numbers of recently declassified top-secret white house documents, this edition of the "The Reagan Files: Inside the National Security Council" sheds new light on the inner-workings of the Reagan administration and the foreign policy decision-making process at the highest levels of government. "The Reagan Files" is ideally suited for college courses on the end of the cold war and the cold war in the third-world, and those generally interested in government and foreign policy.

Download or read book The National Security Council written by Henry Kissinger and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The National Security Enterprise written by Roger Z. George and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition of The National Security Enterprise provides practitioners' insights into the operation, missions, and organizational cultures of the principal national security agencies and other significant institutions that shape the US national security decision-making process. Unlike some textbooks on American foreign policy, this book provides analysis from insiders who have worked at the National Security Council, the State Department, Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and the other critical entities included in the book. The book explains how organizational missions and cultures create the labyrinth in which a coherent national security policy must be fashioned. Understanding and appreciating these organizations and their cultures is essential for formulating and implementing coherent policies. This second edition includes four new chapters (Congress, DHS, Treasury, and USAID) and updates to the text throughout. It covers the many changes instituted by the Obama administration, implications of the government campaign to prosecute leaks, and lessons learned from more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Download or read book Flawed by Design written by Amy B. Zegart and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the belief that national security agencies work well, this book asks what forces shaped the initial design of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council in ways that meant they were handicapped from birth.

Download or read book The United Nations and the Development of Collective Security written by Dan Sarooshi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines one of the most important challenges facing the United Nations today: the effective and lawful use of force by or under the authority of the UN to maintain or restore peace. It makes a significant contribution to the content of the law pertaining to the use of force by the UN and provides guidance as to the likely future developments in the legal framework governing collective action to maintain peace under the auspices of the United Nations.

Download or read book In the Shadow of the Oval Office written by Ivo H. Daalder and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-02-10 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most solemn obligation of any president is to safeguard the nation's security. But the president cannot do this alone. He needs help. In the past half century, presidents have relied on their national security advisers to provide that help. Who are these people, the powerful officials who operate in the shadow of the Oval Office, often out of public view and accountable only to the presidents who put them there? Some remain obscure even to this day. But quite a number have names that resonate far beyond the foreign policy elite: McGeorge Bundy, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice. Ivo Daalder and Mac Destler provide the first inside look at how presidents from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush have used their national security advisers to manage America's engagements with the outside world. They paint vivid portraits of the fourteen men and one woman who have occupied the coveted office in the West Wing, detailing their very different personalities, their relations with their presidents, and their policy successes and failures. It all started with Kennedy and Bundy, the brilliant young Harvard dean who became the nation's first modern national security adviser. While Bundy served Kennedy well, he had difficulty with his successor. Lyndon Johnson needed reassurance more than advice, and Bundy wasn't always willing to give him that. Thus the basic lesson -- the president sets the tone and his aides must respond to that reality. The man who learned the lesson best was someone who operated mainly in the shadows. Brent Scowcroft was the only adviser to serve two presidents, Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. Learning from others' failures, he found the winning formula: gain the trust of colleagues, build a collaborative policy process, and stay close to the president. This formula became the gold standard -- all four national security advisers who came after him aspired to be "like Brent." The next president and national security adviser can learn not only from success, but also from failure. Rice stayed close to George W. Bush -- closer perhaps than any adviser before or since. But her closeness did not translate into running an effective policy process, as the disastrous decision to invade Iraq without a plan underscored. It would take years, and another national security aide, to persuade Bush that his Iraq policy was failing and to engineer a policy review that produced the "surge." The national security adviser has one tough job. There are ways to do it well and ways to do it badly. Daalder and Destler provide plenty of examples of both. This book is a fascinating look at the personalities and processes that shape policy and an indispensable guide to those who want to understand how to operate successfully in the shadow of the Oval Office.

Download or read book The National Security Enterprise written by Harvey Rishikof and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent breakdowns in American national security have exposed the weaknesses of the nation's vast overlapping security and foreign policy bureaucracy and the often dysfunctional interagency process. In the literature of national security studies, however, surprisingly little attention is given to the specific dynamics or underlying organizational cultures that often drive the bureaucratic politics of U.S. security policy. The National Security Enterprise offers a broad overview and analysis of the many government agencies involved in national security issues, the interagency process, Congressional checks and balances, and the influence of private sector organizations. The chapters cover the National Security Council, the Departments of Defense and State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Management and Budget. The book also focuses on the roles of Congress, the Supreme Court, and outside players in the national security process like the media, think tanks, and lobbyists. Each chapter details the organizational culture and personality of these institutions so that readers can better understand the mindsets that drive these organizations and their roles in the policy process. Many of the contributors to this volume are long-time practitioners who have spent most of their careers working for these organizations. As such, they offer unique insights into how diplomats, military officers, civilian analysts, spies, and law enforcement officials are distinct breeds of policymakers and political actors. To illustrate how different agencies can behave in the face of a common challenge, contributors reflect in detail on their respective agency's behavior during the Iraq War. This impressive volume is suitable for academic studies at both the undergraduate and graduate level; ideal for U.S. government, military, and national security training programs; and useful for practitioners and specialists in national security studies.

Download or read book American Force written by Richard K. Betts and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While American national security policy has grown more interventionist since the Cold War, Washington has also hoped to shape the world on the cheap. Misled by the stunning success against Iraq in 1991, administrations of both parties have pursued ambitious aims with limited force, committing the country's military frequently yet often hesitantly, with inconsistent justification. These ventures have produced strategic confusion, unplanned entanglements, and indecisive results. This collection of essays by Richard K. Betts, a leading international politics scholar, investigates the use of American force since the end of the Cold War, suggesting guidelines for making it more selective and successful. Betts brings his extensive knowledge of twentieth century American diplomatic and military history to bear on the full range of theory and practice in national security, surveying the Cold War roots of recent initiatives and arguing that U.S. policy has always been more unilateral than liberal theorists claim. He exposes mistakes made by humanitarian interventions and peace operations; reviews the issues raised by terrorism and the use of modern nuclear, biological, and cyber weapons; evaluates the case for preventive war, which almost always proves wrong; weighs the lessons learned from campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam; assesses the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia; quells concerns about civil-military relations; exposes anomalies within recent defense budgets; and confronts the practical barriers to effective strategy. Betts ultimately argues for greater caution and restraint, while encouraging more decisive action when force is required, and he recommends a more dispassionate assessment of national security interests, even in the face of global instability and unfamiliar threats.

Download or read book The Strategist written by Bartholomew Sparrow and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an in-depth portrait of a man whose career has been intimately linked to the great transformations in U.S. foreign policy—from the last third of the Cold War, to September 11, 2001, and up to the present.

Download or read book The New Era in U S National Security written by Jack A. Jarmon and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-10-24 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of The New Era in U.S. National Security: Challenges of the Information Age is to make its readers aware of how the tensions between opposing forces from above and below influence world events and shape U.S. national security institutions. The debt trap now being experienced by the developing world has unleashed global migration on a mass scale. In a world where market forces are politically unaccountable, crime will prosper, and its linkage to organizing social structures is organic. The nexus between corrupt politicians, transnational business, and cross-border crime pulls tighter. Meanwhile, the structures of global governance are immature. Differences of agreement over international norms and controls regarding the use of the Internet, and the laws pertaining to the deployment of cyber weapons are illusive - if not insurmountable. The chasm between the rich and poor is widening and deepening. Hostilities continue mount. In this book, Jack A. Jarmon offers a survey of the altering landscape of warfare and competition. Using recent events and documented experiences as examples, it reveals truths about the threat from criminals, terrorists, hostile governments, and internal vulnerabilities. The nation’s exposure invites attack with every hour. Rather than an abstract threat, these unseen and unreported assaults land blows to our information networks, infrastructure, quality of life, and democratic system.

Download or read book After Anarchy written by Ian Hurd and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The politics of legitimacy is central to international relations. When states perceive an international organization as legitimate, they defer to it, associate themselves with it, and invoke its symbols. Examining the United Nations Security Council, Ian Hurd demonstrates how legitimacy is created, used, and contested in international relations. The Council's authority depends on its legitimacy, and therefore its legitimation and delegitimation are of the highest importance to states. Through an examination of the politics of the Security Council, including the Iraq invasion and the negotiating history of the United Nations Charter, Hurd shows that when states use the Council's legitimacy for their own purposes, they reaffirm its stature and find themselves contributing to its authority. Case studies of the Libyan sanctions, peacekeeping efforts, and the symbolic politics of the Council demonstrate how the legitimacy of the Council shapes world politics and how legitimated authority can be transferred from states to international organizations. With authority shared between states and other institutions, the interstate system is not a realm of anarchy. Sovereignty is distributed among institutions that have power because they are perceived as legitimate. This book's innovative approach to international organizations and international relations theory lends new insight into interactions between sovereign states and the United Nations, and between legitimacy and the exercise of power in international relations.