Download or read book The War on Terrorism and the American Empire after the Cold War written by Alejandro Colas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-04-11 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new study shows how the American-led ‘war on terror’ has brought about the most significant shift in the contours of the international system since the end of the Cold War. A new ‘imperial moment’ is now discernible in US foreign policy in the wake of the neo-conservative rise to power in the USA, marked by the development of a fresh strategic doctrine based on the legitimacy of preventative military strikes on hostile forces across any part of the globe. Key features of this new volume include: * an alternative, critical take on contemporary US foreign policy * a timely, accessible overview of critical thinking on US foreign policy, imperialism and war on terror * the full spectrum of critical view sin a single volume * many of these essays are now ‘contemporary classics’ The essays collected in this volume analyse the historical, socio-economic and political dimensions of the current international conjuncture, and assess the degree to which the war on terror has transformed the nature and projection of US global power. Drawing on a range of critical social theories, this collection seeks to ground historically the analysis of global developments since the inception of the new Bush Presidency and weigh up the political consequences of this imperial turn. This book will be of great interest for all students of US foreign policy, contemporary international affairs, international relations and politics.
Download or read book The War on Terror and the American empire After the Cold War written by Alejandro Colás and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The contributions in The War on Terror and the American 'Empire' After the Cold War analyse the historical, socio-economic and political dimensions of the current international conjuncture, and assess the degree to which the 'war on terror' has transformed the nature and projection of US global power. Drawing on a range of critical social theories, this collection seeks to ground historically the analysis of global developments since the inception of the new Bush Presidency and weigh up the political consequences of this imperial turn." "The War on Terror and the American 'Empire' After the Cold War is essential reading for students and academics with research interests in US History and Politics and Global Politics. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The War on Terror and the American empire After the Cold War written by Thomas Leabhart and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2007 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The contributions in The War on Terror and the American 'Empire' After the Cold War analyse the historical, socio-economic and political dimensions of the current international conjuncture, and assess the degree to which the 'war on terror' has transformed the nature and projection of US global power. Drawing on a range of critical social theories, this collection seeks to ground historically the analysis of global developments since the inception of the new Bush Presidency and weigh up the political consequences of this imperial turn." "The War on Terror and the American 'Empire' After the Cold War is essential reading for students and academics with research interests in US History and Politics and Global Politics. Book jacket."--Jacket.
Download or read book American Empire written by Andrew J. BACEVICH and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a challenging, provocative book, Andrew Bacevich reconsiders the assumptions and purposes governing the exercise of American global power. Examining the presidencies of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton--as well as George W. Bush's first year in office--he demolishes the view that the United States has failed to devise a replacement for containment as a basis for foreign policy. He finds instead that successive post-Cold War administrations have adhered to a well-defined "strategy of openness." Motivated by the imperative of economic expansionism, that strategy aims to foster an open and integrated international order, thereby perpetuating the undisputed primacy of the world's sole remaining superpower. Moreover, openness is not a new strategy, but has been an abiding preoccupation of policymakers as far back as Woodrow Wilson. Although based on expectations that eliminating barriers to the movement of trade, capital, and ideas nurtures not only affluence but also democracy, the aggressive pursuit of openness has met considerable resistance. To overcome that resistance, U.S. policymakers have with increasing frequency resorted to force, and military power has emerged as never before as the preferred instrument of American statecraft, resulting in the progressive militarization of U.S. foreign policy. Neither indictment nor celebration, American Empire sees the drive for openness for what it is--a breathtakingly ambitious project aimed at erecting a global imperium. Large questions remain about that project's feasibility and about the human, financial, and moral costs that it will entail. By penetrating the illusions obscuring the reality of U.S. policy, this book marks an essential first step toward finding the answers. Table of Contents: Preface Introduction 1. The Myth of the Reluctant Superpower 2. Globalization and Its Conceits 3. Policy by Default 4. Strategy of Openness 5. Full Spectrum Dominance 6. Gunboats and Gurkhas 7. Rise of the Proconsuls 8. Different Drummers, Same Drum 9. War for the Imperium Notes Acknowledgments Index Reviews of this book: [A] straightforward "critical interpretation of American statecraft in the 1990s"...he is straightforward, too, in establishing where he stands on the political spectrum about US foreign policy...Bacevich insists that there are no differences in the key assumptions governing the foreign policy of the administrations of Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II--and this will certainly be the subject of passionate debate...Bacevich's argument persuades...by means of engaging prose as well as the compelling and relentless accumulation of detail...Bring[s] badly needed [perspective] to troubled times. --James A. Miller, Boston Globe Reviews of this book: For everyone there's Andrew Bacevich's American Empire, an intelligent, elegantly written, highly convincing polemic that demonstrates how the motor of US foreign policy since independence has been the need to guarantee economic growth. --Dominick Donald, The Guardian Reviews of this book: Andrew Bacevich's remarkably clear, cool-headed, and enlightening book is an expression of the United States' unadmitted imperial primacy. It's as bracing as a plunge into a clear mountain lake after exposure to the soporific internationalist conventional wisdom...Bacevich performs an invaluable service by restoring missing historical context and perspective to today's shallow, hand-wringing discussion of Sept. 11...Bacevich's brave, intelligent book restores our vocabulary to debate anew the United States' purpose in the world. --Richard J. Whalen, Across the Board Reviews of this book: To say that Andrew Bacevich's American Empire is a truly realistic work of realism is therefore to declare it not only a very good book, but also a pretty rare one. The author, a distinguished former soldier, combines a tough-minded approach to the uses of military force with a grasp of American history that is both extremely knowledgeable and exceptionally clear-sighted. This book is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand the background to U.S. world hegemony at the start of the 21st century; and it is also a most valuable warning about the dangers into which the pursuit and maintenance of this hegemony may lead America. --Anatol Levin, Washington Monthly Reviews of this book: American Empire is an immensely thoughtful book. Its reflections go beyond the narrow realm of U.S. security policy and demonstrate a deep understanding of American history and culture. --David Hastings Dunn, Political Studies Review I have long suspected our nation's triumphs and trials owed much to the American genius for solipsism and self-deception. Bacevich has convinced me of it by holding up a mirror to self-styled idealists and realists alike. Read all the books you want about the post-Cold War, post-9/11 world, just be sure American Empire is one of them. --Walter A. McDougall, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, University of Pennsylvania This deeply informed, impressive polemical book is precisely what Americans, in and outside of the academy, needed before 9/11 and need now even more. Crisp, lively, biting prose will help them enjoy it. Among its many themes are hubris, hegemony, and the fatuousness of claims by the American military that they can now achieve 'transparency' in war-making. --Michael S. Sherry, Northwestern University The United States could not possibly have an empire, Americans think. But we do. And with verve and telling insight Andrew Bacevich shows how it works and what it means. --Ronald Steel, author of Temptations of a Superpower: America's Foreign Policy after the Cold War
Download or read book American Empire written by Christopher Layne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-11-06 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this short, accessible book Layne and Thayer argue the merits and demerits of an American empire. With few, if any, rivals to its supremacy, the United States has made an explicit commitment to maintaining and advancing its primacy in the world. But what exactly are the benefits of American hegemony and what are the costs and drawbacks for this fledgling empire? After making their best cases for and against an American empire, subsequent chapters allow both authors to respond to the major arguments presented by their opponents and present their own counter arguments.
Download or read book Crossing Zero written by Elizabeth Gould and published by City Lights Publishers. This book was released on 2011-02-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cutting-edge analysis of the AfPak war involving Russia, India, China, and Iran, emphasizing US strategy and the people implementing it.
Download or read book 9 11 and the War on Terror written by David Holloway and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2008-05-19 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary study of how 9/11 and the 'war on terror' were represented during the Bush era, shows how culture often functioned as a vital resource, for citizens attempting to make sense of momentous historical events that frequently seemed beyond their influence or control.Illustrated throughout, the book discusses representation of 9/11 and the war on terror in Hollywood film, the 9/11 novel, mass media, visual art and photography, political discourse, and revisionist historical accounts of American 'empire,' between the September 11 attacks and the Congressional midterm elections in 2006. As well as prompting an international security crisis, and a crisis in international governance and law, David Holloway suggests the culture of the time also points to a 'crisis' unfolding in the institutions and processes of republican democracy in the United States. His book offers a cultural and ideological history of the period.
Download or read book Masters of War written by Carl Boggs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few United States citizens conceive of their country as an empire, but, as the contributors to Masters of War convincingly argue, the U.S. legacy of military power runs long and deep. Often mobilized in the name of spreading democracy, maintaining international order, and creating the conditions for economic self-determination, constantly expanding global U.S. military power is difficult to characterize as anything but an imperialism bent on global domination. However, at the same time that the U.S. government hawks rhetoric of human rights and national sovereignty, its dominion has begun breeding widespread resistance and opposition likely to make the twenty-first century an era marked by sustained, and generally unanticipated, blowback. Presenting a wide range of essays by some of the anti-war movement's most vocal and incisive critics, Masters of War reminds us that worldwide economic and military dominance has its price, both globally and domestically.
Download or read book The American Military After 9 11 written by M. Morgan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-02-04 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the intense mobilization of American society in the Global War on Terrorism coupled with trends in progress before 9/11. With its focus on maximizing civilian casualties, terrorism has been uniquely able to arouse the popular emotion and make us rethink the use of military force.
Download or read book From Berlin to Baghdad written by Hal Brands and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On November 9, 1989, a mob of jubilant Berliners dismantled the wall that had divided their city for nearly forty years; this act of destruction anticipated the momentous demolition of the European communist system. Within two years, the nations of the former Eastern Bloc toppled their authoritarian regimes, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist, fading quietly into the shadows of twentieth century history and memory. By the end of 1991, the United States and other Western nations celebrated the demise of their most feared enemy and reveled in the ideological vindication of capitalism and liberal democracy. As author Hal Brands compellingly demonstrates, however, many American diplomats and politicians viewed the fall of the Soviet empire as a mixed blessing. For more than four decades, containment of communism provided the overriding goal of American foreign policy, allowing generations of political leaders to build domestic consensus on this steady, reliable foundation. From Berlin to Baghdad incisively dissects the numerous unsuccessful attempts to devise a new grand foreign policy strategy that could match the moral clarity and political efficacy of containment. Brands takes a fresh look at the key events and players in recent American history. In the 1990s, George H. W. Bush envisioned the United States as the guardian of a "new world order," and the Clinton administration sought the "enlargement" of America's political and economic influence. However, both presidents eventually came to accept, albeit grudgingly, that America's multifaceted roles, responsibilities, and objectives could not be reduced to a single fundamental principle. During the early years of the George W. Bush administration, it appeared that the tragedies of 9/11 and the subsequent "war on terror" would provide the organizing principle lacking in U.S. foreign policy since the containment of communism became an outdated notion. For a time, most Americans were united in support of Bush's foreign policies and the military incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq. As the swift invasions became grinding occupations, however, popular support for Bush's policies waned, and the rubric of the war on terror lost much of its political and rhetorical cachet. From Berlin to Baghdad charts the often onerous course of recent American foreign policy, from the triumph of the fall of the Berlin Wall to the tragedies of 9/11 and beyond, analyzing the nation's search for purpose in the face of the daunting complexities of the post--Cold War world.
Download or read book Pox Americana exposing the American empire written by John Bellamy Foster and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume gathers the work of leading left-wing analysts of imperialism to examine the burning question of our time - the nature and prospects of the US imperial project currently being given shape by war and occupation in the Middle East.Noam Chomsky, Immanuel Wallerstein, Peter Gowen and others discuss the dynamics at work behind the 'War on Terrorism'. Their analyses locate recent developments within a longer historical arc, and set out the central questions for research and debate: is US unilateralism and militarism a sign of the increasing strength of the world's only remaining superpower? Or a desperate response to the erosion of the strategy it developed for ensuring its leadership over the advanced capitalist world during the Cold War? Essays by Barbara Epstein, Amlya Kumar Bagchi and others also examine the prospects for the resistance to imperialism in the United States and globally.
Download or read book Frustrated Empire written by David Ryan and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2007-08-20 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential critique of the world of the 21st century, moving from the Cold War to the present
Download or read book The Long War written by Andrew J. Bacevich and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-22 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays by a diverse and distinguished group of historians, political scientists, and sociologists examine the alarms, emergencies, controversies, and confusions that have characterized America's Cold War, the post-Cold War interval of the 1990s, and today's "Global War on Terror." The developments of this "Long War" have left their imprint on virtually every aspect of American life, and by considering the period as a whole, this volume is the first to take a truly comprehensive look at America's response to the national-security crisis touched off by the events of World War II. Contributors consider topics ranging from grand strategy and strategic bombing to ideology and economics, and assess the changing American way of war as the twentieth century progressed. They evaluate the evolution of the national-security apparatus and the role of dissenters who viewed the activities of that apparatus with dismay, and they take a fresh look at the Long War's civic implications and its impact on civil-military relations. More than a military history, The Long War examines the ideas, policies, and institutions that have taken shape since the United States claimed the role of global superpower. In breaking down the old and artificial boundaries that have traditionally divided the postwar period into neat historical units, this volume offers fresh perspectives on the current state of American national security.
Download or read book Highjacking Catastrophe written by Sut Jhally and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire is a riveting collection of 28 interviews with leading political thinkers that shows how the Bush administration has used the trauma of 9/11 and the war on terrorism to advance a radical and longstanding neo-conservative plan for global geopolitical domination. At the same time, it will clarify the ideological vision that has driven US international and domestic policy since 9/11, and will examine the political strategies that have been used to sell this ideological vision to the American public and to the world.
Download or read book America Embattled written by Richard Crockatt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What causes Anti- Americanism and where are its historical roots? What is the impact of 9/11 on America's sense of itself and its role in the world? Is America paradoxically a victim of its own political and economic power? This book seeks to understand the terrible attacks of September 11th within a broader historical, political and ideological context. Rather than drawing on simple 'clash of civilisation' oppositions, the author argues that it is important to have an awareness of the complex historical processes which influence: America's sense of itself and its changing view of the world How the world, especially the Muslim world, views America The changing nature of international politics and the global system since the end of the cold war. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary and historical sources Richard Crockatt has written a balanced, subtle and highly readable book which provides genuine insight into American foreign policy, anti-Americanism and Islamic fundamentalism. It will be important reading for all those seeking to understand the background to the 'war on terror'.
Download or read book Fear s Empire War Terrorism and Democracy written by Benjamin R. Barber and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-10-17 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fear's Empire lays the foundation for a principled opposition based on America's truest and best values."--Senator Gary Hart The author of Jihad vs. McWorld analyzes how American foreign policy has gone wrongand how it could go right. In this hard-hitting but pragmatic new critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy, Benjamin R. Barber exposes in detail the folly of an agenda of preventive war, placing it in the context of two hundred years of American strategic doctrine (including the recent history of deterrence and containment). He shows how chosen "rogue states" have been made to stand in for terrorists too difficult to locate and destroy, and how the United States continues to support dictatorship in nations it regards as friends, while still believing we can impose democracy on vanquished enemies at the barrel of a gun. Barber argues for an America that promotes cooperation, multilateralism, international law, and pooled sovereignty. For as law and citizenship alone secure liberty within nations, law and citizenship alone can secure liberty among them, freeing them from fear.
Download or read book A Question of Torture written by Alfred McCoy and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A startling exposé of the CIA's development and spread of psychological torture, from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and beyond In this revelatory account of the CIA's secret, fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy uncovers the deep, disturbing roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Far from aberrations, as the White House has claimed, A Question of Torture shows that these abuses are the product of a long-standing covert program of interrogation. Developed at the cost of billions of dollars, the CIA's method combined "sensory deprivation" and "self-inflicted pain" to create a revolutionary psychological approach—the first innovation in torture in centuries. The simple techniques—involving isolation, hooding, hours of standing, extremes of hot and cold, and manipulation of time—constitute an all-out assault on the victim's senses, destroying the basis of personal identity. McCoy follows the years of research—which, he reveals, compromised universities and the U.S. Army—and the method's dissemination, from Vietnam through Iran to Central America. He traces how after 9/11 torture became Washington's weapon of choice in both the CIA's global prisons and in "torture-friendly" countries to which detainees are dispatched. Finally McCoy argues that information extracted by coercion is worthless, making a case for the legal approach favored by the FBI. Scrupulously documented and grippingly told, A Question of Torture is a devastating indictment of inhumane practices that have spread throughout the intelligence system, damaging American's laws, military, and international standing.
