New Books In National Security

If you ask most Americans when the U.S. became heavily involved in the Persian Gulf, they might cite the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1981 or, more probably, the First Gulf War of 1990. Of course the roots of American entanglement in the region run much deeper, as W. Taylor Fain shows in his excellent new book American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008). Beginning in the 18th century, the British began to do in the Gulf what the British did in those days: build their empire. British dominance in the region lasted as long as Britain did as a Great Power, that is, until about 1945. At that point, a power vacuum of sorts developed. What is perhaps most interesting about Fain’s book is that the U.S.–which had had strong commercial ties to several Gulf states for decades–was not terribly eager to get politically involved. Britain had significant military assets in the region; the U.S. did not. Britain needed the oil; the U.S. at that time did not. Br

It’s one thing to say that the study of history is “relevant” to contemporary problems; it’s another to demonstrate it. In How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns(Princeton UP, 2009), Audrey Kurth Cronin does so in splendid fashion. She poses a common and very important question: what should we do about modern terrorism in general and Al-Qaeda in particular? To answer this query, she poses another (and quite original) question: how do terrorist campaigns usually end? The logic is simple and compelling: if we want to stop a terrorist campaign, we would do well to understand how terrorist campaigns generally stop. To do this, she reviews the history of modern terrorist campaigns, analyses the means by which they ended, and then presents an original typology of endings. With said typology, she can tell us what works in terms of anti-terrorism and what doesn’t in what circumstances. For example, her research shows that “decapitating”

I met George Kennan twice, once in 1982 and again in about 1998. On both occasions, I found him tough to read. He was a very dignified man–I want to write “correct”–but also quite distant, even cerebral. Now that I’ve read Nicholas Thompson‘s very writerly and engaging The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War (Henry Holt, 2010) I can see that my impressions were largely correct. He was distant, cerebral, and, well, a bit hard to read. Not so the other protagonist in Thompson’s tale of two key personalities of the Cold War. Paul Nitze–who was Thompson’s grandfather–was a sort of “hail fellow well met,” the kind of backslapping, can-do guy that Americans like to think characterizes the “American Spirit.” Thompson skillfully weaves Kennan’s ying and Nitze’s yang into the story of America’s long struggle to come to terms with the Soviet Union and its “ambitions”

Historians are by their nature public intellectuals because they are intellectuals who write about, well, the public. Alas, many historians seem to forget the “public” part and concentrate on the “intellectual” part. Our guest today–sponsored by the National History Center–is not among them. Julian Zelizer has used his historical research and writing to inform the public and public debate in a great variety of fora: magazines, newspapers, online outlets, radio, TV–and now New Books in History. Today we’ll be talking about his efforts to bring the historian’s voice to the public and his most recent book Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security From WWII to the War on Terrorism (Basic Books, 2010) (which itself is a contribution to that effort). The book proves that in the U.S. politics does not “stop at the water’s edge”–not now, not ever. From the very beginning of the Republic, American foreign policy has been inform

Gordon Brown, the British PM, came calling to Washington recently. He jumped the pond, of course, to have a chat with his new counterpart, President Barack Obama. They had a lot to talk about, what with the world economy melting down, the Afghan War heating up, and Iraq coming apart. But he had another purpose as well. In his speech before Congress Mr. Brown intoned: “Madam Speaker, Mr Vice-President, I come in friendship to renew, for new times, our special relationship founded upon our shared history, our shared values and, I believe, our shared futures.” The “special relationship,” that’s what Churchill called it and every PM and President since has followed his lead. But what exactly is “special relationship,” and how has it and does it impact British and American politics and policy? The answer is found in Robert Hendershot’s insightful new book Family Spats: Perception, Illusion and Sentimentality in the Anglo-American Special Relationship (VDM Verlag, 200