War Diplomacy

First published in the early days of the Iraq War, Why Are We at War? is an explosive argument about the American quest for empire that still carries weight today. Scrutinizing the Bush administration's words and actions, Mailer unleashes his trademark moral rigor: "Because democracy is noble, it is always endangered.... To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad."

An insightful historical account, Democrat and Diplomat exposes the dark underbelly of 1930s Germany and explores the terrible burden of those who realized the horror that was to come. Dodd was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937, arriving in Berlin with his wife and daughter just as Hitler assumed the chancellorship. An unlikely candidate for the job - and not President Roosevelt's first choice - Dodd quickly came to realize that the situation in Germany was far grimmer than was understood in America.

The world watched with fear in November 1979, when Iranian students infiltrated and occupied the American embassy in Tehran. The Americans were caught entirely by surprise, and what began as a swift and seemingly short-lived takeover evolved into a crisis that would see 54 embassy personnel held hostage, most for 444 days. As Tehran exploded in a fury of revolution, six American diplomats secretly escaped.

Isolated, resources limited, unequally divided, trade partners few, both nations on Galbouroth struggle. Caught in the political feud between neighboring civilizations, Doctor Keellar and Captain Dellerron navigate the delicate balance of power to prevent global war. Meanwhile, the lives of two cousins are turned upside down. When their small colony is officially absorbed into the Imperium, they receive military conscription notices as part of the initial levy.

With a historian's eye and a theorist's ingenuity, Michael Doyle, whose writings on liberal peace have revolutionized modern statesmanship, cogently assesses the tectonic shifts threatening a global order that has held for more than seventy years. As tensions among China, Russia, and the US escalate perilously toward a new Cold War, Doyle introduces a radical paradigm that will facilitate the international cooperation necessary to avert the global threats of our time.

The American war in Vietnam was concluded in 1973 after eight years of fighting, bloodshed, and loss. Yet the terms of the truce that ended the war were effectively identical to what had been offered to the Nixon administration four years earlier. Those four years cost America and Vietnam thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and they were the direct result of the supposed master plan of the most important voice in American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger.

How are the wars in Palestine and Ukraine connected? Is it possible to support one occupied nation without supporting the other? The Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the people of Ukraine have much in common, now and historically. Both are resisting invasions, mass repression, and war crimes. Biden supported Ukraine’s resistance but is now backing Israel with the widely criticized 'Blank Check' policy, one hundred percent. Similarly, President Zelensky has repeatedly expressed 'unconditional support' for the Israeli apartheid state. The Hamas raid was criminal, and despicable, and ...

As a National Public Radio reporter covering the last stand of the Taliban in Afghanistan's southern borderland, Sarah Chayes became deeply immersed in the attempt to rebuild a broken nation. With her NPR assignment finished in early 2002, she left reporting to help turn around the country's fortunes, accepting a job running a nonprofit founded by President Hamid Karzai's brother. With remarkable access to leading players in the postwar government, Chayes witnessed a tragic, perverse turn of events.

After human and Maltaani forces cooperated to rescue the hostages being held by slavers on the icy planet of Menard-Kev, leaders on both sides agreed that peace between the races was desirable. A treaty was signed, and embassies were established.

In Battlegrounds, best-selling author, commander, scholar and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster examines the rising strength of Russia and China, the threat from hostile states Iran and North Korea, the complex battlegrounds in South Asia and the Middle East, and the new arenas of international competition - space, cyberspace and emerging technology. How can foreign policy, which has across multiple administrations proved itself outdated, misconceived, inconsistent and poorly implemented, be transformed to face the challenges of today?

In The Triumph of Improvisation, James Graham Wilson takes a long view of the end of the Cold War, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 to Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. Drawing on deep archival research and recently declassified papers, Wilson argues that adaptation, improvisation, and engagement by individuals in positions of power ended the specter of a nuclear holocaust.

In the watershed year of 1919, world leaders met in Paris, promising to build a new international order rooted in democracy and social justice. Female activists demanded that statesmen live up to their word. Excluded from the negotiating table, women met separately, crafted their own agendas, and captured global headlines with a message that was both straightforward and revolutionary: Enduring peace depended on recognition of the fundamental humanity and equality of all people.

During World War II the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain cemented the alliance that won the war. But the ultimate victory of that partnership has obscured many of the conflicts behind Franklin Roosevelt's grins and Winston Churchill's victory signs. Synthesizing an impressive variety of sources, from memoirs and letters to histories and biographies, Lewis Lehrman explains how the Anglo-American alliance worked - and occasionally did not work - by presenting portraits and case studies of the men who worked the back channels and back rooms.

In The Puzzle Palace, James Bamford revealed the existence of the NSA, the largest, most secretive, and best-financed intelligence organization in the world. In Body of Secrets, he took readers inside the ultra-secret agency, charting its deeds and misdeeds. Now Bamford applies his relentless investigative drive and unparalleled access to intelligence sources to produce a headline-making book about the most pressing issues of the present day.

For the better part of the last half century, the United States has been the world's police, claiming to defend ideologies, allies, and our national security through brute force. But is military action always the most appropriate response? Drawing on his vast experience, retired four-star general Tony Zinni argues that we have a lot of work to do to make the process of going to war-or not-more clear-eyed and ultimately successful.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United States Army became the principal agent of American foreign policy. The army designed, implemented, and administered the occupations of the defeated Axis powers Germany and Japan, as well as many other nations. Generals such as Lucius Clay in Germany, Douglas MacArthur in Japan, Mark Clark in Austria, and John Hodge in Korea presided over these territories as proconsuls.

Engaging the Evil Empire dramatically alters how we look at the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Tracking key events in US-Soviet relations across the years between 1980 and 1985, Simon Miles shows that covert engagement gave way to overt conversation as both superpowers determined that open diplomacy was the best means of furthering their own, primarily competitive, goals.

In the 25 years after 1989, the world enjoyed the deepest peace in history. In The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth, the eminent foreign policy scholar Michael Mandelbaum examines that remarkable quarter century, describing how and why the peace was established and then fell apart. Mandelbaum argues that the widespread peace ended because three major countries put an end to it with aggressive nationalist policies aimed at overturning the prevailing political arrangements in their respective regions.

In a career spanning decades, Mitchell B. Reiss has been at the center of some of America's most sensitive diplomatic negotiations. He is internationally recognized for his negotiation efforts to forge peace in Northern Ireland and to stem the nuclear crisis in North Korea. In Negotiating with Evil, Reiss distills his experience to answer two questions more vital today than ever: Should we talk to terrorists?

Michael Fullilove’s work on global affairs has appeared in major publications such as the New York Times. In Rendezvous with Destiny, Fullilove examines the exceptional men at the heart of America’s transformation into a global power.