New Books in National Security

Americans since the beginning of their history, have constantly made moral judgments about presidents and foreign policy. Unfortunately, many of these assessments are poorly thought through and assessed. An American President is either praised for the moral clarity of his statements or judged solely on the results of their actions.In Do Morals Matter?: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump (Oxford UP, 2020), Joseph S. Nye, Jr., one of the world's leading scholars of international relations, as well as someone who has served in prominent positions in both the Carter and the Clinton Administrations provides a concise yet penetrating analysis of the role of ethics in American foreign policy during the post 1945 era. Nye works through each presidency from FDR to Trump and scores their foreign policy on three ethical dimensions of their intentions, the means they used, and the consequences of their decisions. Alongside this, he also evaluates their leadership qualities, elaborating on which approaches work and which ones do not. Regardless of a president's policy preference, Nye shows that each one was not fully constrained by the structure of the system and actually had choices. He further notes the important ethical consequences of non-actions, such as Truman's willingness to accept stalemate in Korea rather than use nuclear weapons.Since we so often apply moral reasoning to foreign policy, Nye suggests how to do it better. Most importantly, presidents need to factor in both the political context and the availability of resources when deciding how to implement an ethical policy-especially in a future international system that presents not only great power competition from China and Russia, but a host of novel transnational threats: the illegal drug trade, infectious diseases, terrorism, cybercrime, and climate change.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for Chatham House’s International Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

The former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt grew up as a devout Anglophile, yet he clashed heavily and repeatedly with his British counterparts Wilson, Callaghan, and Thatcher during his time in office between 1974 and 1982. Helmut Schmidt and British-German Relations: A European Misunderstanding (Cambridge University Press, 2019) looks at Schmidt's personal experience to explore how and why Britain and Germany rarely saw eye to eye over European integration, uncovering the two countries' deeply competing visions and incompatible strategies for post-war Europe. But it also zooms out to reveal the remarkable extent of simultaneous British-German cooperation in fostering joint European interests on the wider international stage, not least within the transatlantic alliance against the background of a worsening superpower relationship. By connecting these two key areas of bilateral cooperation, Mathias Haeussler of the University of Regensburg offers a major revisionist reinterpretation of Anglo-German bilateral relationship under Schmidt, relevant to anybody interested in British-German relations, European integration, and the Cold War.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for Chatham House’s International Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Is a rising power – like China – a threat to the world order? The conventional wisdom in international relations says that power transitions – particularly increases in military power – are intrinsically destabilizing to the international order. In her new book The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations: Status, Revisionism, and Rising Powers (Oxford UP, 2020), Michelle Murray counters that political actors and scholars of politics should focus on how the actions of rising powers are interpreted or perceived by other nations. Murray encourages us to see power transitions as struggles for recognition: social constructs aimed at forming identities. Social uncertainty shapes the struggle for recognition – especially misrecognition by other nations.Murray contrasts two case studies – Germany’s naval build-up before WWI and the United States’s expansion of power after the Spanish-American War of 1898 – to argue that military capabilities do not adequately account for why Germany was viewed as a threat by European powers but the United States was welcomed by Great Britain as a friendly power. Murray looks at the ways in which establishing and maintaining identity is uncertain because these identities are unpredictably perceived (or mis-perceived) by other powers. Her research explores the many ways in which states navigate identity formation under conditions of anarchy. The podcast includes interesting reflections on how China’s identity – as an ally or threat – might be shaped in the future.Susan Liebell is associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She is the author of Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution: Science for Citizenship (Routledge, 2013). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Sarah Burns’ new book The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism (University Press of Kansas, 2020) pulls together distinct threads in analyzing the theoretical framing of presidential power in the American constitutional system and then tracing that power through forty-five presidents. Burns begins by assessing Locke’s impact on the constitutional design of the presidency and then turning her attention to the more substantial contributions made by Montesquieu, since Montesquieu had an equally sizeable impact on the Founders and their thinking about this office. There were great tensions at the time of the Founding about the powers that the president has in pursuing war and military engagements. The Politics of War Powers pays close attention to the distinctions made in the Constitution between the role of the legislature in declaring war, and the role of the president in prosecuting war. This is the foundation for Burns’ analysis of presidential implementation of these powers over the course of more than 200 years, and she carefully examines these theoretical foundations, devoting the first third of The Politics of War Powers to unpacking and discussing the competing views of this important and, at times, suspect, power.Following from this theoretical basis, The Politics of War Powers dives into deeply researched explorations of not only the presidents themselves and how they thought about and used their war powers, but also how and where Congress acted and responded. This dimension of the analysis is particularly important to consider, and Burns sketches the ways in which the early Congress exerted its authority and constitutional role in regard to war and the war powers embedded in the Constitution. She then goes on to explore the tension between the executive and the legislature over the course of a number of military engagements that pressed on these competing capacities. The final section of the book outlines the ways in which presidential war powers have grown substantially and the legal reasoning that has grown up around these powers as Congress has stepped back from its own role in regard to war powers. In many ways, The Politics of War Powers is as much about congressional engagement or abdication in its constitutional role as it is about the expansion of presidential power. The delicate balance between the branches has shifted rather substantially, according to Burns’ analysis, and The Politics of War Powers draws out the ways in which this balance has shifted over the course of American history and political development.Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

America's war on terror is widely defined by the Afghanistan and Iraq fronts. Yet, as this book demonstrates, both the international campaign and the new ways of fighting that grew out of it played out across multiple fronts beyond the Middle East. Maria Ryan explores how secondary fronts in the Philippines, sub-Saharan Africa, Georgia, and the Caspian Sea Basin became key test sites for developing what the Department of Defense called "full spectrum dominance": mastery across the entire range of possible conflict, from conventional through irregular warfare.Full Spectrum Dominance: Irregular Warfare and the War on Terror (Stanford University Press, 2019) is the first sustained historical examination of the secondary fronts in the war on terror. It explores whether irregular warfare has been effective in creating global stability or if new terrorist groups have emerged in response to the intervention. As the U.S. military, Department of Defense, White House, and State Department have increasingly turned to irregular capabilities and objectives, understanding the underlying causes as well as the effects of the quest for full spectrum dominance become ever more important. The development of irregular strategies has left a deeply ambiguous and concerning global legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

The Baltics are about to be thrust onto the world stage. With a 'belligerent' Vladimir Putin to their east (and 'expansionist' NATO to their west), Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are increasingly the subject of unsettling headlines in both Western and Russian media. But how real are these fears, subject as they are to media embellishment, qualification and denial by both Russia and the West? What do they mean for those living in the Baltics - and for the world?In The Shadow in the East: Vladimir Putin and the New Baltic Front (I. B. Tauris, 2020), Aliide Naylor takes us inside the geopoltitics of the region. Travelling to the heart of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania she explores modernity in the region that birthed Skype, investigates smuggling and reports of troop movements in the borderlands, and explains the countries' unique cultural identities. Naylor tells us why the Baltics matter, arguing persuasively that this region is about to become the new frontline in the political struggle between East and West.Aliide Naylor is a freelance journalist focusing on Russia and eastern Europe, her writing has appeared in The Guardian, New Statesman, POLITICO Europe, frieze, Vice, among others. Naylor has travelled to all corners of the Baltic states and has also lived in both St. Petersburg and Moscow, where she served as Arts Editor at The Moscow Times.Steven Seegel is professor of history at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Phillipa Chong, assistant professor in sociology at McMaster University, provides a unique sociological analysis of how critics confront the different types of uncertainty associated with their practice. The book explores how reviewers get matched to books, the ethics and etiquette of negative reviews and ‘punching up’, along with professional identities and the future of criticism. The book is packed with interview material, coupled with accessible and easy to follow theoretical interventions, creating a text that will be of interest to social sciences, humanities, and general readers alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

With the world’s attention riveted to the nuclear threat from Iran, Yaakov Katz’s new book could not be more timely. In Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power (St. Martin's Press, 2019), Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Katz tells the inside story of how Israel stopped Syria from becoming a global nuclear nightmare.On September 6, 2007, shortly after midnight, Israeli fighters advanced on Deir ez-Zour in Syria. Although Israel often flew into Syria as a warning to President Bashar al-Assad, this time there was no warning and no explanation. This was a covert operation, with one goal: to destroy a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea under a tight veil of secrecy in the Syrian desert.From the “you are there” opening scene, the book is both a page-turner and robust journalism. Katz takes the reader on a complex journey through politics and personalities, intelligence, diplomacy and most of all, courage that led to the successful deterrence of an existential threat.Renee Garfinkel is a psychologist, writer, and Middle East commentator for the nationally syndicated TV program, The Armstrong Williams Show.. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com or tweet @embracingwisdom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

The Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence was one of the last crises of formal imperialism. British settlers in present-day Zimbabwe, then known as Rhodesia, refused to accept demands from London that they accept requirements for majority rule before they could receive independence. In 1965, they declared independence and attempted to establish their own state that would preserve white minority rule indefinitely. For the next fifteen years, the Rhodesian government fought to win international acceptance and stabilize its own internal affairs. While the country remained a pariah state internationally, it won friends and supporters as well. Meanwhile, the ongoing resentment over the denial of economic and political rights for the country’s black majority soon spiraled into a guerilla war, one that threatened to drag in the Soviet Union.Eddie Michel’s The White House and White Africa: Presidential Policy Toward Rhodesia During the UDI Era, 1965-1979 (Routledge, 2018) examines the complicated relationship between the United States and Rhodesia. Michel charts the complicated course that successive presidential administrations navigated, particularly in terms of bolstering support for the white minority government or inflaming the country’s civil war into a broader regional conflict. Michel also makes clear the differences between different administration, noting for example the quiet support provided to Salisbury by the Nixon Administration. Ultimately, the White House under Carter played an important role in the negotiations that ended the civil war and white minority rule, allowing an independent Zimbabwe to come into existence in 1980.Zeb Larson is a recent graduate of The Ohio State University with a PhD in History. His research deals with the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. To suggest a recent title or to contact him, please send an e-mail to zeb.larson@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years working on a PhD, or if you’re a faculty member whose career has basically consisted of higher ed, switching isn’t so easy. PhD holders are mostly trained to work as professors, and making easy connections to other careers is no mean feat. Because the people you know were generally trained to do the same sorts of things, an easy source of advice might not be there for you.Thankfully, for anybody who wishes there was a guidebook that would just break all of this down, that book has now been written. Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers (Stylus Publishing, 2020) by Kathryn E. Linder, Kevin Kelly, and Thomas J. Tobin offers practical advice and step-by-step instructions on how to decide if you want to leave behind academia and how to start searching for a new career. If a lot of career advice is too vague or too ambiguous, this book corrects that by outlining not just how to figure out what you might want to do, but critically, how you might go about accomplishing that.Zeb Larson is a recent graduate of The Ohio State University with a PhD in History. His research deals with the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. To suggest a recent title or to contact him, please send an e-mail to zeb.larson@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security