New Books in National Security

A decade and a half of exhausting wars, punishing economic setbacks, and fast-rising rivals has called into question America’s fundamental position and purpose in world politics. Will the US continue to be the only superpower in the international system? Should it continue advancing the world-shaping grand strategy it has followed since the dawn of the Cold War? Or should it “come home” and focus on its internal problems? The recent resurgence of isolationist impulses has made the politics surrounding these questions increasingly bitter. In America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 2016), Stephen G. Brooks (Dartmouth College) and William C. Wohlforth (Dartmouth College) take stock of these debates and provide a powerful defense of American globalism. They stress that world politics since end of World War Two has been shaped by two constants: America’s position as the most powerful state, and its strategic choice to be deeply engaged in the world. Ever since, the US has advanced its interests by pursuing three core objectives: reducing threats by managing the security environment in key regions; promoting a liberal economic order to expand global and domestic prosperity; and sustaining the network of global institutions on terms favorable to US interests. While there have been some periodic policy failures, America’s overall record is astounding. But how would America’s interests fare if the United States chose to disengage from the world and reduce its footprint overseas? Their answer is clear: retrenchment would put core US security and economic interests at risk. And because America’s sole superpower status will long endure, the US will not be forced to turn inward. While America should remain globally engaged, it also has to focus primarily on its core interests: reducing great power rivalry and security competition in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East; fostering economic globalization; and supporting a multilateral institutional system that advances US interests. Pursuing objectives beyond this core runs the risk of overextension. A bracing rejoinder to the critics of American globalism, America Abroad is a powerful reminder that a robust American presence is crucial for maintaining world order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

It can be tempting to generalize certain attributes of schools as either being good or bad. Magnet and charter schools are often characterized as being inherently good. They usually offer special programs that ground all of their instruction. Having that choice is appealing to many families, and why not? Someone must have put a lot of thought into creating that special program, convincing stakeholders to open a school, and persuading teachers to build their curriculum around the program often times forgoing a higher salary at another school. With the neighborhood school, it seems like had to be there, and there is not anything special” about it that ties it together, except maybe geography. How is it supposed to compete with International Baccalaureate or STEM or performing arts? These things seem to give school a purpose. But what if the special program is something unexpected, perhaps something with a bit more baggage? How do geography, industry, and what our society expects from students influence the special programs made available to them? Are there any school lotteries you would think twice about before entering your child? In A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in US Public Schools (University of Minnesota Press, 2016), Nicole Nguyen, provides an ethnography of a public high school that responded to calls for reform by adopting homeland security as its primary focus and lens for all other classes. She explores the history of militarization in schools, its impact on students, and the intersection of ethics and personal politics. Nguyen joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with her via email at nguyenn@uic.edu. Trevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at info@trevormattea.com or on Twitter @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

As evidenced by many of the conversations featured on this podcast, scholarship on the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands composes a significant and influential genre within the field of U.S. Western History and Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies. Geographically rooted in the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, or Greater Mexico, publications in this subfield explore a broad range of themes including: migration and labor, citizenship and race, culture and identity formation, gender and sexuality, politics and social justice, just to name a few. This episode features a conversation with two historians of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Kelly Lytle Hernandez, author of Migra!: A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (UC Press, 2010), and John Mckiernan Gonzalez, author of Fevered Measures: Public Health and Race at the Texas-Mexico Border, 1848-1942 (Duke University Press, 2012). My discussion with Kelly and John focuses on their exemplary scholarship to explore how historians conceptualize, investigate, and explain the history of the U.S.-Mexico Border region. In particular, we discuss how the U.S.-Mexico border exists in the minds of policy makers, bureaucrats, low level officials, businessmen and the public at large, as more than a fixed political boundary. Indeed, competing notions of who and what the border is supposed to control has historically shaped ideas about race, public policy, and law enforcement practices throughout the U.S.-Mexico border region. In addition to their existing work, we discuss their forthcoming publications which signal exciting new directions in the field of Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies and U.S. History in general. This conversation was recorded during a session of the 109th annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association held earlier this month in Kona, Hawaii. David-James Gonzales (DJ) is a Doctoral Candidate in History at the University of Southern California. He is a historian of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, Civil Rights, and Latino Identity & Politics. DJs dissertation examines the influence of Mexican American civic engagement and political activism on the metropolitan development of Orange County, CA from 1930 to 1965. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

While the world’s attention is focused on the nuclearization of North Korea and Iran and the nuclear brinkmanship between India and Pakistan, China is believed to have doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal, making it the forgotten nuclear power, as described in Foreign Affairs. Susan Turner Haynes (Professor of Political Science, Lipscomb University) analyzes China’s buildup and its diversification of increasingly mobile, precise, and sophisticated nuclear weapons in her new book Chinese Nuclear Proliferation: How Global Politics is Transforming China’s Weapons Buildup and Modernization (Potomac Books, 2016) . Haynes provides context and clarity on this complex global issue through an analysis of extensive primary source research and lends insight into questions about why China is the only nuclear weapon state recognized under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that continues to pursue qualitative and quantitative advancements to its nuclear force. As the gap between China’s nuclear force and the forces of the nuclear superpowers narrows against the expressed interest of many nuclear and non-nuclear states, Chinese Nuclear Proliferation offers policy prescriptions to curtail China’s nuclear growth and to assuage fears that the “American world order” presents a direct threat to China’s national security. Presenting technical concepts with minimal jargon in a straightforward style, this book will be of use to casual China watchers and military experts alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Lance deHaven-Smith‘s Conspiracy Theory in America (University of Texas Press, 2014) investigates how the Founders’ hard-nosed realism about the likelihood of elite political misconduct articulated in the Declaration of Independence has been replaced by today’s blanket condemnation of conspiracy beliefs as ludicrous by definition. Lance deHaven-Smith reveals that the term “conspiracy theory” entered the American lexicon of political speech to deflect criticism of the Warren Commission and traces it back to a CIA propaganda campaign to discredit doubters of the commissions report. For this NBN interview, Lance and Jasun discuss the book and the wider implications of what Lance calls State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD), cultural engineering, and how, when the ruling elite move, they create their own reality. Lance deHaven-Smith is Professor in the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. A former President of the Florida Political Science Association, deHaven-Smith is the author of more than a dozen books, including The Battle for Florida, which analyzes the disputed 2000 presidential election. Jasun Horsley is the author of Seen & Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist and several other books on “extra-consensual perceptions.” He has a weekly podcast called The Liminalist: The Podcast Between and a blog. For more info, go to http://auticulture.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

In The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of American Jews (Princeton University Press, 2016), Michael Barnett, University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at the George Washington University, explores the tension American Jews have felt between cosmopolitanism and tribalism in their approach to global affairs. Barnett explains how American Jews’ desire for inclusiveness and group survival forms a political theology of prophetic Judaism, which has guided the foreign policies of American Jews for over a century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Ho-fung Hung‘s new book has two main goals: to to outline the historical origins of Chinas capitalist boom and the social and political formations in the 1980s that gave rise to this boom, and to explore the global effects of Chinas capitalist boom and the limit of that boom. In doing so, The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World (Columbia UP, 2016) offers a timely and provocative account of the emergence and transformations of capitalism in modern China, and of the consequences of its entanglements with the rest of the world for the global political economy. In addition to an in-depth assessment of the Chinese economy, readers will find fascinating discussions of Chinas relations with Africa and Latin America, as well as some thoughtful comparative considerations. Hung’s book traces the rise of capitalism in China from the seventeenth century through today, and uses this historical grounding to point to possible futures. The China boom, Hung maintains, is destined to collapse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

In Dying to Forget: Oil, Power, Palestine, and the Foundations of U.S. Policy in the Middle East (Columbia University Press, 2015), Irene L. Gendzier, Professor Emerita in the Department of Political Science at Boston University, examines new evidence of the role of oil politics in the founding of U.S. policy towards Israel. Gendzier discusses and contextualizes the response of U.S, policy makers to the Holocaust and the plight of European Jewish refugees, and also provides a nuanced account of the role of the American Zionist movement. This book brings a new perspective on the origins of issues that are still very much with us today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Since its coinage in mid-19th century Germany, Realpolitik has proven both elusive and protean. To some, it represents the best approach to meaningful change and political stability in a world buffeted by uncertainty and rapid transformation. To others, it encapsulates an attitude of cynicism and cold calculation, a transparent and self-justifying policy exercised by dominant nations over weaker. Remolded across generations and repurposed to its political and ideological moment, Realpolitik remains a touchstone for discussion about statecraft and diplomacy. It is a freighted concept. The historian John Bew (King’s College London) explores the genesis of Realpolitik in his new book Realpolitik: A History (Oxford University Press, 2015). Besides tracing its longstanding and enduring relevance in political and foreign policy debates, Bew uncovers the context that gave birth to Realpolitik–that of the fervor of radical change in 1848 in Europe. He also explains its application in the conduct of foreign policy from the days of Bismarck onward. Bew is especially adept at illuminating its translation from German into English, one that reveals the uniquely Anglo-American version of realpolitik-small “r” being practiced today–a modern iteration that attempts to reconcile idealism with the pursuit of national interests. Lively, encyclopedic, and utterly original, Realpolitik illuminates the life and times of a term that has shaped and will continue to shape international relations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

When former Mexican president Lazaro Cardenas traveled to Havana in 1959 to celebrate the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Fidel Castro in front of a crowd of thousands, providing the early sketches of an image of unquestioned Mexican support for revolutionary Cuba that would persist over the next few decades. Mexico was the only country in the Western Hemisphere that defied the United States and refused to break off relations with Castro’s government, and successive presidential administrations in Mexico cited their own country’s revolutionary legacy in their enduring professions of support. But the story told in Renata Keller‘s fascinating new book, Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2015) paints a rather more complicated story: one in which leaders in all three countries craft official public narratives contradicted by their actions behind-the-scenes, and one in which the optics of foreign policy are undercut by the realities of domestic politics. Using now-restricted Mexican security files, US government documents, and Cuban Foreign Ministry sources, Mexico’s Cold War details how the Cuban Revolution reverberated within Mexico to produce an often contradictory and frequently repressive politics that ultimately resulted in an internal dirty war–one that has parallels in the Mexico of today. Renata Keller is an Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, where she teaches classes on Latin American politics and US-Latin American relations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security