New Books in National Security

The violence in Mexico is receiving a lot of media attention internationally. Paul Rexton Kan has produced a book that provides us with a comprehensive and comprehendible introduction to the background to the conflict and its effects. Cartels at War: Mexico’s Drug-Fueled Violence and the Threat to US National Security (Potomac Books, 2012) is a relatively short book packed with detailed information. The book covers the nature of the drug war, the cartels involved, the national and international responses and the effects of this war on the local and international communities. But this is not just a descriptive work. Kan provides us with his recommendations for solutions and predictions about the future of the conflict. In particular, he draws comparisons between treating this as an insurgency and spells out how a counter-terrorist response would not be the correct way to deal with the issue. This is high intensity crime and requires a high intensity policing response. Overall the book is an excellent introduction to the very complex drug war in Mexico, as well as being a source of practical and realistic policy options for addressing a conflict this large. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

In Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the U.S.-Egyptian Alliance (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Jason Brownlee explains the two countries relationship over the past several decades.  From the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty up to the present, Brownlee describes four areas in which the U.S. strengthened Egyptian leaders: national defense, coup proofing, macroeconomic stability, and domestic repression. The book outlines the evolving relationship between Washington and Cairo, from Cold War efforts against the Soviet Union, to working with Egypt in the fight against Islamic terrorism.  Brownlee explains how repeated U.S. rhetoric of spreading democracy and human rights did not always match its actions, and how strategic interests almost always trumped idealistic goals, both in the past, and potentially in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Today we talked to Blake Mobley about his new book Terrorism and Counter-Intelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection (Columbia University Press, 2012). There have been many books examining the intelligence operations of counter-terrorist agencies. Also there are books about how terrorist groups operate. This is a book about how terrorist groups conduct intelligence, specifically counter-intelligence designed to protect themselves from the gaze of the government based counter-terrorist agencies. Blake presents us with a varying set of levels of counter-intelligence sophistication that these groups practice as well as the social, geographic and structural elements that affect the success of these practices. He demonstrates that both these tactics and elements are two edged swords; success in one aspect can create a weakness in another. Blake points out that this is good news for counter-terrorist agencies and recommends that they focus on these weaknesses of the terror groups as a means of disrupting their operations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Today we spoke to Maurice Punch about his new book: State Violence, Collusion and the Troubles: Counter Insurgency, Government Deviance and Northern Ireland (Pluto Press, 2012). The Troubles refers to the conflict in Northern Ireland between the IRA and the British government. The government response to the terrorist attacks involved a broad range of policing, intelligence and military agencies, including the SAS. There are many books about the actions of terrorist groups but this book looks at the actions of the government response. A number of independent inquiries have revealed serious breaches of ethics and even criminal acts by these agencies; some of which have had fatal consequences for innocent members of the community. At the very least, some others have been extra-judicial killings. Maurice examines the evidence and lists the offences. In many respects the title summarises the book and its conclusions. He explains how the many decades of conflict saw ‘organizational deviance’ on the part of the collective policing and military agencies. The book is an excellent study of how enthusiasm can lead to justification of illegal actions with deadly results. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

How do ideologies shape foreign policy? That is question Dr. Mark Haas examines in his new book The Clash of Ideologies: Middle Eastern Politics and American Security (Oxford University Press, 2012). The book analyzes how ideologies shape the perceptions and actions of governments, and specifically the impact this has on relations between the US and the Middle East. Dr. Haas examines two key variables, ideological distance and ideological polarity, using case studies on the Syrian-Iranian alliance, Iran’s ideological factions in the past decade, Turkey’s post-cold war foreign policies, and the US-Saudi relationship. The book not only analyzes the ways in which ideologies impact foreign policy, but also tries to provide ways for improving foreign policy decisions in the future by employing strategies that use ideological analysis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Suicide Bombings is a Routledge Shortcuts version of Riaz Hassan‘s longer book Life as a Weapon: The Global Rise of Suicide Bombings (Routledge, 2011), a study of suicide bombing around the world. Prof Hassan came to this topic via the study of suicide and therefore, provides a different perspective on terror attacks than most other authors. The book provides very detailed information on the rate and type of suicide bombings from 1981 to 2006. According to Prof Hassan, suicide bombings are nothing new to history but have taken a new turn in the modern era as a weapon of political frustration. He examines the history of suicide bombing over the last three decades and explains the reasons, not only why people resort to this type of attack, but also why individuals agree to participate. Prof Hassan provides us with an explanation that does not rely on religion or psychosis but quite rational motivations based on groups of individuals being driven into what they see as a position of last resort. This is a thorough analysis of the field and I highly recommend it. I think it is a book that should be read widely and can change the nature of political debate on this issue. 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 UAE and Foreign Policy: Foreign Aid, Identity, and Interests (Routledge, 2011), Khalid Almezaini describes the history of the UAE’s foreign policy, its goals, and the methods in which the government pursues those goals. Dr. Almezaini’s analysis focuses on the UAE’s foreign aid program, which is one of the largest in the Middle East.  The book shows how cultural and political factors have influenced foreign policy, and specifically foreign aid, in the UAE. Dr. Almezaini discusses in depth the foreign policy relationship that the UAE has with both Palestine and Pakistan, which helps illustrate the different motivations behind their policy agenda. Although the UAE only recently established an organization to track and report foreign aid, Dr. Almezaini’s extensive research enabled him to fill the book with useful statistics about the history of foreign aid in the UAE. His extensive use of graphs and charts throughout the book provide a solid basis for his in-depth analysis. In the interview we discuss the topics he addressed in the book and also how the UAE and its foreign policy could be affected by the current uprisings in the Middle East. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

In this episode, I spoke with Jeffrey Mankoff, an adjunct fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York. Mankoff recently released a second edition of his book Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011). As the book’s subtitle suggests, Mankoff’s primary focus is on explaining the origins and engine of Russia’s post-Yeltsin resurgence in geopolitics, as well as exploring possible trajectories for its future development. This book is wonderfully structured, breaking down the production and execution of Russian foreign policy into chapters on its general contours, its internal influences, and Russia’s relationship with the United States, as well as its neighbors in Europe, China, and the former Soviet regions. In this interview, Mankoff and I had particularly interesting conversation about Russian domestic interest groups and the impact of their competition on foreign policy-makers. Mankoff also applied the lessons of his book to the recent friction between Russia and the West over events in Libya and Syria. Given the byzantine nature of Russian policymaking, as well as the continuing record of disagreements and mutual confusion between Russian and Western observers about certain geopolitical hotspots, Mankoff’s book is a welcome study of the opinions and pressures that shape Russian foreign policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

How has the FBI evolved since the days of chasing gangsters and bootleggers, and is it equipped to face the challenges of a global war on terror? According to Garrett Graff’s The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror (Little Brown, 2011), the FBI has come a long way since the days of J. Edgar Hoover, but it still has a ways to go. The author, the editor of the most excellent Washingtonian magazine (for which I occasionally write – see here and here), looks at the evolution of the FBI into an organization that is very different from the Hollywood vision of the buttoned-down Bureau. In our interview, we talk about the Bin Laden raid, Hoover’s funeral, the Munich Olympics, the Gorelick Wall, the NYPD, and Operation Goldenrod. Read all about it, and more, in Graff’s sweeping new book. Please become a fan of “New Books in Public Policy” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

How have the United States and Japan managed to remain such strong allies, despite having fought one another in a savage war less than 70 years ago? In Michael Auslin’s Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultural History of U.S.-Japan Relations (Harvard University Press, 2011), the author, an Asia expert at the American Enterprise Institute, explores the history of cultural exchange between the United States and Japan, and how important that exchange has been, and continues to be, from a political perspective. Auslin, who is also a columnist for WSJ.com, analyses the “enduring cultural exchange” between the two countries, and describes the various stages through which this vital relationship has evolved over the last century and one half.  As Auslin shows, the relationship between the United States and Japan has had a large number of twists and turns, culminating in the current close and mutually beneficial connection between the two nations. In our interview, we talk about baseball, pop culture, gunboat diplomacy, and the first Japanese ever to set foot in America.  Read all about it, and more, in Auslin’s useful new book. Please become a fan of “New Books in Public Policy” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security