New Books in National Security

Naval forces exist to control the seas and project power, often through the use of violence. This does not, however, include everything they have done or can do. Navies have always spent much of their time and resources engaged in operations that fall outside the traditional definitions of sea power. These activities have at times contributed far more to their respective nations' security and pros...

The on-going war in Ukraine continues to highlight the distinct differences between how Russia operates large-scale military operations from the usual manner NATO military forces often engage themselves. What accounts for the Russian way of war? A common term used to describe Russian military strategy in the 21st century is "hybrid warfare" that seeks to subvert an enemy force in manners other tha...

Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West (Simon & Schuster, 2024) is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been waging for a century. Espionage, sabotage, and subversion were the Kremlin's means to equalize the imbalance of resources between the East and West before, during, and after the Cold War. There was nothing "unprecedented" about Russian meddling in the...

Throughout much of the 21st century thus far, the common argument among military pundits was that war has or will soon be radically changed in manners that exist beyond imagination. The main catalyst for such extraordinary changes would be new advancements in technology and weaponry. With the on-going war in Ukraine, one fundamental surprise that has stunned many military analysts is that in spite...

Americans frequently criticize US foreign policy for being overly costly and excessively militaristic. With its rising defense budgets and open-ended "forever wars," US foreign policy often appears disconnected from public opinion, reflecting the views of elites and special interests rather than the attitudes of ordinary citizens. The Commander-in-Chief Test: Public Opinion and the Politics of Ima...

The world is reeling from the savage terror attack that brutalized, raped, murdered and kidnapped Israelis and civilians from at least 25 other countries, continuing to hold many of them hostage – and from the ongoing war that followed. After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, some thought it would become more moderate. That was wishful thinking. The barbaric massacre of October 7, 2023 made it clear t...

In State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America's Secrecy Regime (Basic Books, 2023), political historian Dr. Sam Lebovic uncovers the troubling history of the Espionage Act. First passed in 1917, it was initially used to punish critics of World War I. Yet as Americans began to baulk at the act’s restrictions on political dissidents and the press, the government turned its focus tow...

The contemporary world is beset with a wide variety of conflicts, all of which have features without historical precedent. While most accounts of peacekeeping focus on attempts to limit violent conflict, this traditional view hardly captures the variety of challenges that today's peacekeepers face. Peacekeepers are now thrust into the unconventional roles of monitoring elections, facilitating tran...

Dr. Gary Shiffman’s book The Economics of Violence: How Behavioral Science Can Transform our View of Crime, Insurgency, and Terrorism (Cambridge UP, 2020) serves as a fantastic introduction to anyone interested in thinking critically about terrorist, insurgency, and criminal groups of all sorts. Using case studies from multiple continents, ideological contexts, and political situations, Dr. Shiffm...

The legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoys regular acclaim from historians, politicians, and educators. Lauded for his New Deal policies, leadership as a wartime president, cozy fireside chats, and groundbreaking support of the "forgotten man," FDR, we have been told, is worthy of the same praise as men like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.... But is that true? Does the father of toda...

Jeffrey Whyte's book The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War (Oxford UP, 2023) explores the history, politics, and geography of United States psychological warfare in the 20th century against the backdrop of the contemporary 'post-truth era'. From its origins in the Second World War, to the United States' counterinsurgency campaigns...

Over the past six decades, Henry Kissinger has been America's most consistently praised--and reviled--public figure. He was hailed as a "miracle worker" for his peacemaking in the Middle East, pursuit of détente with the Soviet Union, negotiation of an end to the Vietnam War, and secret plan to open the United States to China. He was assailed from the left and from the right for his indifference t...

In Ottoman Passports: Security and Geographic Mobility, 1876-1908 (Syracuse University Press, 2023), İlkay Yılmaz reconsiders the history of two political issues, the Armenian and Macedonian questions, approaching both through the lens of mobility restrictions during the late Ottoman Empire from 1876 to 1908. Yılmaz investigates how Ottoman security perceptions and travel regulations were directly...

Huw Bennett is a Reader in International Relations at Cardiff Unviersity. He specializes in strategic studies, the history of war, and intelligence studies, and work on both historical and contemporary issues concerning the use of military power. His research focuses on the experiences of the British Army since 1945, in the contexts of British politics, the Cold War, the end of empire, and the War...

Western Intervention and Informal Politics: Simulated Statebuilding and Failed Reforms (Routledge, 2021) by Dr. Troels Burchall Henningsen examines the political and military dynamic between threatened local regimes and Western powers, and argues that the power of informal politics forces local regimes to simulate statebuilding. Reforms enabling local states to take care of their own terrorist and...

Security assistance has become the largest component of international peacebuilding and stabilisation efforts, and a primary tool for responding to civil war and insurgency. Donors and peacekeepers not only train and equip military and police forces, they also seek to overhaul their structure, management, and oversight. Yet, we know little about why these efforts succeed or fail. Efforts to restru...

Michael W. Doyle's book Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War (Liveright, 2023) offers an urgent examination of the world barreling toward a new Cold War. By 1990, the first Cold War was ending. The Berlin Wall had fallen and the Warsaw Pact was crumbling; following Russia’s lead, cries for democracy were being embraced by a young Chinese populace. The post–Cold War years were a time of immense ho...

Long before the 1979 Soviet invasion, the United States was closely concerned with Afghanistan. For much of the twentieth century, American diplomats, policy makers, businesspeople, and experts took part in the Afghan struggle to modernize, delivered vital aid, and involved themselves in Kabul’s conflicts with its neighbors. For their own part, many Afghans embraced the potential benefits of polit...

Historians have tended to view the Cold War as a global ideological confrontation between an expansionist communist Soviet Union and a capitalist United States which sought to contain communism. And this confrontation was fought out by their proxies in the Third World. But in recent years, a new generation of scholars, many of them from Asian countries that were “hot” battlegrounds for the Cold Wa...

An incisive critique that examines the origins of contemporary American ideas about surveillance, terrorism, and white supremacy. For more than three centuries, Americans have pursued strategies of security that routinely make them feel vulnerable, unsafe, and insecure. American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability (Princeton UP, 2023) probes this paradox by examining American attachments t...

In my talk with Barry Gewen on his 2020 book, The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (W. W. Norton, 2020), we explore the disparate influences that shaped Kissinger as both an intellectual and as a practitioner of power.  Our conversation touches on Kissinger’s upbringing in a German-Jewish community in Bavaria at the time of Hitler’s rise to power and pivots to an understandi...

The Burden-Sharing Dilemma: Coercive Diplomacy in US Alliance Politics (Cornell UP, 2023) examines the conditions under which the United States is willing and able to pressure its allies to assume more responsibility for their own defense.  The United States has a mixed track record of encouraging allied burden-sharing—while it has succeeded or failed in some cases, it has declined to do so at all...

The common perception of Russia's status as a great power is often portrayed as being based largely on land power. Being the largest country in the world and fielding massively large field armies, there is some considerable truth to this perception. By contrast, when concerning Russian capabilities as a naval power, the picture is different. Common references to the Battle of Tsushima during the R...

Since 2012, ceasefires have been used in Syria to halt violence and facilitate peace agreements. However, in Redefining Ceasefires: Wartime Order and Statebuilding in Syria (Cambridge University Press, 2023), Dr. Marika Sosnowski argues that a ceasefire is rarely ever just a 'cease fire'. Instead, she demonstrates that ceasefires are not only military tactics but are also tools of wartime order an...

Do confusions in the West threaten a new world disorder? It’s a question asked by Professor Peter R. Neumann of Kings College, London. He is the author of The New World Disorder: How the West is Destroying Itself (Scribe, 2024). Listen to him in conversation with Owen Bennett Jones. Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resi...