New Books In National Security

Germany and China: How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security (Bloomsbury, 2024) is a groundbreaking book, of which the findings have significant implications both for German-China relations and also in understanding the rising influence of autocratic China on liberal democracies globally. In today's interview, Associate Professor Andreas Fulda and I spoke about Germany's entanglement with China, and the extent of Germany's dependancies on China in terms of economics, technology, politics and academia. We spoke about the blind spots of policy makers and academics have, and the way that China policy is constructed and interpreted as a result. We also spoke about the implications for national security and German sovereignty, and the way that Germany entanglement with China is a warning sign for democratic states everywhere.  Dr Fulda is a political scientist and China scholar with a keen interest in the philosophy of science. You can listen to an interview about his previous book, The Struggle

With the ever-greater shift of the balance of global power towards the Pacific region, what does this have implications for the geopolitics of the region? How should the rest of the world, especially Europe, address the growing power and influence of the Pacific region? How does the complex interplay of cultural, civilizational, economic, legal, environmental, and political factors affect the Pacific region? These and other questions are the subject of 21st Century as the Pacific Century. Culture and Security of Oceania States in Great Power Competition (Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2023) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera. This publication, which is the result of a conference of the same title, aims to explain to the readers culture, political relations and climate conditions in the region of the South Pacific. The authors point to cause and effect relationships, provide figures and in-depth analyses of political, economic and social forces operating in Southeast Asia and Oceania and the influence coun

In China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (Oxford University Press, 2024), authors Dr. John Keane and Dr. Baogang He, target a development of enormous significance: China's return, after two centuries of decline and subjugation, to a position of prominence in world affairs. The daring thesis is that China is a newly rising empire of a kind never before witnessed: a galaxy empire. The first to be born of the digital communications era, this young empire is economically and politically powerful, and heavily armed. Its gravitational, push-pull effects are impacting every continent--and even outer space, where China is competing with the United States, India, and Europe to become the leading power. The galaxy empire interpretation rejects clichéd misdescriptions of China as a "big power" or monolithic "autocracy", and it explains why China defies older definitions of land, sea, and air-based empires. The book charts the developments that have made its rising empire so nove

In Implications of Pre-Emptive Data Surveillance for Fundamental Rights in the European Union (Brill Nijhoff, 2023) Julia Wojnowska-Radzińska offers a comprehensive legal analysis of various forms of pre-emptive data surveillance adopted by the European legislator and their impact on fundamental rights. It also identifies what minimum guarantees have to be set up to recognize pre-emptive data surveillance as a legitimate measure in a democratic society. The book aims to answer the essential question of how to strike the proper balance between fundamental rights and security interests in the digital age. Caleb Zakarin is Editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Why does Australia have a national signals intelligence agency? What does it do and why is it controversial? And how significant are its ties with key partners, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, to this arrangement? Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence and the Advent of Cyber (University of New South Wales Press, 2023) co-authored by John Blaxland and Clare Birgin is a compelling account of Australian Signals intelligence, its efforts at revealing the secrets of other nations, and keeping ours safe. It brings to light those clever Australians whose efforts were for so long entirely unknown or overlooked. In unearthing this integral, if hidden and little understood, part of Australian statecraft, this book increases our understanding of the past, present and what lies ahead. John Blaxland is Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs

Harmony and Normalization: US-Cuban Musical Diplomacy (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) explores the channels of musical exchange between Cuba and the United States during the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama, who eased the musical embargo of the island and restored relations with Cuba. Musical exchanges during this period act as a lens through which to view not only US-Cuban musical relations but also the larger political, economic, and cultural implications of musical dialogue between these two nations. In this first book on the subject since Obama’s presidency, musicologist Timothy P. Storhoff describes how, after specific policy changes, musicians were some of the first to take advantage of new opportunities for travel, push the boundaries of new regulations, and expose both the possibilities and limitations of licensing musical exchange. This ethnography demonstrates how performances reflect aspirations for stronger transnational ties and a common desire to restore the once-thriving US-Cuban m

History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Marathon, Cannae, Tours, Agincourt, Austerlitz, Sedan, Stalingrad--all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But were they? As Cathal J. Nolan demonstrates in The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford University Press, 2019), victory in major wars usually has been determined in other ways. Even the most legendarily lopsided of battles did not necessarily decide their outcomes. Nolan also challenges the hoary concept of the military "genius," even of the Great Captains--from Alexander to Frederick and Napoleon--mapping instead the decent into total war. The Allure of Battle systematically recreates and analyzes the major campaigns among the Great Powers, from the Middle Ages through the 20th century, from the fall of Byzantium to the defeat of the Axis powers, tracing

Russia's actions in and around Ukraine in 2014, as well as its activities in Syria and further afield, sparked renewed debate about the character of war and armed conflict, and whether it was undergoing a fundamental shift. One of the enduring features of conflict over the centuries has been its state of flux. This perpetual state of evolution requires states to regularly monitor how military force is being wielded, either by allies or adversaries, in order to be able to plan and prepare for future war. Tracey German's Russia and the Changing Character of Conflict (Cambria Press, 2023) explores Russian views of the changing character of conflict and the debates that have emerged about how future wars might evolve. Since 2014 there has been wide-ranging discussion about Russia's "new way of war", with labels such as hybrid warfare, grey-zone operations and the Gerasimov doctrine dominating Western analyses. However, there has been scant analysis of Russian perspectives on the changing character of conflict and

Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968 (Encounter, 2023) is the long-awaited sequel to the immensely influential Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965. Like its predecessor, this book overturns the conventional wisdom using a treasure trove of new sources, many of them from the North Vietnamese side. Rejecting the standard depiction of U.S. military intervention as a hopeless folly, it shows America's war to have been a strategic necessity that could have ended victoriously had President Lyndon Johnson heeded the advice of his generals. In light of Johnson's refusal to use American ground forces beyond South Vietnam, General William Westmoreland employed the best military strategy available. Once the White House loosened the restraints on Operation Rolling Thunder, American bombing inflicted far greater damage on the North Vietnamese supply system than has been previously understood, and it nearly compelled North Vietnam to capitulate.  The book demonstrates that American military operations enab

Today I talked to Stuart Reid about his new book The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination (Knopf, 2023). It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.” Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization’s biggest peacekeeping mission in history. But chaos was still spreading. Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help—an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA. To forestall the spr

Marc McMenamin's Ireland's Secret War: Dan Bryan, G2 and the Lost Tapes that Reveal The Hunt for Ireland's Nazi Spies (Gill Books, 2022) is a thrilling account of the true extent of Irish-Allied co-operation during World War II. It reveals strategic Nazi intentions for Ireland and the real role of leading government figures of the time, placing Dan Bryan and G2 - the military intelligence branch of the Irish Defence Forces - firmly at the centre of the country's battle against Nazi Germany. With the help of over thirty-five hours of previously unpublished audio recordings that were held in storage in northern California for over fifty years, McMenamin reveals the extraordinary unheard history of WWII in Ireland, told from the point of view of the main protagonists. Fascinating and entertaining, Ireland's Secret War reassesses the legacy of the Irish contribution to the Allied war effort through the voices of those involved at the time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our

Throughout the nuclear age, states have taken many different paths toward or away from nuclear weapons. These paths have been difficult to predict and cannot be explained simply by a stable or changing security environment. We can make sense of these paths by examining leaders' nuclear decisions. The political decisions state leaders make to accelerate or reverse progress toward nuclear weapons define each state's course. Whether or not a state ultimately acquires nuclear weapons depends to a large extent on those nuclear decisions. Nuclear Decisions: Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs (Oxford University Press, 2023) offers a novel theory of nuclear decision-making that identifies two mechanisms that shape leaders' understandings of the costs and benefits of their nuclear pursuits. The internal mechanism is the intervention of domestic experts in key scientific and military organizations. If the conditions are right, those experts may be able to influence a leader's nuclear decision-making. The e

The United States integrated counterterrorism mandates into its aid flows in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the early years of the global war on terror. Some two decades later, this securitized model of aid has become normalized across donor intervention in Palestine. Elastic Empire: Refashioning War Through Aid in Palestine (Stanford UP, 2023) traces how foreign aid, on which much of the Palestinian population is dependent, has multiplied the sites and means through which Palestinian life is regulated, surveilled, and policed—this book tells the story of how aid has also become war. Drawing on extensive research conducted in Palestine, Elastic Empire offers a novel accounting of the US security state. The US war chronicled here is not one of tanks, grenades, and guns, but a quieter one waged through the interlacing of aid and law. It emerges in the infrastructures of daily life—in a greenhouse and library, in the collection of personal information and mapping of land plots, in the halls of municipal cou

Charles Blaha, a former State Department expert on the vetting of U.S. weapons transfers to other countries, helps us understand this important moment in the Israel-Hamas conflict. After an extended period of tension between U.S President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden has decided to freeze some transfers of weapons to Israel, at least temporarily. In his conversation with RBI director John Torpey, Blaha explains United States law and policy governing weapons transfers, which imposes stringent controls to avoid the misuse of U.S. weaponry. Blaha also discusses the role of the protests on campuses and their doubtful effects on changing American or Israeli policy. Finally, the conversation delves into the overall posture of the United States vis-à-vis arms transfers to Israel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

In this provocative challenge to United States policy and strategy, former Professor of Strategy & Policy at the US Naval War College, and author or editor of eleven books, Dr. Donald Stoker argues that America endures endless wars because its leaders no longer know how to think about war in strategic terms and he reveals how ideas on limited war and war in general have evolved against the backdrop of American conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. These ideas, he shows, were and are flawed and have undermined America's ability to understand, wage, and win its wars, and to secure peace afterwards. America's leaders he argues have too often taken the nation to war without understanding what they want or valuing victory, leading to the “forever wars” of today in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why America Loses Wars: Limited War and US Strategy from the Korean War to the Present(Cambridge University Press, 2019) dismantles seventy years of misguided thinking and lays the foundations for a new approach to the wars of tomo

In Disruption: The Global Economic Shocks of the 1970s and the End of the Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Michael De Groot argues that the global economic upheaval of the 1970s was decisive in ending the Cold War. Both the West and the Soviet bloc struggled with the slowdown of economic growth; chaos in the international monetary system; inflation; shocks in the commodities markets; and the emergence of offshore financial markets. The superpowers had previously disseminated resources to their allies to enhance their own national security, but the disappearance of postwar conditions during the 1970s forced Washington and Moscow to choose between promoting their own economic interests and supporting their partners in Europe and Asia. Dr. de Groot shows that new unexpected macroeconomic imbalances in global capitalism sustained the West during the following decade. Rather than a creditor nation and net exporter, as it had been during the postwar period, the United States became a net importer of c

In this deep and incisive study, General David Petraeus, who commanded the US-led coalitions in both Iraq, during the Surge, and Afghanistan and former CIA director, and the prize-winning historian Andrew Roberts, explore over 70 years of conflict, drawing significant lessons and insights from their fresh analysis of the past. Drawing on their different perspectives and areas of expertise, Petraeus and Roberts show how often critical mistakes have been repeated time and again, and the challenge, for statesmen and generals alike, of learning to adapt to various new weapon systems, theories and strategies. Among the conflicts examined are the Arab-Israeli wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the two Gulf Wars, the Balkan wars in the former Yugoslavia, and both the Soviet and Coalition wars in Afghanistan, as well as guerilla conflicts in Africa and South America.  Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare From 1945 to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine (Harper, 2023) culminates with a bracing look at Putin’s disastrous inv

The Middle East remains one of the world’s most complicated, thorny—and, uncharitably, unstable—parts of the world, as countless headlines make clear. Internal strife, regional competition and external interventions have been the region’s history for the past several decades. Robert Kaplan—author, foreign policy thinker, longtime writer on international affairs—has written about what he terms the “Greater Middle East”, a region that spans from the Mediterranean, south to Ethiopia and eastwards to Afghanistan and Pakistan, for decades. These insights are the foundation of his latest book: The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China (Random House, 2023) In his book, Kaplan criticizes how the U.S. has approached the region—intervention and regime change (including his own mea culpa for his previous support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, only for Washington to look somewhere else when newly-formed regimes inevitably disappoint. In this interview, Robert and I talk about his idea

From Afghanistan to Angola, Indonesia to Iran, and Colombia to Congo, violent reactions erupt, states collapse, and militaries relentlessly pursue operations doomed to fail. And yet, no useful theory exists to explain this common tragedy. All over the world, people and states clash violently outside their established political systems, as unfulfilled demands of control and productivity bend the modern state to a breaking point. Jonathan W. Hackett's Theory of Irregular War (McFarland, 2023) lays out how dysfunctional governments disrupt social orders, make territory insecure, and interfere with political-economic institutions. These give rise to a form of organized violence against the state known as irregular war. Research reveals why this frequent phenomenon is so poorly understood among conventional forces in those conflicts and the states who send their children to die in them. Jonathan W. Hackett is a U.S. Marine with two decades of experience. He has held positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Na

Global adoption of the Internet has exploded, yet we are only beginning to understand the Internet's profound political consequences. Authoritarian states are digitally catching up with their democratic counterparts, and both are showing a growing interest in the use of cyber controls--online censorship and surveillance technologies--that allow governments to exercise control over the Internet. Under what conditions does a digitally connected society actually help states target their enemies? Why do repressive governments sometimes shut down the Internet when faced with uprisings? And how have cyber controls become a dependable tool in the weapons arsenal that states use in civil conflict? In Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence (Oxford University Press, 2023), Dr. Anita R. Gohdes addresses these questions, and provides an original and in-depth look into the relationship between digital technologies and state violence. Drawing on large-scale analyses of f