New Books in 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

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

How do government officials decide key homeland security questions? How do those decisions affect our day to day lives? In Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren’t Stopping Tomorrow’s Terrorism (Hoover Institution, 2010), Stewart Baker, a former senior official from the Department of Homeland Security, takes us behind the scenes of government homeland security decision making. Baker, who was the DHS’s first Assistant Secretary for Policy, examines some of the key security threats the US faces, and some of our greatest challenges in meeting them. While Baker has a healthy respect for the abilities of outside forces would do us harm, he also recognizes that some of our greatest challenges to providing security come from our allies, and from ourselves. In addition, while many people tune out when they hear acronyms like CFIUS of VWP, Baker shows what those acronyms mean, and their implications for our safety and security. Read all about it, and more, in Baker’s informative 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

Where do we stand on the War on Terror? Is it still going on, and if so, are we winning or losing it? In William Bennett and Seth Leibsohn’s The Fight of Our Lives: Knowing the Enemy, Speaking the Truth, and Choosing to Win the War Against Radical Islam (Thomas Nelson, 2011), the authors look at the current state of the War on Terror, how it is going, and why it remains important. Bennett, a former senior Washington official, and his co-author Leibsohn review the origins of — and the Obama administration’s mixed messages on pursuing — the War on Terror. They also make the argument of why the U.S. needs to remain vigilant in its prosecution of the conflict. As we learned in the podcast, the book may surprise those who come to it with preconceived notions about the authors or about the wisdom of fighting and winning a war against terror. Read all about it, and more, in Bennett and Leibsohn’s eye-opening 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

If you ask most Americans when the U.S. became heavily involved in the Persian Gulf, they might cite the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1981 or, more probably, the First Gulf War of 1990. Of course the roots of American entanglement in the region run much deeper, as W. Taylor Fain shows in his excellent new book American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008). Beginning in the 18th century, the British began to do in the Gulf what the British did in those days: build their empire. British dominance in the region lasted as long as Britain did as a Great Power, that is, until about 1945. At that point, a power vacuum of sorts developed. What is perhaps most interesting about Fain’s book is that the U.S.–which had had strong commercial ties to several Gulf states for decades–was not terribly eager to get politically involved. Britain had significant military assets in the region; the U.S. did not. Britain needed the oil; the U.S. at that time did not. Britain wanted to blunt the forces of Arab nationalism; the U.S. had a rather more favorable attitude toward “self-determination.” The Brits did their best to play up the “special relationship,” but it just wasn’t “special” enough to get the U.S. involved in what seemed to be a plainly imperial endeavor. Americans just aren’t very good at imperialism–they have no stomach for it. In the end, it wasn’t the British who convinced the U.S. to take a strong hand in Gulf affairs, but the Soviets, or rather the fear of the Soviets. The strange cocktail of pan-Arab nationalism and international socialism convinced American policymakers that vital U.S. interests were being threatened in some very out-of-the-way places. Thus the U.S. developed new “special relationships” in the region, notably with Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iran–an odd group if ever there were one! So “special” were these ties that they eventually drew the U.S. into war and, recently, occupation. The British empire, so it is said, was built in a “fit of absent mindedness.” The American empire in the Gulf was built against better judgment. Please become a fan of “New Books in Middle Eastern Studies” 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