American Pendulum: Recurring Debates in U.S. Grand Strategy
Author: Christopher Hemmer File Type: pdf As new presidential administrations come into power, they each bring their own approach to foreign policy. No grand strategy, however, is going to be completely novel. New administrations never start with a blank slate, so it is always possible to see similarities between an administration and its predecessors. Conversely, since each administration faces novel problems and operates in a unique context, no foreign policy strategy is going to be an exact replica of its predecessors. In American Pendulum, Christopher Hemmer examines Americas grand strategic choices between 1914 and 2014 using four recurring debates in American foreign policy as lenses. First, how should the United States balance the trade-offs between working alone versus working with other states and international organizations? Second, what is the proper place of American values in foreign policy? Third, where does the strategic perimeter of the United States lie? And fourth, is time on the side of the United States or of its enemies? Offering new readings of debates within the Wilson, Truman, Nixon, Bush, and Obama administrations, Hemmer asserts that heated debates, disagreements, and even confusions over U.S. grand strategy are not only normal but also beneficial. He challenges the claim that uncertainties or inconsistences about the nations role in the world or approach to security issues betray strategic confusion or the absence of a grand strategy. American foreign policy, he states, is most in danger not when debates are at their most pointed but when the weight of opinion crushes dissent. As the United States looks ahead to an increasingly multipolar world with increasing complicated security issues, Hemmer concludes, developing an effective grand strategy requires ongoing contestation and compromises between competing visions and policies. **
Author: Michael Gunter
File Type: pdf
In mid-2012 the previously almost forgotten Syrian Kurds suddenly emerged as a potential game-changer in the countrys civil war when in an attempt to consolidate its increasingly desperate position the Assad government abruptly withdrew its troops from the major Kurdish areas in Syria. The Kurds in Syria had suddenly won autonomy, a situation that has huge implications for neighboring Turkey and the near independent Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. Indeed, their precipitous rise may prove a tipping-point that alters the boundaries imposed on the Middle East by the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. These important events and what they portend for the future are scrutinized by the renowned scholar of the Kurds Michael Gunter. He also analyses the sudden rise of Salih Muslim and his Democratic Union Party (PYD) - which was created by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and remains affiliated to it - and the extremely complex and deadly fighting between factions of the Syrian Opposition affiliated with al-Qaeda such as the Jabhat al-Nusra jihadists and the PYD, among others. **
Author: Andrew Britton
File Type: mobi
For the President of the United States, the daily horror of life in West Darfurs killing fields just hit heartbreakingly close to home. His niece, Lily, has been targeted and savagely murdered by a corps of fearsome government-backed militiamen. With the situation too explosive for diplomatic or military solutions, yet with the President and the public thirsting for revenge, America is out of options. Except one Ryan Kealey, ex-Special Forces, former CIA, and unrivalled counterterrorism expert. Kealey has been central to the war on terror for over a decade. But after the Agency hung him out to dry - and let his lover die - he turned his back. Until now. For the government has revealed its trump card, the one thing Kealey will risk everything for. Soon, from the lawless streets of Sudan to the highest levels of the American government, Kealey unearths secrets and betrayals that shock even his war-tempered sensibilities - and ignite a conflagration with unknowable global consequences.From Publishers WeeklyNear the start of Brittons uneven fourth spy thriller to feature ex-CIA agent Ryan Kealey (after The Invisible), Janjaweed militiamen brutally murder Lily Durant, an American nurse working at a refugee camp in Darfur and the niece of the U.S. president, David Brenneman. Gen. Joel Stralen, a close friend of Brennemans who considers the CIA a rival to his own Defense Intelligence Agency, seizes the chance to sideline political rivals and to justify armed retribution against Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, suspected of ordering the attack on the camp. Meanwhile, CIA deputy director Jonathan Harper asks Kealey to investigate covertly. Kealeys quest for truth spans Africa, but few will be surprised when the operative finds answers closer to home. While Britton realistically portrays intelligence as a group effort, he doesnt make the best use of Kealeys time on stage, devoting a puzzling amount of space establishing his heros credentials with a South African bodyguarding sequence. Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
Author: Ruben Castaneda
File Type: epub
During the height of the crack epidemic that decimated the streets of D.C., Ruben Castaneda covered the crime beat for the Washington Post. The first in his family to graduate from college, he had landed a job at one of the countrys premier newspapers. But his apparent success masked a devastating secret he was a crack addict. Even as he covered the drug-fueled violence that was destroying the city, he was prowling S Street, a 247 open-air crack market, during his off hours, looking for his next fix. S Street Rising is more than a memoir its a portrait of a city in crisis. Its the adrenalin-infused story of the street where Castaneda quickly became a regular, and where a fledgling church led by a charismatic and streetwise pastor was protected by the local drug kingpin, a dangerous man who followed an old-school code of honor. Its the story of Castanedas friendship with an exceptional police homicide commander whose career was derailed when he ran afoul of Mayor Marion Barry and his political cronies. And its a study of the city itself as it tried to rise above the bloody crack epidemic and the corrosive politics of the Barry era. S Street Rising is The Wire meets the Oscar-winning movie Crash. And its all true.
Author: Deepa M. Ollapally
File Type: pdf
South Asia is home to a range of extremist groups from the jihadists of Pakistan to the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. In the popular mind, extremism and terrorism are invariably linked to ethnic and religious factors. Yet the dominant history of South Asia is notable for tolerance and co-existence, despite highly plural societies. Deepa Ollapally examines extremist groups in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Northeast India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka to offer a fresh perspective on the causes of extremism. What accounts for its rise in societies not historically predisposed to extremism? What determines the winners and losers in the identity struggles in South Asia? What tips the balance between more moderate versus extremist outcomes? The book argues that politics, inter-state and international relations often play a more important role in the rise of extremism in South Asia than religious identity, poverty, and state repression.Book DescriptionDeepa Ollapally examines extremist groups in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Northeast India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka to offer a fresh perspective on the causes of extremism. Politics, inter-state and international relations play a more important role in the rise of extremism in South Asia than religious identity, poverty, and state repression. About the AuthorDeepa M. Ollapally is Professorial Lecturer, and the Associate Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the Elliott School for International Affairs at the George Washington University, Washington DC. She is an expert on South Asian politics and international security and her publications include Confronting Conflict Domestic Factors and US Policymaking in the Third World (1993).
Author: Graham Oppy
File Type: pdf
In this second volume of The Antipodean Philosopher, Graham Oppy and N.N. Trakakis have brought together fourteen leading Australasian philosophers, inviting them to speak in a frank and accessible way about their philosophical lives for example, what drew them to a career in philosophy, what philosophy means to them, and their perceptions and criticisms of the ways in which philosophy is studied and taught in Australia and New Zealand. The philosophers interviewed include Brian Ellis, Frank Jackson, Jeff Malpas, Alan Musgrave, Philip Pettit, Graham Priest, Peter Singer and Michael Smith - philosophers who have distinguished themselves in the discipline, both nationally and internationally, over many years and in various branches of philosophy. What emerges from the discussion with these philosophers is a distinctive and engaging narrative of the history of philosophy in Australasia, its recent successes and flourishing, and the problems and prospects facing it in the twenty-first century. These interviews will challenge and entertain anyone with an interest in contemporary philosophy and the challenges of living out the examined life today.
Author: Magdalena Tulli
File Type: epub
Dreams and Stones is a small masterpiece, one of the most extraordinary works of literature to come out of Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of communism. In sculpted, poetic prose reminiscent of Bruno Schulz, it tells the story of the emergence of a great city. In Tullis hands myth, metaphor, history, and narrative are combined to magical effect. Dreams and Stones is about the growth of a city, and also about all cities at the same time it is not about cities at all, but about how worlds are created, trans- formed, and lost through words alone. A stunning debut by one of Europes finest new writers.**
Author: Allan H. Ropper
File Type: epub
Tell the doctor where it hurts. It sounds simple enough, unless the problem affects the very organ that produces awareness and generates speech. What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this book, Dr. Allan Ropper and Brian Burrell take the reader behind the scenes at Harvard Medical Schools neurology unit to show how a seasoned diagnostician faces down bizarre, life-altering afflictions. Like Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Ropper inhabits a world where absurdities abound A figure skater whose body has become a ticking time-bomb A salesman who drives around and around a traffic rotary, unable to get off A college quarterback who cant stop calling the same play A child molester who, after falling on the ice, is left with a brain that is very much dead inside a body that is very much alive A mother of two young girls, diagnosed with ALS, who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth livingHow does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the reader into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance.
Author: Raymond Martin
File Type: pdf
Why do we interpret the past as we do, rather than in some other way or not at all? What is the significance of the fact that we interpret the past? What are historical interpretations? Raymond Martins approach to these questions transcends both the positivist and humanistic perspectives that have polarized Anglo-American philosophy of history. Martin goes to the source of this polarization by diagnosing a deep-seated flaw in the dominant analytic approach during the period from 1935 to 1975, namely, the emphasis on conceptual analysis rather than the examination of actual historical controversies. As an alternative, Martin proposes an empirical approach that examines what makes one historical interpretation better than its competitors. In addressing how historians should decide which explanations are better, Martin opts for a case-by-case analysis of historiographical practice as opposed to establishing general criteria. His book offers several detailed case studies, involving such topics as the collapse of Lowland Maya civilization in the ninth century A.D., the fall of Rome, and the alleged historical priority of St. Marks gospel over the other synoptic gospels. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. **
Author: Denis Johnson
File Type: epub
A contemporary noir, Already Dead is the tangled story of Nelson Fairchild Jr., disenfranchised scion to a northern California land fortune. A relentless failure, Nelson has botched nearly every scheme hes attempted to pull off. Now his future lies in a potentially profitable marijuana patch hidden in the lush old-growth redwoods on the family land. Nelson has some serious problems. His marriage has fallen apart, and he may lose his land, cash and crop in the divorce. Whats more, in need of some quick cash, he had foolishly agreed to smuggle $90,000 worth of cocaine through customs for Harry Lally, a major player in a drug syndicate. Chickening out just before bringing the drugs through, he flushed the powder. Now Lally wants him dead, and two goons are hot on his trail. Desperate, terrified and alone, for Nelson, there may be only one way out. This is Denis Johnsons biggest and most complex book to date, and it perfectly showcases his signature themes of fate, redemption and the unraveling of the fabric of todays society. Already Dead, with its masterful narrative of overlapping and entwined stories, will further fuel the acclaim that surrounds one of todays most fascinating writers. **