By Jamie Collier, Council on Foreign Relations: “Gone are the days when spy agencies did not officially exist with their personnel and activities guarded surreptitiously away from the public view. Today, the situation could not be more different. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has had a Tumblr account since 2014. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers appears regularly at conferences and panels. On the other side of the Atlantic, GCHQ Director Robert Hannigan writes op-eds for the Financial Times.”
Intelligence Agencies Life Out of the Shadows
By Jamie Collier, Council on Foreign Relations: “Gone are the days when spy agencies did not officially exist with their personnel and activities guarded surreptitiously away from the public view. Today, the situation could not be more different. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has had a Tumblr account since 2014. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers appears regularly at conferences and panels. On the other side of the Atlantic, GCHQ Director Robert Hannigan writes op-eds for the Financial Times.”
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Asian pivot fallacy: China doesn’t have the economic ability, societal will or political transparency to lead the current world order, argues Todd Royal. Even Beijing would concede, writes Royal, that an open, liberal post-World War II system led by the Xi Jinping government, instead of America and Asian allies such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, would collapse. READ THE STORY HERE
Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat by Max Holland.
"Through the shadowy persona of "Deep Throat," FBI official Mark Felt became as famous as the Watergate scandal his "leaks" helped uncover. Best known through Hal Holbrook's portrayal in the film version of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's All the President's Men, Felt was regarded for decades as a conscientious but highly secretive whistleblower who shunned the limelight. Yet even after he finally revealed his identity in 2005, questions about his true motivations persisted. Max Holland has found the missing piece of that Deep Throat puzzle—one that's been hidden in plain sight all along. He reveals for the first time in detail what truly motivated the FBI's number-two executive to become the most fabled secret source in American history. In the process, he directly challenges Felt's own explanations while also demolishing the legend fostered by Woodward and Bernstein's bestselling account. Holland critiques all the theories of Felt's motivation that have circulated over the years, including notions that Felt had been genuinely upset by White House law-breaking or had tried to defend and insulate the FBI from the machinations of President Nixon and his Watergate henchmen. And, while acknowledging that Woodward finally disowned the "principled whistleblower" image of Felt in The Secret Man, Holland shows why that famed journalist's latest explanation still falls short of the truth. Holland showcases the many twists and turns to Felt's story that are not widely known, revealing not a selfless official acting out of altruistic patriotism, but rather a career bureaucrat with his own very private agenda. Drawing on new interviews and oral histories, old and just-released FBI Watergate files, papers of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, presidential tape recordings, and Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate-related papers, he sheds important new light on both Felt's motivations and the complex and often problematic relationship between the press and government officials. Fast-paced and scrupulously fact-checked, Leak resolves the mystery residing at the heart of Mark Felt's actions. By doing so, it radically revises our understanding of America's most famous presidential scandal." Ndileka Mandela was an exalted member of the African National Congress (ANC), the organization led by her grandfather. More than a party, it had long been synonymous with the black majority’s struggle for justice under white rule — and with Mandela himself. But last month, Ndileka, 52, opened Facebook on her computer and posted a picture of herself voting with her grandfather in 2011. Then she swallowed hard and began to type: “I will no longer vote for the ANC.” – Washington Post
The Churchills: In Love and War by Mary S. Lovell.
The epic story of one of England's greatest families, focusing on the towering figure of Winston Churchill. The first Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) was a soldier of such genius that a lavish palace, Blenheim, was built to honor his triumphs. Succeeding generations of Churchills sometimes achieved distinction but also included profligates and womanizers, and were saddled with the ruinous upkeep of Blenheim. The family fortunes were revived in the nineteenth century by the huge dowries of New York society beauties Jennie Jerome (Winston's mother) and Consuelo Vanderbilt (wife to Winston's cousin). Mary S. Lovell brilliantly recounts the triumphant political and military campaigns, the construction of great houses, the domestic tragedies, and the happy marriage of Winston to Clementine Hosier set against the disastrous unions of most of his family, which ended in venereal disease, papal annulment, clinical depression, and adultery. The Churchills were an extraordinary family: ambitious, impecunious, impulsive, brave, and arrogant. Winston―recently voted "The Greatest Briton"―dominates them all. His failures and triumphs are revealed in the context of a poignant and sometimes tragic private life. https://www.amazon.com/Churchills-Love-Mary-S-Lovell/dp/0393062309/ref=la_B000AQ8OWK_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493597325&sr=1-9 Why Chinghis Khan Matters By John Zambri, Small Wars Journal: “The importance of intelligence, and determining adversary intentions, through a network of spies and informers was well documented and practiced long before Chinggis Khan and his Mongol hoard laid waste to much of Central Asia. Why then were Mongol intelligence networks so superior to their contemporaries and what, in the post 9/11 irregular threat environment, can we learn from them?” Managing Savagery and The Geramisov Doctrine
By B.A. Friedman, Strategy Bridge: “While western nations typically view instability as a threat, both Russia and ISIS—although two vastly different strategic actors—seemingly view instability as an opportunity. Specifically, it’s an opportunity to turn primordial human needs and desires towards their own ends.”
Reagan: The Life by H.W. Brands. PART 1 of 6.
From master storyteller and New York Times bestselling Historian H. W. Brands comes the definitive biography of a visionary and transformative president. In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan’s personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism, Brands shows, and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today. Employing archival sources not available to previous biographers and drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving members of Reagan’s administration, Brands has crafted a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of the presidential years. He offers new insights into Reagan’s remote management style and fractious West Wing staff, his deft handling of public sentiment to transform the tax code, and his deeply misunderstood relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on which nothing less than the fate of the world turned. Reagan is a storytelling triumph, an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed the nation. https://www.amazon.com/Reagan-Life-H-W-Brands/dp/0307951146/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492988134&sr=1-1&keywords=ronald+reagan+brands Five Things That Helped Carl Von Clausewitz Become a Great Strategic Thinker
From Vanya Eftimova Bellinger, Strategy Bridge: “While Carl von Clausewitz is often quoted, in reality his treatise On War is rarely studied in depth. Aside from the book’s unfinished character, the difficulty in translating nineteenth century German into modern English, combined with interpreting complex ideas and placing them into current context, makes it easy to understand why military professionals and the general public quickly abandon reading the book. In times when the U.S. military struggles to find its strategic footing, reading and debating Clausewitz’s complex ideas are needed more now than ever before.” |
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CategoriesArchives
February 2024
EXAMPLE OF SUCCESS IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ACE VENTURA
PAUL RAHE: REALISM IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SPARTA
CONSCIENCE & TEMPORAL AUTHORITY
SHAKESPEARE
POSITIVE LAW vs. CONSCIENCE
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