Confront and Conceal

2013-04-23 Political Science

Author : David E. Sanger
Release : 2013-04-23
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 034/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Confront and Conceal by : David E. Sanger

Download or read book Confront and Conceal written by David E. Sanger. This book was released on 2013-04-23. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This astonishingly revealing insider's account of the Obama administration's foreign policy process is a triumph." —Foreign Affairs President Obama's administration came to office with the world on fire. Confront and Conceal is the story of how, in his first term, Obama secretly used the most innovative weapons and tools of American power, including our most sophisticated—and still unacknowledged—arsenal of cyberweapons, aimed at Iran's nuclear program. Washington and the world were rocked by Confront and Conceal, which goes deep into the Situation Room as Obama questions whether this new weapon can slow Iran and avoid a war—or whether it will create blowback, as the Iranians and others retaliate with cyberattacks on the United States. It describes how the bin Laden raid worsened the dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan, and how Obama's early idealism about fighting a "war of necessity" in Afghanistan quickly turned to fatigue, frustration, and now withdrawal. As the world seeks to understand how Obama will cope with nationalistic leaders in Beijing, a North Korea bent on developing a nuclear weapon that can reach American shores, and an Arab world where promising revolutions turned to chaos, Confront and Conceal—with an updated epilogue for this paperback edition—provides an unflinching account of these complex years of presidential struggle, in which America's ability to exert control grows ever more elusive.

The Perfect Weapon

2019-05-14 Political Science

Author : David E. Sanger
Release : 2019-05-14
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 902/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Perfect Weapon by : David E. Sanger

Download or read book The Perfect Weapon written by David E. Sanger. This book was released on 2019-05-14. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW AN HBO® DOCUMENTARY FROM AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR JOHN MAGGIO • “An important—and deeply sobering—new book about cyberwarfare” (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times), now updated with a new chapter. The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents—Bush and Obama—drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal and, during President Trump’s first year, turned back on the United States and its allies. And if Obama would begin his presidency by helping to launch the new era of cyberwar, he would end it struggling unsuccessfully to defend the 2016 U.S. election from interference by Russia, with Vladimir Putin drawing on the same playbook he used to destabilize Ukraine. Moving from the White House Situation Room to the dens of Chinese government hackers to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger reveals a world coming face-to-face with the perils of technological revolution, where everyone is a target. “Timely and bracing . . . With the deep knowledge and bright clarity that have long characterized his work, Sanger recounts the cunning and dangerous development of cyberspace into the global battlefield of the twenty-first century.”—Washington Post

Kill or Capture

2012-06-05 Political Science

Author : Daniel Klaidman
Release : 2012-06-05
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 781/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Kill or Capture by : Daniel Klaidman

Download or read book Kill or Capture written by Daniel Klaidman. This book was released on 2012-06-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Divulge[s] the details of top-level deliberations—details that were almost certainly known only to the administration’s inner circle” (The Wall Street Journal). When he was elected in 2008, Barack Obama had vowed to close Guantánamo, put an end to coercive interrogation and military tribunals, and restore American principles of justice. Yet by the end of his first term he had backtracked on each of these promises, ramping up the secret war of drone strikes and covert operations. Behind the scenes, wrenching debates between hawks and doves—those who would kill versus those who would capture—repeatedly tested the very core of the president’s identity, leading many to wonder whether he was at heart an idealist or a ruthless pragmatist. Digging deep into this period of recent history, investigative reporter Daniel Klaidman spoke to dozens of sources to piece together a riveting Washington story packed with revelations. As the president’s inner circle debated secret programs, new legal frontiers, and the disjuncture between principles and down-and-dirty politics, Obama vacillated, sometimes lashed out, and spoke in lofty tones while approving a mounting toll of assassinations and kinetic-war operations. Klaidman’s fly-on-the-wall reporting reveals who had his ear, how key national security decisions are really made, and whether or not President Obama lived up to the promise of candidate Obama. “Fascinating . . . Lays bare the human dimension of the wrenching national security decisions that have to be made.” —Tina Brown, NPR “An important book.” —Steve Coll, The New Yorker

The Obamians

2012 Biography & Autobiography

Author : James Mann
Release : 2012
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 269/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Obamians by : James Mann

Download or read book The Obamians written by James Mann. This book was released on 2012. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive analysis of the events, ideas, personalities, and conflicts that have defined Obama's foreign policy--with a new afterword for his second term When Barack Obama first took office, he brought with him a new group of foreign policy advisers intent on carving out a new global role for America in the wake of the Bush administration's war in Iraq. Now the acclaimed author of Rise of the Vulcans offers a definitive, even-handed account of the messier realities they've faced in implementing their policies and the challenges they will face going into the second term. In The Obamians, prizewinning author and journalist James Mann tells the compelling story of the administration's struggle to enact a coherent and effective set of policies in a time of global turmoil. At the heart of this struggle are the generational conflicts between the Democratic establishment--including Robert Gates, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden--and Obama and his inner circle of largely unknown, remarkably youthful advisers, who came of age after the Cold War had ended. Written by a proven master at elucidating political underpinnings even to the politicians themselves, The Obamians is a pivotal reckoning of this historic president and his inner circle, and of how their policies may or may not continue to shape America and the world. This edition includes a new afterword by the author on how the Obamians' foreign policy affected the 2012 election and what that means for the future.

Lessons in Disaster

2013-09-03 History

Author : Gordon M. Goldstein
Release : 2013-09-03
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 119/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Lessons in Disaster by : Gordon M. Goldstein

Download or read book Lessons in Disaster written by Gordon M. Goldstein. This book was released on 2013-09-03. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory look at the decisions that led to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, drawing on the insights and reassessments of one of the war's architects "I had a part in a great failure. I made mistakes of perception, recommendation and execution. If I have learned anything I should share it." These are not words that Americans ever expected to hear from McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. But in the last years of his life, Bundy—the only principal architect of Vietnam strategy to have maintained his public silence—decided to revisit the decisions that had led to war and to look anew at the role he played. He enlisted the collaboration of the political scientist Gordon M. Goldstein, and together they explored what happened and what might have been. With Bundy's death in 1996, that manuscript could not be completed, but Goldstein has built on their collaboration in an original and provocative work of presidential history that distills the essential lessons of America's involvement in Vietnam. Drawing on Goldstein's prodigious research as well as the interviews and analysis he conducted with Bundy, Lessons in Disaster is a historical tour de force on the uses and misuses of American power. And in our own era, in the wake of presidential decisions that propelled the United States into another war under dubious pretexts, these lessons offer instructive guidance that we must heed if we are not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

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Confront and Conceal

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