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The first book to tell the full story of American isolationism, from the founding era through the Trump presidency. In his Farewell Address of 1796, President George Washington admonished the young nation "to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." Isolationism thereafter became one of the most influential political trends in American history. From the founding era until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States shunned strategic commitments abroad, making only brief detours during the Spanish-American War and World War I. Amid World War II and the Cold War, Americans abandoned isolationism; they tried to run the world rather than run away from it. But isolationism is making a comeback as Americans tire of foreign entanglement. In this definitive and magisterial analysis-the first book to tell the fascinating story of isolationism across the arc of American history-Charles Kupchan explores the enduring connection between the isolationist impulse and the American experience. He also refurbishes isolationism's reputation, arguing that it constituted dangerous delusion during the 1930s, but afforded the nation clear strategic advantages during its ascent. Kupchan traces isolationism's staying power to the ideology of American exceptionalism. Strategic detachment from the outside world was to protect the nation's unique experiment in liberty, which America would then share with others through the power of example. Since 1941, the United States has taken a much more interventionist approach to changing the world. But it has overreached, prompting Americans to rediscover the allure of nonentanglement and an America First foreign policy. The United States is hardly destined to return to isolationism, yet a strategic pullback is inevitable. Americans now need to find the middle ground between doing too much and doing too little.
Arguably, the rise of air power has been the most significant change in warfare during the twentieth century. While World War II demonstrated the tremendous effect and potential of air power, its proper application was misplaced during the Vietnam War. There, instead of adhering to the basic tenet of air poweremploying it as an indivisible weapon-political and military leaders parceled out air power among various loosely connected campaigns. The indivisibility of air power theory also fell victim to doctrinal battles among the services. Fortunately, the United States military relearned the proper applications of air power during the Persian Gulf War and more recently confirmed it in Operation Allied Force, the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) campaign over Kosovo. Kosovo demonstrated that the services had bridged the doctrinal divide and progressed toward doctrinal cohesion. Over the past thirty years, the application of air power has received greater emphasis with respect to its purpose, execution, and lower cost. The results have been most beneficial to the security and freedom of the United States and its friends.. Superior technology has enabled the United States to emphasize quality over quantity, talent over mass, firepower over manpower, and innovation over tradition. We have learned that the complacency of our successes threatens our technological superiority. We have also seen our weapons systems acquisition suffer from a ponderous, nonproductive process that emphasizes cost over value, administration over output, and the separation of operators from engineers. To defeat complacency and regain superiority in acquisition, the Department of Defense implemented a series of management reforms that supported continuous competition, concentrated research and development on high-leverage militarily unique technologies, and broke down the barriers between operators and engineers. The accelerating hardware and software revolutions of the 1990s greatly impact the operational aspects of information management and information warfare. To make them integral elements of the same overall system will require cultural and structural changes as well as significant technology development. The new technology contributes knowledge and speed to the problems of warfare. It answers the basic questions: Where am I? Where are my subordinates? Where is the enemy? Our major difficulties are with information overload and information processing. In addition, because American business and commerce are so heavily dependent on computerized information processing, the nation is highly vulnerable to information warfare. Fortunately, our younger generation is fully up to these demands.
This broad review of the development of US water resource policy analysis and practice offers perspectives from several disciplines: law, economics, engineering, ecology and political science. While the historical context provided goes back to the early 19th century, the book concentrates on the past 60 years and features a discussion of the difficulty that has generally been encountered in bringing the disciplines of economics and ecology into collaboration in the water resource context. The book explores the evolution of water related analytical capabilities and institutions and provides illustrations from case studies, concluding with recommendations for research, institutional change and action. Though designed to be a background textbook for interdisciplinary graduate seminars in water resources planning and management, it is accessible to interested lay readers and those who have policymaking or implementation responsibility but lack a technical background. The book will appeal to students and faculty in water policy, economics, and engineering, and in interdisciplinary programs organized around water resource problems and questions. Policy makers and general readers will also appreciate this non-technical introduction.
Based on first-person accounts, interviews, declassified documents, and secondary background sources, this book gives readers insight into the significant actions and innovative techniques of the struggle for East Timorese independence from 1999 to 2006. The book begins with a two-chapter historical overview of the circumstances that caused the United Nations to intervene in East Timor in 1999, and then continues with a detailed account of the referendum on independence and the military operations required to restore order after the Timorese people decided upon freedom from Indonesia. In the final three chapters, Ballard describes the actions taken to support the first national elections, the writing of a constitution, and the formation of a new national government in East Timor. The final chapter compares UN operations in East Timor to previous operations in Somalia, Eastern Europe and Haiti, and outlines key lessons for the future, including the critical importance of economic development and good governance in fledgling states