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The Road to War: Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed
Not since Pearl Harbor has an American president gone to Congress to request a declaration of war. Nevertheless, since then, one president after another, from Truman to Obama, has ordered American troops into wars all over the world. From Korea to Vietnam, Panama to Grenada, Lebanon to Bosnia, Afghanistan to Iraq-why have presidents sidestepped declarations of war? Marvin Kalb, former chief diplomatic correspondent for CBS and NBC News, explores this key question in his thirteenth book about the presidency and U.S. foreign policy.
Instead of a declaration of war, presidents have justified their war-making powers by citing \"commitments,\" private and public, made by former presidents. Many of these commitments have been honored, but some betrayed. Surprisingly, given the tight U.S.-Israeli relationship, Israeli leaders feel that at times they have been betrayed by American presidents. Is it time for a negotiated defense treaty between the United States and Israel as a way of substituting for a string of secret presidential commitments?
From Israel to Vietnam, presidential commitments have proven to be tricky and dangerous. For example, one president after another committed the United States to the defense of South Vietnam, often without explanation. Over the years, these commitments mushroomed into national policy, leading to a war costing 58,000 American lives. Few in Congress or the media chose to question the war's provenance or legitimacy, until it was too late. No president saw the need for a declaration of war, considering one to be old-fashioned.
The word of a president can morph into a national commitment. It can become the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. Therefore, whenever a president \"commits\"the United States to a policy or course of action with, or increasingly without, congressional approval, watch out-the White House may be setting the nation on a road toward war.
eBook
The soldier and the state in India : nuclear weapons, counterinsurgency, and the transformation of Indian civil-military relations
The Soldier and the State in India is one of the first attempts at offering a theoretical perspective for examining some of the most critical issues that have emerged in Indian civil-military relations. It specifically examines issues pertaining to military expertise and military professionalism that emerged whenever there was a contestation in civil-military functions, thereby allowing the military greater influence in policy-making. The book uses Samuel Huntington's ideas on military professionalism and Peter Feaver's discussion of military expertise in the American context as the theoretical framework for addressing similar issues that have emerged in debates on Indian civil-military relations. Moreover, it also includes a serious focus on the role of the Indian military in counterinsurgency operations and the impact of Indian nuclear strategy on the relationship between civilians and the military in India. Most books on the subject have failed to address issues that emerge when there is a contestation in civil-military functions; this book seeks to fill that gap.
eBook
Reagan's war on terrorism in Nicaragua
During the first two years of Ronald Reagan’s second term the United States developed an offensive strategy for dealing with conflict in the developing world. Nicaragua was a primary target of this policy. Scholars refer to this as the Reagan offensive: the first time that the United States eschewed the norms of containment and sought to “roll-back” the gains of communism. However, the Reagan offensive was also significantly driven by a response to the emergent threat of international terrorism. Terrorism provided a vehicle that justified its use of aggressive proxy war and pursuit of regime change in Central America. U.S. policy with Nicaragua demonstrates the importance of terrorism to the development of a more aggressive United States in the post-Cold War world. This book examines the influence of the U.S.-Contra War in establishing a precedent for the use of overt pre-emptive force against sovereign nations in the name of counterterrorism. In the 21st century, the United States undertook a policy with the world based on a broad definition of self-defense that called for an array of actions that often violated traditional norms of international law and recognition of sovereign rights. This book demonstrates that the precedent for this change occurred in the late Cold War as the United States sought to respond to an escalation of global terrorism. The emergent problem of terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s transformed how and when the United States applied force in the world.
eBook
Power in Uncertain Times
The United States faces a complex and rapidly shifting international security landscape. Forces of ethnic and religious extremism, diffusion of information technologies, proliferation of mass destruction weapons, and newly empowered non-state actors are just some of the trends whose complex interplay will produce unanticipated threats. Yet, while the future is more uncertain today than during the Cold War, we currently have a window of opportunity for shaping a more favorable future. The challenge for the United States, and for all states, is not just to manage uncertainty but also to prevail in spite of it.
To help address that challenge, this book examines strategic choices in uncertain times and analyzes how different strategies position states to compete, manage risk, and prevail despite uncertainty. It investigates how past and current political and military leaders have responded to uncertain strategic and technological environments, and assesses the consequences of those strategies for their state's power and influence.
eBook
War, strategy, and military effectiveness
\"This collection of articles proves that the study of military and strategic history can be useful in confronting the daunting problems of war and peace in the twenty-first century\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Death Dust
The postwar period saw increased interest in the idea of relatively easy-to-manufacture but devastatingly lethal radiological munitions whose use would not discriminate between civilian and military targets. Death Dust explores the largely unknown history of the development of radiological weapons (RW)-weapons designed to disperse radioactive material without a nuclear detonation-through a series of comparative case studies across the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Iraq, and Egypt. The authors illuminate the historical drivers of and impediments to radiological weapons innovation. They also examine how new, dire geopolitical events-such as the war in Ukraine-could encourage other states to pursue RW and analyze the impact of the spread of such weapons on nuclear deterrence and the nonproliferation regime. Death Dust presents practical, necessary steps to reduce the likelihood of a resurgence of interest in and pursuit of radiological weapons by state actors.
eBook