America S Achilles Heel

This book is about the criticism of the American economic strategy.

Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons delivered covertly by terrorists or hostile governments pose a significant and growing threat to the United States and other countries. Although the threat of NBC attack is widely recognized as a central national security issue, most analysts have assumed that the primary danger is military use by states in war, with traditional military means of delivery. The threat of covert attack has been imprudently neglected.Covert attack is hard to deter or prevent, and NBC weapons suitable for covert attack are available to a growing range of states and groups hostile to the United States. At the same time, constraints on their use appear to be eroding. This volume analyzes the nature and limits of the covert NBC threat and proposes a measured set of policy responses, focused on improving intelligence and consequence-management capabilities to reduce U.S. vulnerability.About the authors: Richard A. Falkenrath is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He served as Executive Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) and, before that, as a Research Fellow. He is the author and co-author of Shaping Europe's Military Order (1995), Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy (1996), America's Achilles' Heel:Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (1998), and numerous journal articles and chapters of edited volumes. Falkenrath has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the German Society of Foreign Affairs (DGAP) in Bonn. He holds a PhD from the Department of War Studies, King's College, London, where he was a British Marshall Scholar, and is a summa cum laude graduate of Occidental College, Los Angeles, with degrees in economics and international relations. He is on leave in 2001-2002 and is currently serving as Director for Counterproliferation and Homeland Defense at the National Security Council.Bradley A. Thayer is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

Contending perspectives on the future of US grand strategy. More than a decade has passed since the end of the Cold War, but the United States has yet to reach a consensus on a coherent approach to the international use of American power. The essays in this volume present contending perspectives on the future of U.S. grand strategy. U.S. policy options include primacy, cooperative security, selective engagement, and retrenchment. This revised edition includes additional and more recent analysis and advocacy of these options. The volume includes the Clinton administration's National Security Strategy for a New Century, the most recent official statement of American grand strategy, so readers can compare proposed strategies with the official U.S. government position.

The United States today is the most powerful nation in the world, perhaps even stronger than Rome was during its heyday. It is likely to remain the world's preeminent power for at least several decades to come. What behavior is appropriate for such a powerful state? To answer this question, Robert J. Art concentrates on "grand strategy"—the deployment of military power in both peace and war to support foreign policy goals.He first defines America's contemporary national interests and the specific threats they face, then identifies seven grand strategies that the United States might contemplate, examining each in relation to America's interests. The seven are:• dominion—forcibly trying to remake the world in America's own image;• global collective security—attempting to keep the peace everywhere;• regional collective security—confining peacekeeping efforts to Europe;• cooperative security—seeking to reduce the occurrence of war by limiting other states' offensive capabilities;• isolationism—withdrawing from all military involvement beyond U.S. borders;• containment—holding the line against aggressor states; and• selective engagement—choosing to prevent or to become involved only in those conflicts that pose a threat to the country's long-term interests.Art makes a strong case for selective engagement as the most desirable strategy for contemporary America. It is the one that seeks to forestall dangers, not simply react to them; that is politically viable, at home and abroad; and that protects all U.S. interests, both essential and desirable. Art concludes that "selective engagement is not a strategy for all times, but it is the best grand strategy for these times."

On October 11, 2001, President George W. Bush held his first prime time news conference since assuming office to describe America's nascent War on Terrorism. In his opening statement and responses to questions he emphasized the nation's commitment to a "sustained campaign to drive the terrorists out of their hidden caves and to bring them to justice." He also described parallel campaigns to aggressively pursue "agents of terror around the world" and strengthen "our protections here at home." While his resolve was evident, the deep anxiety that troubled him personally and the entire nation was also conspicuous as he labored to describe the uncertain road ahead. America had been compelled to embark on a war unlooked for, a war for which the rules have not been written. The disturbing nature of that new conflict was poignantly illustrated at the end of the press conference when the president looked into the camera and announced the creation of the Afghanistan Children's Fund and enlisted the support of America's own children. The sobering symbolism of the initiative was not widely perceived, yet the president's message was clear. In the aftermath of September 11th, every citizen-man, woman, and child-is now a foot soldier in a war that will be waged, in large part, on American soil and on that of her allies. Consequently, the tangible cost of the conflict will be borne, most conspicuously, by civilians around the world. The pressure that reality exerts on the U.S. and on its coalition partners cannot be underestimated.

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik detonated a car bomb in downtown Oslo, Norway. He didn't stop there, traveling several hours from the city to ambush a youth camp while the rest of Norway was distracted by his earlier attack. That's where the facts end. But what motivated him? Did he have help staging the attacks? The evidence suggests a startling truth: that this was the work of one man, pursuing a mission he was convinced was just. If Breivik did indeed act alone, he wouldn't be the first. Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City based essentially on his own motivations. Eric Robert Rudolph embarked on a campaign of terror over several years, including the Centennial Park bombing at the 1996 Olympics. Ted Kaczynski was revealed to be the Unabomber that same year. And these are only the most notable examples. As George Michael demonstrates in Lone Wolf Terror and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance, they are not isolated cases. Rather, they represent the new way warfare will be conducted in the twenty-first century. Lone Wolf Terror investigates the motivations of numerous political and ideological elements, such as right-wing individuals, ecoextremists, foreign jihadists, and even quasi-governmental entities. In all these cases, those carrying out destructive acts operate as "lone wolves" and small cells, with little or no connection to formal organizations. Ultimately, Michael suggests that leaderless resistance has become the most common tactical approach of political terrorists in the West and elsewhere.