The Middle East And American National Security

As the postwar U.S. national security establishment required Middle Eastern expertise, it cultivated a beneficial relationship with universities. But by the time the Bush administration declared its Global War on Terror, Osamah Khalil shows, think tank agendas aligned with neoconservative goals were the drivers of America’s foreign policy.

As a new administration reshapes American security policy, a leading scholar of U.S. foreign relations and national security reviews the most critical problems facing the Middle East, and the United States policy and actions to address them.

Sustaining security : rethinking American national security strategy / Jeremi Suri and Benjamin Valentino -- Dollar diminution and new macroeconomic constraints on American power / Jonathan Kirshner -- Does American military power attract foreign investment? / Daniel Drezner and Nancy Hite-Rubin -- Preserving national strength in a period of fiscal restraint / Cindy Williams -- State finance and national power : Great Britain, China, and the United States in historical perspective / Jeremi Suri -- Reforming American power : civilian national security institutions in the early cold war and beyond / William Inboden -- To starve an army : how great power armies respond to austerity / John W. Hall -- Climate change and US national security : sustaining security amidst unsustainability / Joshua William Busby -- At home abroad : public attitudes towards America's overseas commitments / Benjamin Valentino -- The right choice for NATO / William Wohlforth -- The United States and the Middle East : interests, risks, and costs / Daniel Byman and Sara Bjerg Moller -- Keep, toss, or fix? : assessing US alliances in East Asia / Jennifer Lind -- Terminating the interminable? / Sumit Ganguly -- Neutralization as a sustainable approach to Afghanistan / Audrey Kurth Cronin -- Conclusion / Jeremi Suri and Benjamin Valentino

The text focuses on three interrelated subject areas that are at the heart of the current foreign and national security dilemma: the Middle East, energy policy, and military manpower policy. Remedying these obvious cases of policy dysfunction would create opportunities for less confrontational, adversary-driven foreign and defense posture.

This fifth edition of American National Security is a timely update of a classic classroom text, providing contemporary perspectives on limited war, economic challenges to national security, and research and development. It reviews the changing security environment in key regions of the world: Russia, East Asia, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Europe. And it identifies the issues that the United States must face in the next century: peace operations, conflict and arms control, and the widening array of missions undertaken by U.S. armed forces. "We have chosen to emphasize 'power,' broadly defined, as the central dimension of international and national security. This is not to deny that various trends and forces are increasingly pressing states toward more cooperative, less confrontational behavior; rather it is to focus on the fact that on important issues many states -- including all the great powers -- apply a power calculus in dealing with other international actors." -- from the fifth edition of American National Security Praise for previous editions: "A classic text, widely used in universities... It does an exemplary job of explaining the process of defining and implementing national security objectives. Hardly any significant subject is omitted from this very rich and readable volume." -- Foreign Affairs Contents Foreword by Senator Sam Nunn Part I -- National Security Policy: What Is It, and How Have Americans Approached It? 1. National Security: The International Setting 2. Military Power and the Role of Force in the Post-Cold War Era 3. Traditional American Approaches to National Security 4. The Evolution of American National Security Policy Part II -- National Security Policy 5. Presidential Leadership and the Executive Branch in National Security 6. The Impact of Congress on National Security Policy 7. Intelligence and National Security 8. The Role of Military in the National Security Policy Process 9. Defense Planning, Budgeting, and Management 10. The National Security Decision-making Process: Putting the Pieces Together Part III -- Issues of National Strategy 11. Low-level Conflict 12. Limited War 13. Nuclear Strategy Economic Challenges to National Security 15. Research and Development Part IV -- International and Regional Security Issues 16. Russia 17. East Asia 18. The Middle East 19. Sun-Sarahan Africa 20. Latin America 21. Europe Part V: Approaches to National Security for the Early Twenty-first Century 22. Peace Operations 23. Conflict and Arms Control 24. National Security Perspectives for the Early Twenty-first Century

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