War Is Coming

From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon experienced a long war involving various national and international actors. The peace agreement that followed and officially propelled the country into a "postwar" era did not address many of the root causes of war, nor did it hold main actors accountable. Instead, a politics of "no victor, no vanquished" was promoted, in which the political elite agreed simply to consign the war to the past. However, since then, Lebanon has found itself still entangled in various forms of political violence, from car bombings and assassinations to additional outbreaks of armed combat. In War Is Coming, Sami Hermez argues that the country's political leaders have enabled the continuation of violence and examines how people live between these periods of conflict. What do everyday conversations, practices, and experiences look like during these moments? How do people attempt to find a measure of certainty or stability in such times? Hermez's ethnographic study of everyday life in Lebanon between the volatile years of 2006 and 2009 tackles these questions and reveals how people engage in practices of recollecting past war while anticipating future turmoil. Hermez demonstrates just how social interactions and political relationships with the state unfold and critically engages our understanding of memory and violence, seeing in people's recollections living and spontaneous memories that refuse to forget the past. With an attention to the details of everyday life, War Is Coming shows how even a conversation over lunch, or among friends, may turn into a discussion about both past and future unrest. Shedding light on the impact of protracted conflict on people's everyday experiences and the way people anticipate political violence, Hermez highlights an urgency for alternative paths to sustaining political and social life in Lebanon.

One issue could lead to a disastrous war between the United States and China: Taiwan. A growing number of Taiwanese want independence for their island and regard mainland China as an alien nation. Mainland Chinese consider Taiwan a province that was stolen from China more than a century ago, and their patience about getting it back is wearing thin. Washington officially endorses a "one China" policy but also sells arms to Taiwan and maintains an implicit pledge to defend it from attack. That vague, muddled policy invites miscalculation by Taiwan or China or both. The three parties are on a collision course, and unless something dramatic changes, an armed conflict is virtually inevitable within a decade. Although there is still time to avert a calamity, time is running out. In this book, Carpenter tells the reader what the U.S. must do quickly to avoid being dragged into war.

“Should be required reading for anyone interested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government.” —The New York Times Book Review * “Well researched and eloquently presented.” —The Atlantic * “Delivers Cormac McCarthy-worthy drama; while the nonfictional asides imbue that drama with the authority of documentary.” —The New York Times Book Review A celebrated journalist takes a fiercely divided America and imagines five chilling scenarios that lead to its collapse, based on in-depth interviews with experts of all kinds. The United States is coming to an end. The only question is how. On a small two-lane bridge in a rural county that loathes the federal government, the US Army uses lethal force to end a standoff with hard-right anti-government patriots. Inside an ordinary diner, a disaffected young man with a handgun takes aim at the American president stepping in for an impromptu photo-op, and a bullet splits the hyper-partisan country into violently opposed mourners and revelers. In New York City, a Category 2 hurricane plunges entire neighborhoods underwater and creates millions of refugees overnight—a blow that comes on the heels of a financial crash and years of catastrophic droughts—and tips America over the edge into ruin. These nightmarish scenarios are just three of the five possibilities most likely to spark devastating chaos in the United States that are brought to life in The Next Civil War, a chilling and deeply researched work of speculative nonfiction. Drawing upon sophisticated predictive models and nearly two hundred interviews with experts—civil war scholars, military leaders, law enforcement officials, secret service agents, agricultural specialists, environmentalists, war historians, and political scientists—journalist Stephen Marche predicts the terrifying future collapse that so many of us do not want to see unfolding in front of our eyes. Marche has spoken with soldiers and counterinsurgency experts about what it would take to control the population of the United States, and the battle plans for the next civil war have already been drawn up. Not by novelists, but by colonels. No matter your political leaning, most of us can sense that America is barreling toward catastrophe—of one kind or another. Relevant and revelatory, The Next Civil War plainly breaks down the looming threats to America and is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of its people, its land, and its government.

Two authorities on future warfare join forces to create a taut, convincing novel—set in 2026—about a besieged America battling for its very existence.

China?s ambition is to rise peacefully. Avoiding fierceconflicts with its Asian neighbors is essential to this goal.Jonathan Holslag makes a brilliant case for the geopoliticaldilemma facing the rising China, and his argument that China willlikely enter into major conflict with Asia is compelling andthoughtful. Both Chinese experts and decision-makers will find thisbook illuminating reading. Asia is set for another great power war. As China?s influencespreads beyond its territorial borders and its global aspirationsgain momentum, so tensions with its neighbors are reaching breakingpoint. In this clear-sighted book, Jonathan Holslag debunks themyth of China?s peaceful rise, arguing instead that China?s policyof shrewd intransigence towards other Asian countries willinevitably result in serious conflict. China?s ambitions are not malicious. But what China wants ?namely to maximize its security and prosperity ? will lead to ahuge power imbalance, where China towers above her neighbors,impels them into unequal partnerships, and is increasingly able toseize disputed territory. At present, China?s focused anduncompromising pursuit of its own interests is bearing fruit. Manyof China?s neighbors are still too weak to counter Beijing?sinfluence, and China has ably exploited divisions between them todivide and rule. But several regional powers are now joining forcesto stop China. With the PRC unlikely to back down and nationalismriding high, China?s coming war with Asia is already in themaking.

War is coming again to the Pacific. It is coming for the same reasons is came in 1941. Then, Japan was a close friend and trading partner to the United States. Japan was growing rapidly into the strongest economic power in that part of the world. However, they had three major domestic problems: a lack of natural resources that others had, a huge population growing beyond their ability to manage, and the power of the United States to dictate what they did. To resolve first two, they had to limit the third. China is now in the same position. President Obama’s apologetic approach to international relations allowed China to limit American power by asking for and receiving nearly any negotiation terms they desired, pushing America into deep debtor status with China holding the IOU’s. Under President Trump, the tide has dramatically turned. In 1941, to limit the power of the United States in the Pacific, the Japanese sent a fleet to Pearl Harbor to cripple the US Pacific Fleet. They failed. China learned from this major mistake, or so they believe. China is now implementing a plan for doing something similar with the goal of achieving the same end with the nuclear threat of North Korea aimed at Hawaii. The “mistaken” missile alert, given how the alert is triggered and the immediate demands of certain politicians there, make it obvious that “this was no drill.” Rather, it is a message to America. They believe they can hand President Trump, and the allies, a fait accompli; and it is obvious for those willing to open their eyes to the facts. China is telling America to obey or face another, nuclear Pearl Harbor. Unbelievable? Only if one decides to ignore the signs that are there for all to see. In the 1930’s America ignored the signs in Europe and the western Pacific and the China Seas right up to December 7th, 1941. History is repeating itself in the same locations and for the same reasons; resources, empire, and global control. In the Intelligence Community, there is a process known as OSINT or open source intelligence where an analyst establishes a hypothesis, then begins to develop indications of whether the hypothesis is valid or not. Using open sources, the analyst evaluates the information, the sources, the statements by governments and the actions by those same governments to develop a picture or scenario. This work is such a scenario of the South China Sea, and it is a scary one as it points directly to the events of 70 years ago to the actions of today with perfect accuracy.

Karl Marx famously wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon that history repeats itself, “first as tragedy, then as farce.” The Cold War waged between the United States and Soviet Union from 1945 until the latter's dissolution in 1991 was a great tragedy, resulting in millions of civilian deaths in proxy wars, and a destructive arms race that diverted money from social spending and nearly led to nuclear annihilation. The New Cold War between the United States and Russia is playing out as farce – a dangerous one at that. The Russians Are Coming, Again is a red flag to restore our historical consciousness about U.S.-Russian relations, and how denying this consciousness is leading to a repetition of past follies. Kuzmarov and Marciano's book is timely and trenchant. The authors argue that the Democrats’ strategy, backed by the corporate media, of demonizing Russia and Putin in order to challenge Trump is not only dangerous, but also, based on the evidence so far, unjustified, misguided, and a major distraction. Grounding their argument in all-but-forgotten U.S.-Russian history, such as the 1918-20 Allied invasion of Soviet Russia, the book delivers a panoramic narrative of the First Cold War, showing it as an all-too-avoidable catastrophe run by the imperatives of class rule and political witch-hunts. The distortion of public memory surrounding the First Cold War has set the groundwork for the New Cold War, which the book explains is a key feature, skewing the nation’s politics yet again. This is an important, necessary book, one that, by including accounts of the wisdom and courage of the First Cold War's victims and dissidents, will inspire a fresh generation of radicals in today's new, dangerously farcical times.

Winner of the George Washington Prize Winner of the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History Winner of the Excellence in American History Book Award Winner of the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award From the bestselling author of the Liberation Trilogy comes the extraordinary first volume of his new trilogy about the American Revolution Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn and two other superb books about World War II, has long been admired for his deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative histories. Now he turns his attention to a new war, and in the initial volume of the Revolution Trilogy he recounts the first twenty-one months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force. It is a gripping saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery; Nathanael Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who becomes a brilliant battle captain; Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proves to be the wiliest of diplomats; George Washington, the commander in chief who learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost. The story is also told from the British perspective, making the mortal conflict between the redcoats and the rebels all the more compelling. Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the first act of our country’s creation drama.