The United States faces the realistic and indefinite threat of terrorist attack with nuclear weapons. Whether the United States is successful in preventing such an attack will depend on whether we effectively wield the instruments of security. It will also depend on whether we effectively manage national security processes and apply the law in a manner that both enhances security and upholds our core values. As a result, lawyers, not just presidents, generals, and spies, will decide the ou...

Assessing the legal and practical questions posed by the use of artificial intelligence in national security mattersThe increasing use of artificial intelligence poses challenges and opportunities for nearly all aspects of society, including the military and other elements of the national security establishment. This book addresses how national security law can and should be applied to artificial intelligence, which enables a wide range of decisions and actions not ...

Security studies, also known as international security studies, is an academic subfield within the wider discipline of international relations that examines organized violence, military conflict, and national security. Meant to serve as an introduction to the field of security studies, Contextualizing Security is a collection of original essays, primary source lectures, and previously published material in the overlapping fields of security studies, political science, sociology, j...

The New York Times bestselling exposé of what passes for business as usual in Washington todayThere was a time, not so very long ago, when perfectly rational people ran the Republican Party. So how did the party of Lincoln become the party of lunatics? That is what this book aims to answer. Fear not, the Dems come in for their share of tough talk— they are zombies, a party of the living dead.Mike Lofgren came to Washington in the early eighties—tho...

The bestselling author of The Limits of Power critically examines the Washington consensus on national security and why it must change.For the last half century, as administrations have come and gone, the fundamental assumptions about America's military policy have remained unchanged: American security requires the United States (and us alone) to maintain a permanent armed presence around the globe, to prepare our forces for military operations in far-flun...

The New York Times bestselling author of The Party Is Over delivers a no-holds-barred exposé of who really wields power in WashingtonEvery Four years, tempers are tested and marriages fray as Americans head to the polls to cast their votes. But does anyone really care what we think? Has our vaunted political system become one big, expensive, painfully scriped reality TV show? In this cringe-inducing expose of the sins and excesses of Belt...

From the former secretary of defense and author of the acclaimed #1 best-selling memoir Duty, a characteristically direct, informed, and urgent assessment of why big institutions are failing us and how smart, committed leadership can effect real improvement regardless of scale.Across the realms of civic and private enterprise alike, bureaucracies vitally impact our security, freedoms, and everyday life. With so much at stake, competence, efficiency, and fiscal prudence are...

Until the watershed leak of top-secret documents by Edward Snowden to the Guardian UK and the Washington Post, most Americans did not realize the extent to which our government is actively acquiring personal information from telecommunications companies and other corporations. As made startlingly clear, the National Security Agency (NSA) has collected information on every phone call Americans have made over the past seven years. In that same time, the NSA and the FBI have...

Failure should not be an option in the presidency, but for too long it has been the norm.From the botched attempt to rescue the U.S. diplomats held hostage by Iran in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter and the missed intelligence on Al Qaeda before 9-11 under George W. Bush to, most recently, the computer meltdown that marked the arrival of health care reform under Barack Obama, the American presidency has been a profile in failure. In Why Presidents Fail and How They Can Succee...

They Know Everything About You is a groundbreaking expos' of how government agencies and tech corporations monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, and a fierce defense of privacy and democracy.The revelation that the government has access to a vast trove of personal online data demonstrates that we already live in a surveillance society. But the erosion of privacy rights extends far beyond big government. Intelligence agencies such as the NSA and CIA ...

A central player's account of the clash between the rule of law and the necessity of defending America.Jack Goldsmith's duty as head of the Office of Legal Counsel was to advise President Bush what he could and could not do...legally. Goldsmith took the job in October 2003 and began to review the work of his predecessors. Their opinions were the legal framework governing the conduct of the military and intelligence agencies in the war on terror, and he found many—e...

The official report that has shaped the international debate about NSA surveillance"We cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly 'trusting' our public officials."—The NSA ReportT...