Twenty-five years ago, as an American GP living and practising in Wales, I would watch BBC sports programmes, such as darts and bowls and snooker, all unknown to me and, therefore, fascinating. I always found it odd — pairings such as Scotland (or Wales) versus The Rest of the World. It either seemed overly ambitious for Scotland or slim pickings for the rest of the world. After the recent US presidential election, it appears as if it will continue to be the US versus The Rest of the World.

Three books might help you, who are of ‘the rest of the world’, begin to grapple with what is going on in the US. Written from the short, medium, and long view, each has a somewhat parochial twist. Each also, however, contains a great deal of useful history.

The 9/11 Commission Report refutes the old saw that nothing good can be written by a committee. The report is a remarkable book and its recent nomination as a finalist for the National Book Award is a first for a government document, and well deserved. What is contained in this report is well known by most of us — the cast of characters has been in the news for over 3 years. And the sequence of events and many of the details that were gleaned from the ongoing hearings have been contained in news stories, long and short. However, to have published what is known until this point in a single narrative, which is at once accessible and clearly written, is a truly historical achievement. Reading the events of the day — regarding the planes that crashed in the city of New York, as the rescue squads from police and fire departments move into place and act — is both familiar and detailed in a way that helps us understand better than I would ever have imagined the why and how of all the death and destruction.

So much about those days have been parsed into documentaries — long analyses of causation of issues, like why the towers fell — that one would think that everything that could be written had been. But the Commission's report really does add enormous amounts of history to the sound bites and 30-second visuals that have pervaded politics and the world assessment of the US since that time. The report deals extensively and thoughtfully with the history of Islam, both ancient and recent, and describes the history of terrorism as it evolved from highjackings of the 1970s to the use of bombs and targeted destruction of military targets in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Events that occurred in the time that preceded the attacks of 9/11 are written in a way that shows the convergence of intelligence reports, a long history of threats from Bin Laden, and many alerts and warnings (‘the system was blinking red’ in the words of Tenet, CIA director). The information about the movements of the terrorists in their planning and the worldwide involvement of cells, support systems, and finances makes it clear that these events were truly the result of a network that reaches virtually everywhere.

After the attacks, reading of the efforts of the fire, police, and other rescue squads in New York adds specifics that are terrible and remarkable. On 9/11, I ran up and down the stairs between patients to watch on television as it was all happening. All of us who watched that day wondered what those people who were clearly doomed were thinking, feeling, and seeing. Their actual words in this report are not fiction, they are the words, for most the last words, of people who died as we watched. Their words are the hardest part of this long, detailed report to deal with.

Much of the final third of the report is devoted to what a fire captain friend of mine once called a PFE — a post-fire evaluation — which he mandated for his squad after every fire. In a PFE, the entire squad reconstructed, relived, and discussed the events to see what could be improved next time. The 9/11 Commission engaged in a world-scale PFE. Although all US politicians state that they intend to follow the recommendations of The 9/11 Commission Report, the backing and filling is already well underway. What politician, for example, is going to agree that major conurbations, and political and tactical targets should receive preference over their hometown fire departments and that homeland security money should ‘not be used as a pork barrel’?

Rather than bringing a grieving country together in a way that will make such events unlikely to happen again, the reactions from the report have begun to cleave along party lines once again. The 9/11 Commission was almost unique in its thoroughness, transparency, and its ability to focus on the real issue of terror and lawlessness. However, the extent to which a violent stateless ideology has negatively affected the tolerance of differences, the sense of community, and the level of civic discourse in the US means that terrorism has affected our neighborhoods as much as it has affected our country. And fear rather than determination, despite the President's stump speech, has become the dominant emotion.

Robert Byrd, from his 45-year perspective in the US Senate, understands that cheques and balances are essential to avoid tragedy, even if they, at times, impede progress. His book, Losing America, contains several ‘under-the-table’ looks at Congress and the manipulations and arrogance of the coterie of ideologues who surround George W. Bush. Byrd, from the Southern tradition of politeness and respect, which often cloaks bar-room politics, is steeped in the history of the institution of the Senate. He is personally offended by Bush's lack of interest or curiosity in the legislative process prior to 9/11, and his dishonesty and deception afterwards. Byrd's address to the Senate on the eve of the war on Iraq was widely quoted and is contained in this book. While people marching in the streets made headlines, it was an 85-year-old senator, not previously known as an outraged progressive, who took on both the Administration for its hypocrisy and many of his colleagues for their lack of courage and principle. He voted against the war and continues to point out the dishonesty of the people who guide it. The book reads with a sensibility from another age. Although his own history is certainly not without problems, Senator Byrd's belief in the true democratic process, rather than the gun-barrel approach of George W. Bush, should be given the respect that he, and it, deserve.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr has been writing history since 1946 and has Pulitzer prizes to prove he does it well. His voice is considered, thoughtful, and scholarly — as one might expect from a historian and distinguished teacher. Toward the end of his book War and the American Presidency, however, Schlesinger's voice rises with outrage at those who surround and influence George W. Bush, the ‘small group of Messianic statesman whose self righteousness bids fair to wreck our age’. He writes of the imperial presidencies of the early years of the country, which repressed dissent during wartime, and how the US moved from wars based on pique to engaging international diplomacy and internationalism. Schlesinger reminds us that all presidents since Wilson, with George W. Bush being the glaring exception, believed in statesmanship, diplomacy, alliances to guard against capricious choices and, when necessary, taking on common enemies.

Much of Schlesinger's book, however, also chronicles the record of the current Administration which, by being ‘judge, jury, and executioner resurrects the imperial presidency’. An imperial presidency in the age of frigates and single-shot rifles cannot be compared with one that possesses weapons of mass destruction and a wooly-headed sense of divine guidance. We used to think of Henry Kissinger as the prototype for Dr Strangelove, but I wish Kubrick were still alive to do the remake with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in mind.

Needless to say, the recent election, instead of relegating George W. Bush and his hangers-on to the historical trashbin, has pushed them to the front of the international agenda. A secretive, defensive, unreflective president will now shape the world for our grandchildren. Each of these books elaborates on the ineffectiveness of Bush dealing with the real enemy while he digs deeper into a country where he is creating more enemies by the day.

One has to ask why, instead of quietly writing their memoirs, two distinguished 87-year-old statesmen are raising the alarm and shaking us by the throat — like the aging Thomas Jefferson who, in his famous letter of 1820, said of the first compromise to try to divide the country between slave and free states: ‘this momentous question, like a firebell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror’. Byrd and Schlesinger hear the firebell and are ringing it to wake us up. Another quote that might better capture Bush and his legacy would be from the Bible he uses as justification for his policies: ‘He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind’ (Proverbs 11, 29).

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist attacks upon the United States.

The invasion of Iraq was premised upon accounts of the situation that have proved unsustainable, but that has not generated a change in the strategy of the coalition forces. Conventional contingency accounts of leadership suggest that accurate accounts of the context are a critical element of the decision-making apparatus but such accounts appear incapable of explaining the decisions of those engaged. An alternative model is developed that adapts the Tame and Wicked problem analysis of Rittell and Webber, in association with Etzioni’s typology of compliance, to propose an alternative analysis that is rooted in social constructivist approaches. This is then applied to three asymmetric case studies which suggest that decision-makers are much more active in the constitution of the context than conventional contingency theories allow, and that a persuasive rendition of the context then legitimizes a particular form of action that often relates to the decision-maker’s preferred mode of engagement, rather than ...

Problems, problems, problems: The social construction of ‘leadership’

International Security Studies (ISS) has changed and diversified in many ways since 1945. This book provides the first intellectual history of the development of the subject in that period. It explains how ISS evolved from an initial concern with the strategic consequences of superpower rivalry and nuclear weapons, to its current diversity in which environmental, economic, human and other securities sit alongside military security, and in which approaches ranging from traditional Realist analysis to Feminism and Post-colonialism are in play. It sets out the driving forces that shaped debates in ISS, shows what makes ISS a single conversation across its diversity, and gives an authoritative account of debates on all the main topics within ISS. This is an unparalleled survey of the literature and institutions of ISS that will be an invaluable guide for all students and scholars of ISS, whether traditionalist, ‘new agenda’ or critical. • The first book to tell the post-1945 story of International Security Studies and offer an integrated historical sociology of the whole field • Opens the door to a long-overdue conversation about what ISS is and where it should be going • Provides a detailed institutional account of ISS in terms of its journals, departments, think tanks and funding sources

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The Evolution of International Security Studies

International relations research has regarded networks as a particular mode of organization, distinguished from markets or state hierarchies. In contrast, network analysis permits the investigation and measurement of network structures—emergent properties of persistent patterns of relations among agents that can define, enable, and constrain those agents. Network analysis offers both a toolkit for identifying and measuring the structural properties of networks and a set of theories, typically drawn from contexts outside international relations, that relate structures to outcomes. Network analysis challenges conventional views of power in international relations by defining network power in three different ways: access, brokerage, and exit options. Two issues are particularly important to international relations: the ability of actors to increase their power by enhancing and exploiting their network positions, and the fungibility of network power. The value of network analysis in international relations has been demonstrated in precise description of international networks, investigation of network effects on key international outcomes, testing of existing network theory in the context of international relations, and development of new sources of data. Partial or faulty incorporation of network analysis, however, risks trivial conclusions, unproven assertions, and measures without meaning. A three-part agenda is proposed for future application of network analysis to international relations: import the toolkit to deepen research on international networks; test existing network theories in the domain of international relations; and test international relations theories using the tools of network analysis.

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Network Analysis for International Relations

Perception and Misperception in International Politics

Since the 16th century, balance of power politics have profoundly influenced international relations. But in recent years-with the sudden disappearance of the Soviet Union, growing power of the United States, and increasing prominence of international institutions-many scholars have argued that balance of power theory is losing its relevance. This book examines the current position and future of balance of power dynamics in international politics. In this book, prominent scholars pay special attention to the theoretical and historical criticisms of balance of power theory while empirically assessing its validity at both global and regional levels. The volume also looks at systemic factors favoring or hindering a return to balance of power politics. It evaluates the challenges posed by subnational actors, such as terrorist groups, and weapons of mass destruction to international order. Further, it examines the relevance of balance of power axioms in selected regions: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America.

Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century

China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975

: Since the end of the Cold War, naval analysts and strategists have faced a crisis. On the one hand, they are well versed with the enduring concepts of strategy, intelligence and the procedures and lessons generated by nearly fifty years of Cold War. On the other hand, there is a widespread notion that traditional ways of doing business undermine new, more cooperative opportunities that have arisen in international politics since 1989. This criticism is reflected in attempts at "New Thinking" which places societal, environmental and even "Utopian" solutions to military and intelligence problems ahead of traditional concepts of strategy. At the same time, events like the Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, Desert Fox and "intelligence surprises" (Indian and Pakistan nuclear testing) demonstrate a mastery of the principles of intelligence and strategy are the cornerstone of U.S. foreign and defense policy.

Strategy in the Contemporary World

As the costs of a preemptive foreign policy in Iraq have become clear, strategies such as containment and deterrence have been gaining currency among policy makers. This comprehensive book offers an agenda for the contemporary practice of deterrence - especially as it applies to nuclear weapons - in an increasingly heterogeneous global and political setting. Moving beyond the precepts of traditional deterrence theory, this groundbreaking volume offers insights for the use of deterrence in the modern world, where policy makers may encounter irrational actors, failed states, religious zeal, ambiguous power relationships, and other situations where the traditional rules of statecraft do not apply. A distinguished group of contributors here examines issues such as deterrence among the Great Powers; the problems of regional and non-state actors; and, actors armed with chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. "Complex Deterrence" will be a valuable resource for anyone facing the considerable challenge of fostering security and peace in the twenty-first century.

James J. Wirtz

Papers

Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century

Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century

China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975

Strategy in the Contemporary World

Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age