Hot Off the Presses

Zion’s Dilemmas: How Israel Makes National Security Policy

By Charles D. Freilich, Senior Fellow, International Security Program, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, Cornell University Press (November 2012)

In Zion’s Dilemmas, a former deputy national security adviser to the State of Israel details the history and, in many cases, the chronic inadequacies in the making of Israeli national security policy.  The author uses  his insider understanding and substantial archival and interview research to describe how Israel has made strategic decisions and to present a first-of-its-kind model of national security decision-making in Israel. The book concludes with cogent and timely recommendations for reform.

“. . . Synthesizing unusual personal knowledge with theoretical originality, Charles D. Freilich identifies and shows five main pathologies of Israeli security decision-making in seven case studies of critical Israeli choices. On this basis a series of important improvement proposals are developed. Zion’s Dilemmas is essential reading for all interested in Israeli statecraft, and also of profound significance for the comparative study of national security policies.”

—Yehezkel Dror, author of Israeli Statecraft: National Security Challenges and Responses

Containing Iran: Strategies for Addressing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge

By Robert J. Reardon, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, RAND Corporation (September 2012)

This study assesses current U.S. policy options on the Iranian nuclear question. It suggests that U.S. goals can be met through patient and forward-looking policymaking. Specifically, the United States can begin to lay the groundwork for an effective containment policy while continuing efforts to forestall Iranian weaponization. A successful containment policy will promote long-term positive political change in Iran while avoiding counterproductive provocation.

Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power

By David E. Sanger, Senior Fellow, Belfer, Center for Science and International Affairs, Random House (June 2012)

Inside the White House Situation Room, the newly elected Barack Obama immerses himself in the details of a remarkable new American capability to launch cyberwar against Iran—and  escalates covert operations to delay the day when the mullahs could obtain a nuclear weapon. Over the next three years, Obama accelerates drone attacks as an alternative to putting troops on the ground in Pakistan, and becomes increasingly reliant on the Special Forces, whose hunting of al-Qaeda illuminates the path out of an unwinnable war in Afghanistan.

Confront and Conceal provides readers with a picture of an administration that came to office with the world on fire. It takes them into the Situation Room debate over how to undermine Iran’s program while simultaneously trying to prevent Israel from taking military action that could plunge the region into another war. It dissects how the bin Laden raid worsened the dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan. And it traces how Obama’s early idealism about fighting “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan quickly turned to fatigue and frustration. Yet the president has also pivoted American foreign policy away from the attritional wars of the past decade, attempting to preserve America’s influence with a lighter, defter touch—all while focusing on a new era of diplomacy in Asia and reconfiguring America’s role during a time of economic turmoil and austerity.

“The book is a timely, gripping read that offers insights into some of the most surprising, most closely guarded dimensions of the Obama presidency. . . . Confront and Conceal is a jam-packed with news, gripping anecdotes, stories of triumph, and stories of hubris.”

—David Rothkopf, Foreign Policy

Liberating Kosovo: Coercive Diplomacy and U.S. Intervention

By David L. Phillips, Former Non-Resident Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project, Belfer Center Studies in International Security, MIT Press (September 2012)

In Liberating Kosovo, David Phillips offers a compelling account of the negotiations and military actions that culminated in Kosovo’s independence. Drawing on his own participation in the diplomatic process and interviews with leading participants, Phillips chronicles Slobodan Milosevic’s rise to power, the sufferings of the Kosovars, and the events that led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia. He analyzes how NATO, the United Nations, and the United States employed diplomacy, aerial bombing, and peacekeeping forces to set in motion the process that led to independence for Kosovo. He also offers important insights into a critical issue in contemporary international politics: how and when the United States, other nations, and NGOs should act to prevent ethnic cleansing and severe human- rights abuses.

We Shall Not Be Moved: Rebuilding Home in the Wake of Katrina

By Tom Wooten, Former Research Fellow, Broadmoor Project: New Orleans, Beacon Press (August 2012)

As floodwaters drained in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans residents came to a difficult realization. Their city was about to undertake the largest disaster recovery in American history, yet  they faced a profound leadership vacuum: members of every tier of government, from the municipal to the federal level, had fallen down on the job. We Shall Not Be Moved tells the absorbing story of the community leaders who stepped into this void to rebuild the city they loved.

“Mr. Wooten meticulously tracks the work of civic groups in five parts of New Orleans as they labored to prove that their neighborhoods were worth saving, underscoring the importance of fostering such groups long before a catastrophe hits.”

—Carla Main, Wall Street Journal