On War


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The Ruling Enemy


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Making Enemies


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The Burmese army took political power in Burma in 1962 and has ruled the country ever since. The persistence of this government--even in the face of long-term nonviolent opposition led by activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991--has puzzled scholars. In a book relevant to current debates about democratization, Mary P. Callahan seeks to explain the extraordinary durability of the Burmese military regime. In her view, the origins of army rule are to be found in the relationship between war and state formation.Burma's colonial past had seen a large imbalance between the military and civil sectors. That imbalance was accentuated soon after formal independence by one of the earliest and most persistent covert Cold War conflicts, involving CIA-funded Kuomintang incursions across the Burmese border into the People's Republic of China. Because this raised concerns in Rangoon about the possibility of a showdown with Communist China, the Burmese Army received even more autonomy and funding to protect the integrity of the new nation-state.The military transformed itself during the late 1940s and the 1950s from a group of anticolonial guerrilla bands into the professional force that seized power in 1962. The army edged out all other state and social institutions in the competition for national power. Making Enemies draws upon Callahan's interviews with former military officers and her archival work in Burmese libraries and halls of power. Callahan's unparalleled access allows her to correct existing explanations of Burmese authoritarianism and to supply new information about the coups of 1958 and 1962.




The Unknown Enemy


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Exposes the fallacy that an increased degree of socio-cultural understanding leads to a greater chance of success in counterinsurgency operations.




Know Thy Enemy


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Profiles the personalities and strategic cultures of some of the United States' most dangerous international rivals.




Knowing the Enemy


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A penetrating look into the inner logic of al-Qa'ida and like-minded extremist groups by which they justify September 11 and other terrorist attacks includes specific ideologies of jihadism, a new movement that allows members to call for the destruction of democracy and to murder innocent men, women, and children.




Enemy of the State


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“In the world of black-op thrillers, Mitch Rapp continues to be among the best of the best” (Booklist, starred review), and he returns in the #1 New York Times bestselling series alone and targeted by a country that is supposed to be one of America’s closest allies. After 9/11, the United States made one of the most secretive and dangerous deals in its history—the evidence against the powerful Saudis who coordinated the attack would be buried and in return, King Faisal would promise to keep the oil flowing and deal with the conspirators in his midst. But when the king’s own nephew is discovered funding ISIS, the furious President gives Rapp his next mission: he must find out more about the high-level Saudis involved in the scheme and kill them. The catch? Rapp will get no support from the United States. Forced to make a decision that will change his life forever, Rapp quits the CIA and assembles a group of independent contractors to help him complete the mission. They’ve barely begun unraveling the connections between the Saudi government and ISIS when the brilliant new head of the intelligence directorate discovers their efforts. With Rapp getting too close, he threatens to go public with the details of the post-9/11 agreement between the two countries. Facing an international incident that could end his political career, the President orders America’s intelligence agencies to join the Saudis’ effort to hunt the former CIA man down. Rapp, supported only by a team of mercenaries with dubious allegiances, finds himself at the center of the most elaborate manhunt in history. With white-knuckled twists and turns leading to “an explosive climax” (Publishers Weekly), Enemy of the State is an unputdownable thrill ride that will keep you guessing until the final page.




The Wrong Enemy


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A journalist with deep knowledge of the region provides “an enthralling and largely firsthand account of the war in Afghanistan” (Financial Times). Few reporters know as much about Afghanistan as Carlotta Gall. She was there in the 1990s after the Russians were driven out. She witnessed the early flourishing of radical Islam, imported from abroad, which caused so much local suffering. She was there right after 9/11, when US special forces helped the Northern Alliance drive the Taliban out of the north and then the south, fighting pitched battles and causing their enemies to flee underground and into Pakistan. Gall knows just how much this war has cost the Afghan people—and just how much damage can be traced to Pakistan and its duplicitous government and intelligence forces. Combining searing personal accounts of battles and betrayals with moving portraits of the ordinary Afghans who were caught up in the conflict for more than a decade, The Wrong Enemy is a sweeping account of a war brought by American leaders against an enemy they barely understood and could not truly engage.




Enemy Aliens


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The nation's foremost civil libertarian shines a light on the cynical exploitation of 9/11 by government officials to target immigrants and lay the groundwork for rolling back the rights of ordinary American citizens.




Our Latest Longest War


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American and Afghan veterans contribute to this anthology of critical perspectives—“a vital contribution toward understanding the Afghanistan War” (Library Journal). When America went to war with Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, it did so with the lofty goals of dismantling al Qaeda, removing the Taliban from power, remaking the country into a democracy. But as the mission came unmoored from reality, the United States wasted billions of dollars, and thousands of lives were lost. Our Latest Longest War is a chronicle of how, why, and in what ways the war in Afghanistan failed. Edited by prize-winning historian and Marine lieutenant colonel Aaron B. O’Connell, the essays collected here represent nine different perspectives on the war—all from veterans of the conflict, both American and Afghan. Together, they paint a picture of a war in which problems of culture, including an unbridgeable rural-urban divide, derailed nearly every field of endeavor. The authors also draw troubling parallels to the Vietnam War, arguing that ideological currents in American life explain why the US government has repeatedly used military force in pursuit of democratic nation-building. In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, this created a dramatic mismatch of means and ends that neither money, technology, nor weapons could overcome.