The Peace Of Illusions

The Peace Of Illusions Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of The Peace Of Illusions book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.

The Peace of Illusions

Christopher Layne
The Peace of Illusions Book PDF

Author : Christopher Layne
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Hegemony
ISBN : 0801474116

Get Book

The Peace of Illusions by Christopher Layne Pdf

In a provocative book about American hegemony, Christopher Layne outlines his belief that U.S. foreign policy has been consistent in its aims for more than sixty years and that the current Bush administration clings to mid-twentieth-century tactics--to no good effect. What should the nation's grand strategy look like for the next several decades? The end of the cold war profoundly and permanently altered the international landscape, yet we have seen no parallel change in the aims and shape of U.S. foreign policy. The Peace of Illusions intervenes in the ongoing debate about American grand strategy and the costs and benefits of "American empire." Layne urges the desirability of a strategy he calls "offshore balancing": rather than wield power to dominate other states, the U.S. government should engage in diplomacy to balance large states against one another. The United States should intervene, Layne asserts, only when another state threatens, regionally or locally, to destroy the established balance. Drawing on extensive archival research, Layne traces the form and aims of U.S. foreign policy since 1940, examining alternatives foregone and identifying the strategic aims of different administrations. His offshore-balancing notion, if put into practice with the goal of extending the "American Century," would be a sea change in current strategy. Layne has much to say about present-day governmental decision making, which he examines from the perspectives of both international relations theory and American diplomatic history.

Myths, Illusions, and Peace

Dennis Ross,David Makovsky
Myths Illusions and Peace Book PDF

Author : Dennis Ross,David Makovsky
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2009-06-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781101081877

Get Book

Myths, Illusions, and Peace by Dennis Ross,David Makovsky Pdf

"A trenchant and often pugnacious demolition of the numerous misconceptions about strategic thinking on the Middle East" -The New York Times Now updated with a new chapter on the current climate, Myths, Illusions, and Peace addresses why the United States has consistently failed to achieve its strategic goals in the Middle East. According to Dennis Ross-special advisor to President Obama and senior director at the National Security Council for that region-and policy analyst David Makovsky, it is because we have repeatedly fallen prey to dangerous myths about this part of the world-myths with roots that reach back decades yet persist today. Clearly articulated and accessible, Myths, Illusions, and Peace captures the real­ity of the problems in the Middle East like no book has before. It presents a concise and far-reaching set of principles that will help America set an effective course of action in the region, and in so doing secure a safer future for all Americans.

The Age of Illusions

Andrew Bacevich
The Age of Illusions Book PDF

Author : Andrew Bacevich
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2020-01-07
Category : History
ISBN : 9781250175090

Get Book

The Age of Illusions by Andrew Bacevich Pdf

A thought-provoking and penetrating account of the post-Cold war follies and delusions that culminated in the age of Donald Trump from the bestselling author of The Limits of Power. When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world’s “indispensable nation,” its “sole superpower,” the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable. In the decades to come, Americans would put that claim to the test. They would embrace the promise of globalization as a source of unprecedented wealth while embarking on wide-ranging military campaigns to suppress disorder and enforce American values abroad, confident in the ability of U.S. forces to defeat any foe. Meanwhile, they placed all their bets on the White House to deliver on the promise of their Cold War triumph: unequaled prosperity, lasting peace, and absolute freedom. In The Age of Illusions, bestselling author Andrew Bacevich takes us from that moment of seemingly ultimate victory to the age of Trump, telling an epic tale of folly and delusion. Writing with his usual eloquence and vast knowledge, he explains how, within a quarter of a century, the United States ended up with gaping inequality, permanent war, moral confusion, and an increasingly angry and alienated population, as well, of course, as the strangest president in American history.

The Illusion of Peace

Sally Marks
The Illusion of Peace Book PDF

Author : Sally Marks
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2017-03-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781350317420

Get Book

The Illusion of Peace by Sally Marks Pdf

Sally Marks provides a compelling analysis of European diplomacy between the First World War and Hitler's advent. She explores in clear and lively prose the reasons why successive efforts failed to create a lasting peace in the interwar era. Building on the theories of the first edition - many of which have become widely accepted since its publication in 1976 - Marks reassesses Europe's leaders of the period, and the policies of the powers between 1918 and 1933, and beyond. Strongly interpretative and archivally based, The Illusion of Peace examines the emotional, ethnic, and economic factors responsible for international instability, as well as the distortion of the balance of power, the abnormal position of the Soviet Union, the weakness of France and the uncertainty of her relationship with Britain, and the inadequacy of the League of Nations. In so doing, the study clarifies the complex topics of reparations and war debts and challenges traditional assumptions, concluding that widespread western devotion to disarmament and dedication to peace were two of several reasons why democratic statesmen could not respond decisively to Hitler's threat. In this new edition Marks also argues that the Allied failure to bring defeat home to the German people in 1918-19 generated a resentment which contributed to interwar instability and Hitler's rise. This highly successful study has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the latest scholarship. Now in its second edition, it remains the essential introduction to the tense political and diplomatic situation in Europe during the interwar years.

Illusions of Security

Michael Fry
Illusions of Security Book PDF

Author : Michael Fry
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 1972-12-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781487597313

Get Book

Illusions of Security by Michael Fry Pdf

The First World War was in many ways the most formative experience for the western world in the twentieth century. Little if anything of importance escaped its influence. For those who helped shape foreign and deference policies in Britain, the United States, and Canada, the war and the consequent peacemaking raised perplexing political, ideological, and racial problems. In their search for solutions, some among the anglophone elites of these three countries arrived at the idea of Atlanticism. To them it seemed possible that the British empire and the United States, the core of the victorious allied coalition, could create a global hegemony, an amended version of the Pax Britannica, which might provide a panacea for the ills of the postwar world. As their views became known, the Atlanticists met with some enthusiasm and much outright hostility. Deliberations for and against Atlanticism focused on renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and on two vital postwar conferences, the Imperial Conference of 1921 and the Washington Conference of 1921-2. Initial prospects for Atlanticism seemed encouraging, but hopes were dashed in real political issues of war debts and European recovery by the end of 1922. The Atlanticist thesis languished and despite periods of co-operation it never regained its appeal throughout the interwar years. Michael Fry relates in fascinating detail the history of these deliberations and of the statesmen who worked for and against Atlanticism. His study sheds light on the evolution of foreign policy in Britain, the dominions, and the United States, and yields insights into relations between these governments during an important time in history.

Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy

Richard Hanania
Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy Book PDF

Author : Richard Hanania
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 206 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2021-12-28
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781000514032

Get Book

Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy by Richard Hanania Pdf

This book argues that while the US president makes foreign policy decisions based largely on political pressures, it is concentrated interests that shape the incentive structures in which he and other top officials operate. The author identifies three groups most likely to be influential: government contractors, the national security bureaucracy, and foreign governments. This book shows that the public choice perspective is superior to a theory of grand strategy in explaining the most important aspects of American foreign policy, including the war on terror, policy toward China, and the distribution of US forces abroad. Arguing that American leaders are selected to respond to public opinion, not necessarily according to their ability to formulate and execute long-terms plans, the author shows how mass attitudes are easily malleable in the domain of foreign affairs due to ignorance with regard to the topic, the secrecy that surrounds national security issues, the inherent complexity of the issues involved, and most importantly, clear cases of concentrated interests. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of American Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis and Global Governance.

American Wars

Paul Buchheit
American Wars Book PDF

Author : Paul Buchheit
Publisher : SCB Distributors
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2010-04-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780932863737

Get Book

American Wars by Paul Buchheit Pdf

When many Americans hear that the US may go to war against another nation, they tend to believe there's probably a good reason for it or that no viable alternatives exist or they don't think about it at all. They trust their leaders to represent them and defend their values. They accept their leaders' claims that war is to ensure their safety when others wish to harm them.The parties of war play on Americans' basic values to bring them online. The media reassures them that the reasons for war are altruistic that Americans wish to spread democracy and allow others to adopt their way of life. But is this the case? With 24 compelling illustrations, maps and graphs, this book is intended to serve as a tool for peace advocacy. Well known peace advocates respond to 19 of the most common illusions held by the American public which weaken their opposition to Washington's wars. "The American way of war offers a nonstop supply of illusions--while imposing horrific realities far away and, ultimately, at home too. This book is intent on dispelling key illusions and coming to terms with human realities. Between the covers of American Wars, the result is a compendium of insights and hard-won knowledge of the sort you'll rarely find in the daily paper or the evening news. The writers are myth-busters who challenge the conventional lack of wisdom that drags the United States into one war after another and keeps us lethally mired in a warfare state. This collection provides us with an array of vital perspectives, opening up a crucial topic that usually remains shut down--what American wars are doing to humanity, under false pretenses and with calamitous results, around the world and in our own neighborhoods. The future is at stake. This book helps us to understand the perils and opportunities of the present moment. --NORMAN SOLOMON, author of War Made Easy

Ideal Illusions

James Peck
Ideal Illusions Book PDF

Author : James Peck
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2011-03-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781429991568

Get Book

Ideal Illusions by James Peck Pdf

From a noted historian and foreign-policy analyst, a groundbreaking critique of the troubling symbiosis between Washington and the human rights movement The United States has long been hailed as a powerful force for global human rights. Now, drawing on thousands of documents from the CIA, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and development agencies, James Peck shows in blunt detail how Washington has shaped human rights into a potent ideological weapon for purposes having little to do with rights—and everything to do with furthering America's global reach. Using the words of Washington's leaders when they are speaking among themselves, Peck tracks the rise of human rights from its dismissal in the cold war years as "fuzzy minded" to its calculated adoption, after the Vietnam War, as a rationale for American foreign engagement. He considers such milestones as the fight for Soviet dissidents, Tiananmen Square, and today's war on terror, exposing in the process how the human rights movement has too often failed to challenge Washington's strategies. A gripping and elegant work of analysis, Ideal Illusions argues that the movement must break free from Washington if it is to develop a truly uncompromising critique of power in all its forms.

Noble Illusions

Stephen Dale
Noble Illusions Book PDF

Author : Stephen Dale
Publisher : Fernwood Publishing
Page : 136 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2014-10-01T00:00:00Z
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781552667453

Get Book

Noble Illusions by Stephen Dale Pdf

One hundred years ago saw the declaration of a war that would forever change our understanding of war. With a staggering loss of life, World War One was, by all accounts, a brutal and devastating tragedy. And yet, on the eve of the hundredth anniversary, countries around the world are preparing to commemorate the Great War not with regret but with nationalist pride. Conservative forces, already well into a program to elevate the place of the military in society, are embracing the opportunity to replace today’s apparent cynicism with an unquestioning patriotism similar to that which existed a century ago. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are imploring their citizens — especially their youth — to revive the sense of duty embodied in the generation that served in the trenches. But is the ennobling nature of patriotism the real lesson that people today should extract from that now-vanished generation’s experience? Through a dialogue with a pop-culture artifact from a lost world — a boys’ annual called Young Canada — Noble Illusions examines the use of propaganda to glorify racist colonial wars and, in the wake of those, the Great War. A juxtaposition of earnest instruction on the cultivation of everyday virtues and brutal tales of war masquerading as moral lessons on valour and righteousness, Young Canada helped to persuade a generation of young Canadians to head eagerly to the trenches of World War One. Concerned that the rise of militarism is leading today’s youth in a similar direction, Stephen Dale offers this examination as an inoculation against the blind patriotism politicians are working so hard to instill.

Grand Strategies in War and Peace

Paul M. Kennedy
Grand Strategies in War and Peace Book PDF

Author : Paul M. Kennedy
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 1991-01-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 0300056664

Get Book

Grand Strategies in War and Peace by Paul M. Kennedy Pdf

Examines how the US, the Soviet Union and various European powers have developed their grand Strategies - how they have integrated their political, economic and military goals in order to preserve their long-term interests in times of war and peace.

Illusions

Madeline J. Reynolds
Illusions Book PDF

Author : Madeline J. Reynolds
Publisher : Entangled: Teen
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2018-11-06
Category : Young Adult Fiction
ISBN : 9781640635647

Get Book

Illusions by Madeline J. Reynolds Pdf

Dear Thomas, I know you're angry. It's true, I was sent to expose your mentor as a fraud illusionist, and instead I have put your secret in jeopardy. I fear I have even put your life in jeopardy. For that I can only beg your forgiveness. I've fallen for you. You know I have. And I never wanted to create a rift between us, but if it means protecting you from those who wish you dead—I'll do it. I'll do anything to keep you safe, whatever the sacrifice. Please forgive me for all I've done and what I'm about to do next. I promise, it's one magic trick no one will ever see coming. Love, Saverio

American Pendulum

Christopher Hemmer
American Pendulum Book PDF

Author : Christopher Hemmer
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 237 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2015-11-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781501701184

Get Book

American Pendulum by Christopher Hemmer Pdf

As new presidential administrations come into power, they each bring their own approach to foreign policy. No grand strategy, however, is going to be completely novel. New administrations never start with a blank slate, so it is always possible to see similarities between an administration and its predecessors. Conversely, since each administration faces novel problems and operates in a unique context, no foreign policy strategy is going to be an exact replica of its predecessors. In American Pendulum, Christopher Hemmer examines America's grand strategic choices between 1914 and 2014 using four recurring debates in American foreign policy as lenses. First, how should the United States balance the trade-offs between working alone versus working with other states and international organizations? Second, what is the proper place of American values in foreign policy? Third, where does the strategic perimeter of the United States lie? And fourth, is time on the side of the United States or of its enemies?Offering new readings of debates within the Wilson, Truman, Nixon, Bush, and Obama administrations, Hemmer asserts that heated debates, disagreements, and even confusions over U.S. grand strategy are not only normal but also beneficial. He challenges the claim that uncertainties or inconsistences about the nation's role in the world or approach to security issues betray strategic confusion or the absence of a grand strategy. American foreign policy, he states, is most in danger not when debates are at their most pointed but when the weight of opinion crushes dissent. As the United States looks ahead to an increasingly multipolar world with increasing complicated security issues, Hemmer concludes, developing an effective grand strategy requires ongoing contestation and compromises between competing visions and policies.

Alliance and Illusion

Robert Bothwell
Alliance and Illusion Book PDF

Author : Robert Bothwell
Publisher : UBC Press
Page : 482 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2011-11-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780774840880

Get Book

Alliance and Illusion by Robert Bothwell Pdf

Alliance and Illusion is the definitive assessment of the domestic and international aspects of Canadian foreign policy in the modern era. Robert Bothwell provides nuanced studies of Canada’s leaders and discusses international currents that drove Canadian external affairs, from American influence over Vietnam and the draft dodgers, to the French case of de Gaulle’s eruption into Quebec in 1967. This definitive recounting and assessment of Canadian foreign policy in the modern era fills a crucial gap in Canadian history and provides invaluable context for understanding Canada’s present-day foreign policy dilemmas.

Overconfidence and War

Dominic D. P. Johnson
Overconfidence and War Book PDF

Author : Dominic D. P. Johnson
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2009-07-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780674039162

Get Book

Overconfidence and War by Dominic D. P. Johnson Pdf

Opponents rarely go to war without thinking they can win--and clearly, one side must be wrong. This conundrum lies at the heart of the so-called "war puzzle": rational states should agree on their differences in power and thus not fight. But as Dominic Johnson argues in Overconfidence and War, states are no more rational than people, who are susceptible to exaggerated ideas of their own virtue, of their ability to control events, and of the future. By looking at this bias--called "positive illusions"--as it figures in evolutionary biology, psychology, and the politics of international conflict, this book offers compelling insights into why states wage war. Johnson traces the effects of positive illusions on four turning points in twentieth-century history: two that erupted into war (World War I and Vietnam); and two that did not (the Munich crisis and the Cuban missile crisis). Examining the two wars, he shows how positive illusions have filtered into politics, causing leaders to overestimate themselves and underestimate their adversaries--and to resort to violence to settle a conflict against unreasonable odds. In the Munich and Cuban missile crises, he shows how lessening positive illusions may allow leaders to pursue peaceful solutions. The human tendency toward overconfidence may have been favored by natural selection throughout our evolutionary history because of the advantages it conferred--heightening combat performance or improving one's ability to bluff an opponent. And yet, as this book suggests--and as the recent conflict in Iraq bears out--in the modern world the consequences of this evolutionary legacy are potentially deadly.

Death Valley and the Amargosa

Richard E. Lingenfelter
Death Valley and the Amargosa Book PDF

Author : Richard E. Lingenfelter
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 700 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 1988-01-11
Category : History
ISBN : 0520908880

Get Book

Death Valley and the Amargosa by Richard E. Lingenfelter Pdf

This is the history of Death Valley, where that bitter stream the Amargosa dies. It embraces the whole basin of the Amargosa from the Panamints to the Spring Mountains, from the Palmettos to the Avawatz. And it spans a century from the earliest recollections and the oldest records to that day in 1933 when much of the valley was finally set aside as a National Monument. This is the story of an illusory land, of the people it attracted and of the dreams and delusions they pursued-the story of the metals in its mountains and the salts in its sinks, of its desiccating heat and its revitalizing springs, and of all the riches of its scenery and lore-the story of Indians and horse thieves, lost argonauts and lost mine hunters, prospectors and promoters, miners and millionaires, stockholders and stock sharps, homesteaders and hermits, writers and tourists. But mostly this is the story of the illusions-the illusions of a shortcut to the gold diggings that lured the forty-niners, of inescapable deadliness that hung in the name they left behind, of lost bonanzas that grew out of the few nuggets they found, of immeasurable riches spread by hopeful prospectors and calculating con men, and of impenetrable mysteries concocted by the likes of Scotty. These and many lesser illusions are the heart of its history.