By His Own Rules The Ambitions Successes And Ultimate Failure Of Donald Rumsfeld
Download By His Own Rules The Ambitions Successes And Ultimate Failure Of Donald Rumsfeld full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online free By His Own Rules The Ambitions Successes And Ultimate Failure Of Donald Rumsfeld ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
| Author | : Bradley Graham |
| Publisher | : ReadHowYouWant.com |
| Total Pages | : 666 |
| Release | : 2010-05 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 1458752445 |
An epic examination of the life of one of the most confounding American political figures of the past half century . Once considered among the best and brightest of his generation, Donald Rumsfeld was exceptionally prepared by successful careers in politics and business to assume the Pentagon's top job in 2001. Yet six years later, he left office as the most controversial Defense Secretary since Robert McNamara, widely criticized for his management of the Iraq war and for his difficult relationships with Congress, administration colleagues, and military officers. Was he really the arrogant, errant, over controlling Pentagon leader frequently portrayed - or as his supporters contend, a brilliant, hard charging visionary caught in a whirl of polarized Washington politics, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, and bad luck? Bradley Graham, a longtime Washington Post reporter who closely covered Rumsfeld's challenging tenure at the Pentagon, offers an insightful biography of a complex personality. In the tradition of Karen De Young's Soldier and Bart Gellman's Angler, By His Own Rules is a layered and revealing portrait of a man whose impact on U.S. national security affairs will long outlive him.
| Author | : Bradley Graham |
| Publisher | : Public Affairs |
| Total Pages | : 834 |
| Release | : 2009 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 1586487108 |
A longtime military affairs correspondent for the "Washington Post" offers a revealing portrait of Donald Rumsfeld, the controversial Defense Secretary, and his impact on U.S. national security affairs.
| Author | : Donald Rumsfeld |
| Publisher | : Penguin |
| Total Pages | : 882 |
| Release | : 2011-02-08 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 1101502495 |
A powerful memoir from the late former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld With the same directness that defined his career in public service, Rumsfeld's memoir is filled with previously undisclosed details and insights about the Bush administration, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also features Rumsfeld's unique and often surprising observations on eight decades of history. Rumsfeld addresses the challenges and controversies of his illustrious career, from the unseating of the entrenched House Republican leader in 1965, to helping the Ford administration steer the country away from Watergate and Vietnam, to the war in Iraq, to confronting abuse at Abu Ghraib. Along the way, he offers his plainspoken, first-hand views and often humorous and surprising anecdotes about some of the world's best-known figures, ranging from Elvis Presley to George W. Bush. Both a fascinating narrative and an unprecedented glimpse into history,Known and Unknown captures the legacy of one of the most influential men in public service.
| Author | : Scott Kaufman |
| Publisher | : University Press of Kansas |
| Total Pages | : 464 |
| Release | : 2017-12-04 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 0700625003 |
Within eight turbulent months in 1974 Gerald Ford went from the United States House of Representatives, where he was the minority leader, to the White House as the country's first and only unelected president. His unprecedented rise to power, after Richard Nixon's equally unprecedented fall, has garnered the lion's share of scholarly attention devoted to America's thirty-eighth president. But Gerald Ford's (1913–2006) life and career in and out of Washington spanned nearly the entire twentieth century. Ambition, Pragmatism, and Party captures for the first time the full scope of Ford's long and remarkable political life. The man who emerges from these pages is keenly ambitious, determined to climb the political ladder in Washington, and loyal to his party but not a political ideologue. Drawing on interviews with family and congressional and administrative officials, presidential historian Scott Kaufman traces Ford's path from a Depression-era childhood through service in World War II to entry into Congress shortly after the Cold War began. He delves deeply into the workings of Congress and legislative–executive relations, offering insight into Ford's role as the House minority leader in a time of conservative insurgency in the Republican Party. Kaufman's account of the Ford presidency provides a new perspective on how human rights figured in the making of U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War era, and how environmental issues figured in the making of domestic policy. It also presents a close look at the 1976 presidential election—emphasizing the significance of image in that contest—and extensive coverage of Ford's post-presidency. In sum, Ambition, Pragmatism, and Party is the most comprehensive political biography of Gerald Ford and will become the definitive resource on the thirty-eighth president of the United States.
| Author | : Michael Hastings |
| Publisher | : Penguin |
| Total Pages | : 434 |
| Release | : 2012-11-27 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0452298962 |
The inspiration for the Netflix original movie War Machine, starring Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, and Ben Kingsley From the author of The Last Magazine, a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of our military commanders, their high-stake maneuvers, and the political firestorm that shook the United States. In the shadow of the hunt for Bin Laden and the United States’ involvement in the Middle East, General Stanley McChrystal, the commanding general of international and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was living large. His loyal staff liked to call him a “rock star.” During a spring 2010 trip, journalist Michael Hastings looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration. When Hastings’s article appeared in Rolling Stone, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was unceremoniously fired. In The Operators, Hastings picks up where his Rolling Stone coup ended. From patrol missions in the Afghan hinterlands to senior military advisors’ late-night bull sessions to hotel bars where spies and expensive hookers participate in nation-building, Hastings presents a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of what he fears is an unwinnable war. Written in prose that is at once eye-opening and other times uncannily conversational, readers of No Easy Day will take to Hastings’ unyielding first-hand account of the Afghan War and its cast of players.
| Author | : Sharon K. Weiner |
| Publisher | : Columbia University Press |
| Total Pages | : 136 |
| Release | : 2022-11-15 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0231556934 |
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)—a senior group of officers who lead the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps—is perhaps the most influential military figure in the United States. The chairman is the primary military advisor to the president and is often the public face of the armed forces. As advocates for the military’s priorities, some chairmen have used this role to help shape policy, but others have embraced the position as an opportunity to chart new policy directions or challenge presidential preferences. Managing the Military is a pioneering analysis of the power of the chairman of the JCS that sheds new light on civil-military relations in the United States. Using detailed case studies of debates over defense budgets since the end of the Cold War, Sharon K. Weiner examines when and how the JCS chairman opposes civilian defense policy preferences. She shows that, under the right conditions, the chairman can be a policy entrepreneur, challenging the goals of the White House and lobbying for the military’s interests. However, the extent of the chairman’s political clout is constrained by the preferences of the service chiefs who head the branches of the military. Weiner also explores the evolution of the institution of the JCS and illuminates the chairman’s interaction with the president and secretary of defense. Blending empirical detail and theoretical contributions, Managing the Military offers a compelling account of the circumstances under which the power of the JCS chairman is maximized.
| Author | : Spencer D. Bakich |
| Publisher | : University of Chicago Press |
| Total Pages | : 344 |
| Release | : 2014-03-20 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 022610785X |
Common and destructive, limited wars are significant international events that pose a number of challenges to the states involved beyond simple victory or defeat. Chief among these challenges is the risk of escalation—be it in the scale, scope, cost, or duration of the conflict. In this book, Spencer D. Bakich investigates a crucial and heretofore ignored factor in determining the nature and direction of limited war: information institutions. Traditional assessments of wartime strategy focus on the relationship between the military and civilians, but Bakich argues that we must take into account the information flow patterns among top policy makers and all national security organizations. By examining the fate of American military and diplomatic strategy in four limited wars, Bakich demonstrates how not only the availability and quality of information, but also the ways in which information is gathered, managed, analyzed, and used, shape a state’s ability to wield power effectively in dynamic and complex international systems. Utilizing a range of primary and secondary source materials, Success and Failure in Limited War makes a timely case for the power of information in war, with crucial implications for international relations theory and statecraft.
| Author | : David Rothkopf |
| Publisher | : PublicAffairs |
| Total Pages | : 494 |
| Release | : 2016-04-26 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 161039738X |
In the wake of 9/11, America and its people have experienced a sense of vulnerability unprecedented in the nation's recent history. Buffeted by challenges from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the financial crisis, from Washington dysfunction to the rise of China and the dawn of the era of cyber warfare, two very different presidents and their advisors have struggled to cope with a relentless array of new threats. You may think you know the story. But in National Insecurity, David Rothkopf offers an entirely new perspective into the hidden struggles, the surprising triumphs, and the shocking failures of those charged with leading the United States through one of the most difficult periods in its history. Thanks to his extraordinary access, Rothkopf provides fresh insights drawing on more than one hundred exclusive interviews with the key players who shaped this era. At its core, National Insecurity is the gripping story of a superpower in crisis, seeking to adapt to a rapidly changing world, sometimes showing inspiring resilience -- but often undone by the human flaws of those at the top, the mismanagement of its own system, the temptation to concentrate too much power within the hands of too few in the White House itself, and an unwillingness to draw the right lessons from the recent past. Nonetheless, within that story are unmistakable clues to a way forward that can help restore American leadership.
| Author | : Donald R. Kelley |
| Publisher | : Texas A&M University Press |
| Total Pages | : 254 |
| Release | : 2013-09-01 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 1623490995 |
Some of today’s most prominent experts on the American presidency offer their perspectives, commentary, and analyses in this volume of studies, commissioned by the Fulbright Institute of International Relations and the Blair Center of Southern Politics and Culture, both at the University of Arkansas. With a shared focus on Bush’s decision-making style, the impact of increasing partisanship, economic issues—especially after the 2008 financial meltdown—and, of course, the cumulative impact of 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the contributors link their observations and conclusions to broader political and policy-related questions. They also take the opportunity to compare the Bush presidency with that of his successor, Barack Obama, through the latter administration’s experience of disappointment in the 2010 congressional elections. The debate over the Bush legacy will not soon end, and this volume does not presume to offer the definitive, final commentary. It does, however, bridge the gap between dispassionate academic commentary written essentially for scholars and the sort of informed and unbiased analysis written for a larger public audience, contributing to the public understanding of our recent national experience. Taking the Measure: The Presidency of George W. Bush contributes significantly to the beginnings of careful, systematic consideration of the George W. Bush presidency.
| Author | : James H. Lebovic |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 240 |
| Release | : 2019-03-07 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0190935332 |
The United States national-security establishment is vast, yet the United States has failed to meet its initial objectives in almost every one of its major, post-World War II conflicts. Of these troubled efforts, the US wars in Vietnam (1965-73), Iraq (2003-11), and Afghanistan (2001-present) stand out for their endurance, resource investment, human cost, and miscalculated decisions. Because overarching policy goals are distant and open to interpretation, policymakers ground their decisions in the immediate world of short-term objectives, salient tasks, policy constraints, and fixed time schedules. As a consequence, they exaggerate the benefits of their preferred policies, ignore the accompanying costs and requirements, and underappreciate the benefits of alternatives. In Planning to Fail, James H. Lebovic argues that a profound myopia helps explain US decision-making failures. In each of the wars explored in this book, he identifies four stages of intervention. First and foremost, policymakers chose unwisely to go to war. After the fighting began, they inadvisably sought to extend or expand the mission. Next, they pursued the mission, in abbreviated form, to suboptimal effect. Finally, they adapted the mission to exit from the conflict. Lebovic argues that US leaders were effectively planning to fail whatever their hopes and thoughts were at the time the intervention began. Decision-makers struggled less than they should have, even when conditions allowed for good choices. Then, when conditions on the ground left them with only bad choices, they struggled furiously and more than could ever matter. Policymakers allowed these wars to sap available capabilities, push US forces to the breaking point, and exhaust public support. They finally settled for terms of departure that they (or their predecessors) would have rejected at the start of these conflicts. Offering a far-ranging and detailed analysis, this book identifies an unmistakable pattern of failure and highlights lessons we can learn from it.
