Zero-Sum Victory

Zero-Sum Victory
Author: Christopher D. Kolenda
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2021-10-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0813152895

The military expert and author of Leadership presents “the most thoughtful analysis yet of America’s recent conflicts—and future challenges” (Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal). Why have the major post-9/11 US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances in America’s favor, capacity-building efforts, and tactical victories, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned intractable. The US government’s fixation on zero-sum, decisive victory in these conflicts is a key reason why these operations failed to achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In Zero-Sum Victory, retired US Army colonel Christopher D. Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the government’s insistence on zero-sum victory. First, the US government has no way to measure successful outcomes other than a decisive military victory, and thus, selects strategies that overestimate the possibility of such an outcome. Second, the United States is slow to recognize, modify, or abandon losing strategies. Third, once the United States decides to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries and disconnects in strategy undermine the prospects for a successful transition or negotiated outcome. Relying on historic examples and personal experience, Kolenda draws thought-provoking and actionable conclusions about the utility of American military power in the contemporary world—insights that serve as a starting point for future scholarship as well as for important national security reforms.

Zero-Sum Victory

Zero-Sum Victory
Author: Christopher D. Kolenda
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2021-10-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0813152836

Why have the major post-9/11 US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances in the United States' favor, significant capacity-building efforts, and repeated tactical victories by what many observers call the world's best military, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned intractable. The US government's fixation on zero-sum, decisive victory in these conflicts is a key reason why military operations to overthrow two developing-world regimes failed to successfully achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In Zero-Sum Victory, retired US Army colonel Christopher D. Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the government's insistence on zero-sum victory. First, the US government has no organized way to measure successful outcomes other than a decisive military victory, and thus, selects strategies that overestimate the possibility of such an outcome. Second, the United States is slow to recognize and modify or abandon losing strategies; in both cases, US officials believe their strategies are working, even as the situation deteriorates. Third, once the United States decides to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries and disconnects in strategy undermine the prospects for a successful transition or negotiated outcome. Relying on historic examples and personal experience, Kolenda draws thought-provoking and actionable conclusions about the utility of American military power in the contemporary world—insights that serve as a starting point for future scholarship as well as for important national security reforms.

Someone Has to Fail

Someone Has to Fail
Author: David F. Labaree
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2011-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674058860

What do we really want from schools? Only everything, in all its contradictions. Most of all, we want access and opportunity for all children—but all possible advantages for our own. So argues historian David Labaree in this provocative look at the way “this archetype of dysfunction works so well at what we want it to do even as it evades what we explicitly ask it to do.” Ever since the common school movement of the nineteenth century, mass schooling has been seen as an essential solution to great social problems. Yet as wave after wave of reform movements have shown, schools are extremely difficult to change. Labaree shows how the very organization of the locally controlled, administratively limited school system makes reform difficult. At the same time, he argues, the choices of educational consumers have always overwhelmed top-down efforts at school reform. Individual families seek to use schools for their own purposes—to pursue social opportunity, if they need it, and to preserve social advantage, if they have it. In principle, we want the best for all children. In practice, we want the best for our own. Provocative, unflinching, wry, Someone Has to Fail looks at the way that unintended consequences of consumer choices have created an extraordinarily resilient educational system, perpetually expanding, perpetually unequal, constantly being reformed, and never changing much.

Zero Sum Game

Zero Sum Game
Author: S. L. Huang
Publisher: Tor Books
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2018-10-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250180260

ZERO SUM GAME Best of Lists: * Best Books of the Month at The Verge, Book Riot, Unbound Worlds, SYFY, & Kirkus * The Mary Sue Book Club Pick * Library Journal Best Debuts of Fall and Winter A blockbuster, near-future science fiction thriller, S.L. Huang's Zero Sum Game introduces a math-genius mercenary who finds herself being manipulated by someone possessing unimaginable power... Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight, and she'll take any job for the right price. As far as Cas knows, she’s the only person around with a superpower...until she discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world’s puppet master. Cas should run, like she usually does, but for once she's involved. There’s only one problem... She doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore. "Fresh and exciting... a great start to an exciting series--and an exciting career." --Boing Boing At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Sum of Us

The Sum of Us
Author: Heather McGhee
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2021-02-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0525509577

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color. WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal “This is the book I’ve been waiting for.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist Look for the author’s new podcast, The Sum of Us, based on this book! Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game. LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL

The Metropolitan Revolution

The Metropolitan Revolution
Author: Bruce Katz
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2013-06-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0815721528

Across the US, cities and metropolitan areas are facing huge economic and competitive challenges that Washington won't, or can't, solve. The good news is that networks of metropolitan leaders – mayors, business and labor leaders, educators, and philanthropists – are stepping up and powering the nation forward. These state and local leaders are doing the hard work to grow more jobs and make their communities more prosperous, and they're investing in infrastructure, making manufacturing a priority, and equipping workers with the skills they need. In The Metropolitan Revolution, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley highlight success stories and the people behind them. · New York City: Efforts are under way to diversify the city's vast economy · Portland: Is selling the "sustainability" solutions it has perfected to other cities around the world · Northeast Ohio: Groups are using industrial-age skills to invent new twenty-first-century materials, tools, and processes · Houston: Modern settlement house helps immigrants climb the employment ladder · Miami: Innovators are forging strong ties with Brazil and other nations · Denver and Los Angeles: Leaders are breaking political barriers and building world-class metropolises · Boston and Detroit: Innovation districts are hatching ideas to power these economies for the next century The lessons in this book can help other cities meet their challenges. Change is happening, and every community in the country can benefit. Change happens where we live, and if leaders won't do it, citizens should demand it. The Metropolitan Revolution was the 2013 Foreword Reviews Bronze winner for Political Science.

Leadership

Leadership
Author: Christopher Kolenda
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2021-09-20
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 0811770087

The late Lt. General Harold Moore (USA, Ret.) said it's the “absolute best book on military leadership in peace and war.” This book is for military leaders who want to inspire their teams to achieve their best in combat and peacetime. This wide-ranging anthology brings together noted military minds as they examine the crucial role of leadership in combat, relate the lessons learned, and apply the principles to the stressful world of business. The book covers classic and modern concepts of leadership and uses case studies from Alexander the Great through post-9/11 wars to illustrate the principles of leadership in concrete historical contexts. The most important, most penetrating analysis of military leadership to emerge in a generation, this seminal work features leaders of the armed forces as they learn from the past and present and look toward the future. This edition is fully updated with inclusive language and chapters that speak to leading in a diverse world and organized with summary points for each chapter for a quick overview of essentials.

Keys to the City

Keys to the City
Author: Michael Storper
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2013-07-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400846269

Why do some cities grow economically while others decline? Why do some show sustained economic performance while others cycle up and down? In Keys to the City, Michael Storper, one of the world's leading economic geographers, looks at why we should consider economic development issues within a regional context--at the level of the city-region--and why city economies develop unequally. Storper identifies four contexts that shape urban economic development: economic, institutional, innovational and interactional, and political. The book explores how these contexts operate and how they interact, leading to developmental success in some regions and failure in others. Demonstrating that the global economy is increasingly driven by its major cities, the keys to the city are the keys to global development. In his conclusion, Storper specifies eight rules of economic development targeted at policymakers. Keys to the City explains why economists, sociologists, and political scientists should take geography seriously.

Strong Towns

Strong Towns
Author: Charles L. Marohn, Jr.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119564816

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

Breaking Protocol

Breaking Protocol
Author: Philip Nash
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky+ORM
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2020-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0813178401

An in-depth history of the Big Six, the first six female ambassadors for the United States. “It used to be,” soon-to-be secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright said in 1996, “that the only way a woman could truly make her foreign policy views felt was by marrying a diplomat and then pouring tea on an offending ambassador’s lap.” This world of US diplomacy excluded women for a variety of misguided reasons: they would let their emotions interfere with the task of diplomacy, they were not up to the deadly risks that could arise overseas, and they would be unable to cultivate the social contacts vital to success in the field. The men of the State Department objected but had to admit women, including the first female ambassadors: Ruth Bryan Owen, Florence “Daisy” Harriman, Perle Mesta, Eugenie Anderson, Clare Boothe Luce, and Frances Willis. These were among the most influential women in US foreign relations in their era. Using newly available archival sources, Philip Nash examines the history of the “Big Six” and how they carved out their rightful place in history. After a chapter capturing the male world of American diplomacy in the early twentieth century, the book devotes one chapter to each of the female ambassadors and delves into a number of topics, including their backgrounds and appointments, the issues they faced while on the job, how they were received by host countries, the complications of protocol, and the press coverage they received, which was paradoxically favorable yet deeply sexist. In an epilogue that also provides an overview of the role of women in modern US diplomacy, Nash reveals how these trailblazers helped pave the way for more gender parity in US foreign relations. Praise for Breaking Protocol “Here at last is the long-neglected story of America's pioneering women diplomats. Breaking Protocol reveals the contributions of six trail-blazers who practiced innovative statecraft in order to surmount all kinds of obstacles?including many posed by their own employer, the U.S. State Department. Philip Nash's illuminating study offers an invaluable foundation for our understanding of contemporary foreign policy decision-makers.” —Sylvia Bashevkin, author of Women as Foreign Policy Leaders: National Security and Gender Politics in Superpower America “Diplomacy is the one field of public political life that has been relatively open to women?we need only think of Hillary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, and Madeleine Albright. In Breaking Protocol, Philip Nash reminds us of the history of their achievements with an enduring and enticing record of the much longer, surprising history of female diplomats and their individual efforts to shape American and international politics.” —Glenda Sluga, University of Sydney