World Famous Comics: Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council
Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council
From: Oxford University Press, USA Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Oxford University Press, USA Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 400 Publication Date: January 29, 2004
Product Description: The National Security Council (NSC) is the most important formal institution in the U.S. government for the creation and implementation of foreign and defense policy. The Council's four principal members--the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense--are responsible for incredibly far-reaching decisions regarding war and peace, diplomacy, international trade, and covert operations. Despite its obvious importance, the NSC has been subject to relatively little scholarly scrutiny, and therefore remains misunderstood by most international relations students. Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council provides students with valuable insights into the origins, workings, strengths, and weaknesses of the NSC. Covering the period from 1947 to 2003, Fateful Decisions features seminal articles, essays, and documents drawn from a variety of sources. The book presents and illuminates several obscure documents regarding the beginning of the NSC and its early years. It then examines the transformation of the NSC from a newly established, and initially ignored, advisory committee to the nation's premier forum for national security deliberations. The selections--written by prominent scholars, journalists, and practitioners--offer revealing coverage of major topics, such as key challenges to the NSC and the role of the NSC in a post-Cold War environment. The articles also discuss the rise of the National Security Adviser to a position of prominence and provide profiles of those who have held the position, including McGeorge Bundy, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, Samuel Berger, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice. Chronicling the performance of the NSC over the years, Fateful Decisions dissects both its successes and its failures--from the Cuban Missile Crisis through the Iran-contra affair, to the current war against global terrorism--and offers reform proposals to improve the Council's performance. It is ideal for courses on the NSC, national security decision-making, and U.S. foreign policy.
Updated Improved Version, But Dropped Some Good Stuff Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.
This is an updated and improved version of the 1988 version, "Decisions of the Highest Order: Perspectives on the National Security Council," a book that remains, in its original form, a gold standard in the field.
The new improved version is both that--new and improved, with updated perspectives all the way into the first Bush Administration, recognizing the end of the Cold War and the new Global War on Terror, and I venture to say there is no finer book available for orienting both undergraduate and graduate students--as well as mid-career adult students--with respect to the vital role that the National Security Council plays in orchestrating Americas foreign and national security policies.
I have just two modest criticisms, both easily addressed through the use of other readings, but which would take this excellent book to a full five stars if the next edition integrated more material:
1) The original had some really excellent pieces Disorders and on Remedies, and the new version, while more timely and current, has left some useful historical perspectives on the cutting room floor. I would have preferred that the editors add as they have, but with less deletion from the past.
2) The book still has the flavor of the Cold War in that the NSC is looked upon as a largely military "big stick" get our way in the national security arena book, and it does not orient its readers to the full range of national capabilities, all of the instruments of national power including the economic, cultural, and religious. It does not fully reflect the growing role of non-state actors and the emerging appreciation for national security as a multi-cultural arena in which non-governmental organizations such as Doctors without Borders, and Chambers of Commerce, have at least as much to contribute to stabilization and reconstruction as do the U.S. Armed Forces.
In my view, this book is the standard, but I would like to see a third edition that addresses these last two points.
See also, with reviews: Bureaucratic Politics And Foreign Policy Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It Why We Fight The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara Ike - Countdown to D-Day
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