Elbridge A. Colby was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of U.S. defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America's defense must change to address China's growing power and ambition. Based firmly in the realist tradition but deeply engaged in current policy, this book offers a clear framework for what America's goals in confronting China must be, how its military strategy must change,...

"Again and again, American taxpayers are asked to open their wallets and pay for a national security machine that costs $1.25 trillion to operate. How is it possible that the United States Government gets it so wrong on so many critical issues, and so often? And if our expensive national security machine is not working, what can be done? Enter Thom Shanker, best-selling author and former New York Times editor, along with Andrew Hoehn, RAND SVP of...

While leading a team of young engineers designing Starfire, the world's first orbiting solar power plant, James McLanahan Bradley is caught in the middle of a battle that threatens to become an all-out global war for control of space after the U.S. President ignites an arms race. "With the death of his heroic father, bomber and space warfare veteran Patrick McLanahan, Bradley McLanahan must now fly solo, leading a team of young engineers designing...

From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vivid account of serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House, he thought he’d long left Washington politics behind: After working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happily serving as president of Texas A&M University. But when he...

Following Chris Wallace's "riveting" (The New York Times) and "propulsive" (Time) first book Countdown 1945 comes a deeply reported, revelatory, and thrillingly told account of the final months of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. On August 27, 2010, three CIA officers ask for a private meeting with CIA Director Leon Panetta. During that secret session, they tell Panetta that agents have tracked a courier with deep Al Qaeda ties to a three-story house...

From one of America's preeminent national security journalists, an explosive, news-breaking account of Donald Trump's collision with the American national security establishment, and with the world. It is a simple fact that no president in American history brought less foreign policy experience to the White House than Donald J. Trump. The real estate developer from Queens promised to bring his brash, zero-sum swagger to bear to cut through America's...

"The twenty-fifth Secretary of Defense takes readers behind the scenes to reveal the inner workings of the Pentagon, its vital mission, and what it takes to lead it. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the single largest institution in America: the Department of Defense. The D.O.D. employs millions of Americans. It owns and operates more real estate, and spends more money, than any other entity. It manages the world's largest and most complex information...

"President Trump's last secretary of defense shares harrowing stories of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, gives an insider look at the tumultuous final days of the Trump administration, and issues a stark warning about the readiness of the military under President Biden. If you know one thing about Chris Miller, it's that he was President Donald Trump's final Secretary of Defense, elevated to that position in the days after the 2020 election. If...

Bakken believes that "veneration for the military is a deeply embedded but fatal flaw in America's collective identity. In twenty years at West Point, [he] has come to understand how unquestioned faith isolates the U.S. armed forces from civil society and leads to catastrophe. Pervaded by chronic deceit, the military's insular culture elevates blind loyalty above all other values. The consequences are undeniably grim: failure in every war since World...

"Winning Armageddon tells the story of General Curtis E. LeMay's advocacy for nuclear first strikes while leading the U.S. Air Force's Strategic Air Command. LeMay argued for striking first in a nuclear conflict--but only if and when it was clear that the enemy was preparing to launch their own surprise attack. This approach, commonly referred to as preemption, was designed to catch an attacker off-guard and prevent the destruction of one's own nation....