• Cover; Contents; Foreword; Introduction; PART I. THE MISSING MIDDLE;
• 1. The False Choice: Diplomacy or War;
• 2. Arab-Persian Spring: How Not to Use Smart Power;
• 3. Failed Politics of National Defense; PART II. ILLUSIONS AND BROKEN TOOLS;
• 4. Smart Power with Chinese Characteristics;
• 5. Islamist Political Warfare;
• 6. Five Deadly Illusions;
• 7. Washington's Broken Institutions; PART III. SMART POWER SOLUTIONS;
• 8. Organizing for Victory;
• 9. Undermining Iran and Islamists;
• 10. Making Life Harder for Beijing;
• 11. Leading America's Pacific Century; Acknowledgments; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index.

• AB; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; X; Y; Z; About the Author.

From China's economic and cyber war on the United States to Islamist victories across the Middle East to the lengthening shadow cast by Iran, the Washington establishment as led by presidents of both parties has consistently failed to neutralise such dangers, but they are drawing nearer. Hazardous isolationism, meanwhile, has re-emerged in some quarters after two badly managed wars. Christian Whiton, a prolific writer and TV commentator on national security who saw firsthand the successes and failures of statecraft in the George W. Bush administration, offers new solutions to the foreign threats America faces today. Smart Power describes the practice of modern political warfare-the real smart power-and spotlights the neglected instruments of national power that lie between diplomacy and outright war. Neither liberal nor realist nor neoconservative, Whiton's approach is based on principles applied by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman, among others. Arguing that Americans must reject the false choice between statecraft and armed conflict, Whiton explains that successful foreign policy should utilise all the tools at Americans'disposal short of war in seeking to influence political outcomes in nations and regions of geopolitical strategic importance to the United States.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Cover; Contents; Foreword; Introduction; PART I. THE MISSING MIDDLE;
• 1. The False Choice: Diplomacy or War;
• 2. Arab-Persian Spring: How Not to Use Smart Power;
• 3. Failed Politics of National Defense; PART II. ILLUSIONS AND BROKEN TOOLS;
• 4. Smart Power with Chinese Characteristics;
• 5. Islamist Political Warfare;
• 6. Five Deadly Illusions;
• 7. Washington's Broken Institutions; PART III. SMART POWER SOLUTIONS;
• 8. Organizing for Victory;
• 9. Undermining Iran and Islamists;
• 10. Making Life Harder for Beijing;
• 11. Leading America's Pacific Century; Acknowledgments; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index.

• AB; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; X; Y; Z; About the Author.

From China's economic and cyber war on the United States to Islamist victories across the Middle East to the lengthening shadow cast by Iran, the Washington establishment as led by presidents of both parties has consistently failed to neutralise such dangers, but they are drawing nearer. Hazardous isolationism, meanwhile, has re-emerged in some quarters after two badly managed wars. Christian Whiton, a prolific writer and TV commentator on national security who saw firsthand the successes and failures of statecraft in the George W. Bush administration, offers new solutions to the foreign threats America faces today. Smart Power describes the practice of modern political warfare-the real smart power-and spotlights the neglected instruments of national power that lie between diplomacy and outright war. Neither liberal nor realist nor neoconservative, Whiton's approach is based on principles applied by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman, among others. Arguing that Americans must reject the false choice between statecraft and armed conflict, Whiton explains that successful foreign policy should utilise all the tools at Americans'disposal short of war in seeking to influence political outcomes in nations and regions of geopolitical strategic importance to the United States.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Big Bets Reassert U.S. Leadership of a Liberal Global Order by Robert Kagan and Ted Piccone Secure the Future of the Internet by Peter W. Singer and Ian Wallace Solidify the U.S. - Afghanistan Alliance by Michael E. O'Hanlon and Gen. John Allen (USMC, Ret.) Lift the Ban on U.S. Oil Exports by Tim Boersma and Charles K. Ebinger Strengthen Stability in Africa by Michael E. O'Hanlon Double Downs Broaden the Approach to Iran by Suzanne Maloney Pursue Regime Change in Syria by Michael Doran Return to the Asia Rebalance by Jonathan D. Pollack and Jeffrey A. Bader Reach Out to Cuba by Ted Piccone Avert Conflict in the South and East China Seas by Richard C. Bush III, Bruce Jones and Jonathan D. Pollack Black Swans Israeli-Palestinian Violence Erupts by Natan B. Sachs Putin's Russia Goes rogue by Fiona Hill and Steven Pifer Venezuela Breaks Down in Violence by Harold Trinkunas Nightmares Korean Crisis Prompts Confrontation with China by Jonathan D. Pollack and Richard C. Bush III Iran Nuclear Talks Fail by Robert Einhorn and Kenneth Pollack Afghanistan's Presidential Election Goes Awry by Vanda Felbab-Brown Muslim Brotherhood Radicalizes by Daniel L. Byman and Tamara Cofman Wittes Avoid a U.S.-Saudi Divorce by Bruce Riedel Close the Deal on Free Trade by Mireya Solis Manage the Impact of Climate Change by Elizabeth Ferris Deepen Economic Ties to Turkey by Kemal Kirici Beyond New START by Steven Pifer.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

President Obama has just three years left in office to define his legacy in world affairs. He's facing a number of critical challenges - the ongoing war in Syria, the Iran nuclear negotiations, an enigmatic North Korea and other significant crises in world affairs. The president's advisors are busy devising policy recommendations aimed at grappling with these thorny issues. From these, the president must decide which priorities to pursue and how to best exercise U.S. power and influence to manage and shape the global order. This book presents a set of policy analysis and recommendations from The Foreign Policy scholars at the Brookings Institution. Designed to provide the White House with innovative and actionable policy initiatives, the book is constructed as a series of memos to President Obama. This year, the memos are divided into five categories: Big Bets are issues where the president should consider investing his power, time and prestige in major efforts that can have a transformational impact on America and the world. Double Downs are derived from the Big Bets from last year's recommendations that the president should redouble his efforts on. Black Swans are those low - probability but high-impact events that can divert the president and his administration's higher purposes, such as dramatic negative events that he will want to take steps in advance to avoid or to mitigate their consequences. Nightmares are events that look more likely than a Black Swan and could prove particularly troublesome for U.S. interests and the global order, and for which the administration should prepare. Holds are updated policy recommendations to stay the course on approaches suggested last year.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Prologue : The Candidate and the Campaign
• Asia Policy : The Big Picture
• Laying the Foundation : Secretary Clinton Visits Asia
• China : Getting Started
• North Korea : Breaking the Pattern
• Japan : From LDP to DPJ Rule
• China : The Obama Visit and the Climate Change Conference
• Year Two : Dealing with an Assertive China
• Tensions in Korea
• Building Stronger Ties with Southeast Asia
• China's Push into Other Maritime Areas
• The Road to Hu Jintao's Visit to the United States
• Dealing with Multiple Disasters in Japan
• Looking Back, Looking Ahead.

Future presidents will need to find the right balance in China policy, so as to maintain America's strength and watchfulness but not fall into the classic security dilemma, wherein each side believes that growing capabilities reflect hostile intent and responds by producing that reality. I believe that President Obama struck that balance. --From Obama and China's Rise In 2005 , veteran diplomat and Asia analyst Jeffrey Bader met for the first time with the then-junior U.S. senator from Illinois. When Barack Obama entered the White House a few years later, Bader was named the senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council, becoming one of a handful of advisers responsible for formulating and implementing the administration's policy regarding that key region. For obvious reasons --a booming economy, expanding military power, and increasing influence over the region --the looming impact of a rising China dominated their efforts. Obama's original intent was to extend U.S. influence and presence in East Asia, which he felt had been neglected by a Bush administration fixated on the Middle East, particularly Iraq, and the war on terror. China's rise, particularly its military build-up, was heightening anxiety among its neighbours, including key U.S. allies Japan and South Korea. Bader explains the administration's efforts to develop stable relations with China while improving relationships with key partners worried about Beijing's new assertiveness. In Obama and China's Rise , Bader reveals what he did, discusses what he saw, and interprets what it meant --first during the Obama campaign, and then for the administration. The result is an illuminating backstage view of the formulation and execution of American foreign policy as well as a candid assessment of both. Bader combines insightful and authoritative foreign policy analysis with a revealing and humanizing narrative of his own personal journey.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Chapter 1 List of Abbreviations
• Chapter 2 List of Tables and Figures
• Chapter 3 Introduction
• Part 4
• Part 1: Theories and Concepts in Understanding EU and US Foreign Policy
• Chapter 5
• 1. Transatlantic "Foreign Policy Research" Communities: A Debate on US and European Approaches in Scholarship
• Chapter 6
• 2. Theoretical Approaches to European Foreign Policy: A Debate across Paradigms
• Part 7 Part II: Issues in EU and US Foreign Policy
• Chapter 8
• 3. Transatlantic Homeland Security Cooperation: The Art of Balancing Internal Security Objectives with Foreign Policy Concerns
• Chapter 9
• 4. With or without you? A Comparison of EU, European and US Policies in Afghanistan
• Chapter 10 5.NATO and Stabilisation Operations beyond Afghanistan: A Multi-layered Alliance?
• Chapter 11 6.The Middle East and Iraq in EU and US Foreign Policy: Implications for Transatlantic Relations
• Chapter 12 7.Leaving The War In Iraq Or "Staying The Course": Why Did Bulgaria Withdraw And Romania Stay?
• Chapter 13
• 8. Iran in EU and US Foreign Policy: The Case of Iran's Nuclear Program
• Chapter 14
• 9. Assessing EU and US Foreign Policy in the South Caucasus
• Chapter 15
• 10. Turkey in US and EU Foreign Policy: Shared ally, different relationships?
• Chapter 16
• 11. Russia in EU and US foreign policy: The energy security dimension
• Chapter 17
• 12. How to deal with China's military rise? Differing Responses of the EU and the US and the Case of Dual-use Technology Transfer
• Chapter 18
• 13. Reassessing EU and US Foreign Policy: The Lisbon Treaty, the Obama Administration and Beyond
• Chapter 19 Bibliography
• Chapter 20 Index
• Chapter 21 About the Contributors.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Issues in European Union and U.S. Foreign Policy, edited by Munevver Cebeci, represents a timely attempt at analyzing EU and US foreign policy over a wide range of issues through a comparative approach. It involves theory-guided empirical research and analyzes several thematic issues within the specific context of selected geographical issue areas. It focuses on-and actually proposes-a broader framework of cooperation and coordination for the EU and the US.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents Foreword: Mauricio Cardenas (Director of the Latin American Initiative at Brookings)
• Chapter 1: The Obama Administration and the Americas, Abraham F. Lowenthal
• Chapter 2: Mexico and the United States: The Search for a Strategic Vision, Carlos Heredia and Andres Rozental
• Chapter 3: Obama and Brazil, Joao Augusto de Castro Neves and Matias Spektor
• Chapter 4: The United States and Colombia: Recalibrating the Relationship, Michael Shifter
• Chapter 5: The Chavez Challenge for Obama: An Inconvenient Marriage or Frosty Separation, Jennifer McCoy
• Chapter 6: U.S.-Bolivian Relations: Behind the Impasse, George Gray Molina
• Chapter 7: Obama's Cuba Policy: The End of the New Beginning, A" Daniel P. Erikson
• Chapter 8: Honduras: A Test for Obama's Policies, Kevin Casas-Zamora
• Chapter 9: Haiti: Life Beyond Survival, Juan Gabriel Valdes
• Chapter 10: The Democracy Agenda in the Americas: Multilateral Action, Theodore Piccone
• Chapter 11: Obama and the Americas: Old Hopes, New Risks, Laurence Whitehead.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In early 2009, at the start of a new administration in Washington, the Brookings Institution Press published The Obama Administration and the Americas: Agenda for Change, offering a roadmap for a fresh approach to U.S. relations with its neighbors. Now, at the midway point of that presidential administration, the editors of that insightful volume follow up with Shifting the Balance: Obama and the Americas, an authoritative and critical look at what President Obama and his team have done in regard to Latin America and the Caribbean, how they have been received in the region, and what steps should be taken in the future.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Politics. It's not going to be OK ; The false idol of unfettered capitalism ; Resist or become serfs ; Buying Brand Obama ; Hold your applause ; The truth alone will not set you free ; The crooks get the cash while the poor get screwed ; The man in the mirror ; Nader was right : liberals are going nowhere with Obama ; This isn't reform, it's robbery ; Go to Pittsburgh, young man, and defy your empire ; Food is power, and the powerful are poisoning us ; Liberals are useless ; The creed of objectivity killed the news ; Calling all rebels ; How the corporations broke Ralph Nader and America, too ; Noam Chomsky has never seen anything like this ; BP and the little Eichmanns ; This country needs a few good Communists ; Freedom in the grace of the world ; Obama's health care bill is enough to make you sick ; Calling all future eaters ; Do not pity the Democrats
• Israel and Palestine. Mutually assured destruction ; Israel's barrier to peace ; Coveting the Holocaust ; Bring down that wall ; Israel's toy soldiers ; The world as it is ; Party to murder ; Lost in the rubble ; Israel crackdown puts liberal Jews on the spot ; Israel's racist-in-chief ; The tears of Gaza must be our tears ; Formalizing Israel's land grab
• The Middle East. Inside Egypt ; A culture of atrocity ; Becoming what we seek to destroy ; Iran had a democracy before we took it away ; Opium, rape, and the American way ; Afghanistan's sham army
• The decay of empire. Surviving the Fourth of July ; America's wars of self-destruction ; Confronting the terrorist within ; Man is a cruel animal ; We are breeding ourselves to extinction ; War is sin ; The American empire is bankrupt ; Globalization goes bankrupt ; Celebrating slaughter : war and collective amnesia ; Reality check from the brink of extinction ; War is a hate crime ; The pictures you aren't supposed to see ; No one cares ; They kill Alex.

Drawing on two decades of experience as a war correspondent and based on his numerous columns for Truthdig, Chris Hedges presents The World As It Is , a panorama of the American empire at home and abroad, from the coarsening effect of America's War on Terror to the front lines in the Middle East and South Asia and the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Underlying his reportage is a constant struggle with the nature of war and its impact on human civilization. "War is always about betrayal, " Hedges notes. "It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society's institutions, including our religious institutions, which mould us into compliant citizens, are unmasked.".
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Many liberals are disappointed with Barack Obama. Some talk of "betrayal, " while others are writing abject letters to the White House asking the president to come back to his "true self." Chris Hedges, however, is a progressive who doesn't feel betrayed. "Obama was and is a brand, " he argues. "He is a product of the Chicago political machine. He has been skillfully packaged by the corporate state." In his newest book, Hedges argues that the conscious inertia of the left is destroying the progressive movement. Inaction and empty moral posturing leads not to change, but to an orgy of self-adulation and self-pity.Hedges argues that the gravest danger we face as a nation is not from the far right, although the right may well inherit power. Instead, the threat comes from a bankrupt liberal class that has lost the will to fight and the moral courage to stand up for what it espouses.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Foreword / Strobe Talbott
• Part I. Overview
• Renewing cooperation in the Americas / Abraham F. Lowenthal
• Building a constructive inter-American partnership / Daniel Zovatto
• Supporting democracy in the Americas : the case for multilateral action / Theodore J. Piccone ---- Part II. Getting down to hard cases
• Seven steps to improve U.S.-Colombia relations / Michael Shifter
• Human rights and free trade in Colombia / Rodrigo Pardo
• Haiti's political outlook : what the United States should do / Daniel P. Erikson
• Responding to the challenge in Haiti / Juan Gabriel Valdés
• Cuba in transition : the role of external actors / Marifeli Pérez-Stable
• Turning the symbol around : returning Guantánamo Bay to Cuba / Bert Hoffman
• Engaging Venezuela : 2009 and beyond / Jennifer McCoy
• The United States and Bolivia : test case for change / George Gray Molina
• The rule of law in Mexico : challenges for the Obama administration / Carlos Elizondo and Ana Laura Magaloni
• Part III. Looking ahead
• A project for the Americas / Laurence Whitehead.

"Argues that the Obama administration should focus early and strategically on Latin America because of its impact on issues from energy, narcotics, and immigration to trade and jobs. Contributors emphasize case-by-case, sophisticated, and multilateral approaches to dealing with such hard cases as Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, and Venezuela"--Provided by publisher.

• Introduction
• The main tenets of the Obama Doctrine
• The Obama Doctrine and international relations theory
• The Obama Doctrine and rival traditions of American diplomacy
• The Obama Doctrine's reset with Russia and Europe
• The Obama Doctrine meets the Middle East and Afghanistan
• The Obama Doctrine's Asian pivot
• Conclusion.

Much like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, President Barack Obama came to office as a politician who emphasized conviction rather than consensus. During his 2008 presidential campaign, he pledged to transform the role of the United States abroad. His ambitious foreign policy goals included a global climate treaty, the peaceful withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and a new relationship with Iran. Throughout Obama's tenure, pundits and scholars have offered competing interpretations of his "grand strategy, " while others have maintained that his policies were incoherent or, at best, ad hoc. In Dangerous Doctrine, political scientist Robert G. Kaufman argues that the forty-fourth president has indeed articulated a clear, consistent national security policy and has pursued it with remarkable fidelity. Yet Kaufman contends that President Obama has imprudently abandoned the muscular internationalism that has marked US foreign policy since the end of World War II. Drawing on international relations theory and American diplomatic history, Kaufman presents a robust critique of the Obama doctrine as he situates the president's use of power within the traditions of American strategic practice. Focusing on the pivotal regions of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, this provocative study demonstrates how current executive branch leadership threatens America's role as a superpower, weakening its ability to spread democracy and counter threats to geopolitical order in increasingly unstable times. Kaufman proposes a return to the grand strategy of moral democratic realism, as practiced by presidents such as Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, with the hope of reestablishing the United States as the world's dominant power.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part I. Obama and Kenya
• Discovering Obama in Kenya
• Representations of Kenya: myth and reality
• The Obama family: ethnicity and the politics of belonging in Kenya
• Part II. Contested histories and the politics of belonging
• The politics of condemnation: the American right's reactions to Obama's roots in Kenya
• The politics of celebration: ethnic grandeur and Obama's heroic embrace
• Political violence and history at the ballot box
• Obama for Africa or Africans for Obama?
• Epilogue: Tuko Pamoja: we are together.

Barack Obama's political ascendancy has focused considerable global attention on the history of Kenya generally and the history of the Luo community particularly. From politicos populating the blogosphere and bookshelves in the U.S and Kenya, to tourists traipsing through Obama's ancestral home, a variety of groups have mobilized new readings of Kenya's past in service of their own ends. Through narratives placing Obama into a simplified, sweeping narrative of anticolonial barbarism and postcolonial "tribal" violence, the story of the United States president's nuanced relationship to Kenya has been lost amid stereotypical portrayals of Africa. At the same time, Kenyan state officials have aimed to weave Obama into the contested narrative of Kenyan nationhood. Matthew Carotenuto and Katherine Luongo argue that efforts to cast Obama as a "son of the soil" of the Lake Victoria basin invite insights into the politicized uses of Kenya's past. Ideal for classroom use and directed at a general readership interested in global affairs, Obama and Kenya offers an important counterpoint to the many popular but inaccurate texts about Kenya's history and Obama's place in it as well as focused, thematic analyses of contemporary debates about ethnic politics, "tribal" identities, postcolonial governance, and U.S. African relations.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part I. Obama and Kenya
• Discovering Obama in Kenya
• Representations of Kenya: myth and reality
• The Obama family: ethnicity and the politics of belonging in Kenya
• Part II. Contested histories and the politics of belonging
• The politics of condemnation: the American right's reactions to Obama's roots in Kenya
• The politics of celebration: ethnic grandeur and Obama's heroic embrace
• Political violence and history at the ballot box
• Obama for Africa or Africans for Obama?
• Epilogue: Tuko Pamoja: we are together.

Barack Obama's political ascendancy has focused considerable global attention on the history of Kenya generally and the history of the Luo community particularly. From politicos populating the blogosphere and bookshelves in the U.S and Kenya, to tourists traipsing through Obama's ancestral home, a variety of groups have mobilized new readings of Kenya's past in service of their own ends. Through narratives placing Obama into a simplified, sweeping narrative of anticolonial barbarism and postcolonial "tribal" violence, the story of the United States president's nuanced relationship to Kenya has been lost amid stereotypical portrayals of Africa. At the same time, Kenyan state officials have aimed to weave Obama into the contested narrative of Kenyan nationhood. Matthew Carotenuto and Katherine Luongo argue that efforts to cast Obama as a "son of the soil" of the Lake Victoria basin invite insights into the politicized uses of Kenya's past. Ideal for classroom use and directed at a general readership interested in global affairs, Obama and Kenya offers an important counterpoint to the many popular but inaccurate texts about Kenya's history and Obama's place in it as well as focused, thematic analyses of contemporary debates about ethnic politics, "tribal" identities, postcolonial governance, and U.S. African relations.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The polythink syndrome
• Causes, symptoms, and consequences of polythink
• Polythink in national security : the 9/11 attacks
• Polythink and Afghanistan war decisions : war initiation and termination
• Decision making in the Iraq War: from groupthink to polythink
• Polythink in the Iranian nuclear dispute : decisions of the U.S. and Israel
• Recent challenges : the Syria debate, the renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, and the ISIS decision
• The global nature of polythink and its productive potential.

Why do presidents and their advisors often make sub-optimal decisions on military intervention, escalation, de-escalation, and termination of conflicts? The leading concept of group dynamics, groupthink, offers one explanation: policy-making groups make sub-optimal decisions due to their desire for conformity and uniformity over dissent, leading to a failure to consider other relevant possibilities. But presidential advisory groups are often fragmented and divisive. This book therefore scrutinizes polythink, a group decision-making dynamic whereby different members in a decision-making unit espouse a plurality of opinions and divergent policy prescriptions, resulting in a disjointed decision-making process or even decision paralysis. The book analyzes eleven national security decisions, including the national security policy designed prior to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the decisions to enter into and withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2007 "surge" decision, the crisis over the Iranian nuclear program, the UN Security Council decision on the Syrian Civil War, the faltering Kerry Peace Process in the Middle East, and the U.S. decision on military operations against ISIS. Based on the analysis of these case studies, the authors address implications of the polythink phenomenon, including prescriptions for avoiding and/or overcoming it, and develop strategies and tools for what they call Productive Polythink. The authors also show the applicability of polythink to business, industry, and everyday decisions.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: The Evolution of Post-Cold War U.S. Grand Strategy The Path to Liberal Hegemony The Strategic Position of the United States Causes and Consequences
• 1. The Perils of Liberal Hegemony Direct Costs The Balance of Power The Allies Identity Politics and Intervention Military Power and Intervention Overstated Benefits Persistent Problems
• 2. The Case for Restraint The Geopolitical Interests of the United States Nuclear Weapons: Dilemmas, Dangers, and Opportunities The Struggle with Al-Qaeda and the Enduring Risk of International Terrorism Implementing Restraint in Key Regions The Problems of Transition to Restraint Integrated Reforms
• 3. Command of the Commons: The Military Strategy, Force Structure, and Force Posture of Restraint "Command of the Commons" The Insights of Maritime Strategy Force Structure Global Force Posture Affordable and Effective
• Conclusion: A Sustained Debate Critiques of Restraint
• Notes Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The United States, Barry R. Posen argues in Restraint, has grown incapable of moderating its ambitions in international politics. Since the collapse of Soviet power, it has pursued a grand strategy that he calls "liberal hegemony, " one that Posen sees as unnecessary, counterproductive, costly, and wasteful. Written for policymakers and observers alike, Restraint explains precisely why this grand strategy works poorly and then provides a carefully designed alternative grand strategy and an associated military strategy and force structure. In contrast to the failures and unexpected problems that have stemmed from America's consistent overreaching, Posen makes an urgent argument for restraint in the future use of U.S. military strength. After setting out the political implications of restraint as a guiding principle, Posen sketches the appropriate military forces and posture that would support such a strategy. He works with a deliberately constrained notion of grand strategy and, even more important, of national security (which he defines as including sovereignty, territorial integrity, power position, and safety). His alternative for military strategy, which Posen calls "command of the commons, " focuses on protecting U.S. global access through naval, air, and space power, while freeing the United States from most of the relationships that require the permanent stationing of U.S. forces overseas.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Since the 1979 Revolution in Iran and the end of a close relationship between the US and the Shah, successive American administrations - including the Obama Administration - have tried to contain Iran by various means, particularly sanctions and military threats. Even though President Obama came to office promising to engage Iran, in reality his administration has followed the policy of ""tough diplomacy, "" which has included, among other acts, imposing draconian sanctions against Iran. Following the author's earlier book on the history of containment of Iran and Iraq, the current book examine.

• A peace of necessity
• With friends like these
• "He is with us"
• The review
• Israel and Obama clash
• Fraud
• Sanctions versus diplomacy
• The confidence-building measure
• The second track
• The art of taking yes for an answer
• Trapped in a paradigm of enmity.

Have the diplomatic efforts of the Obama administration toward Iran failed? Was the Bush administration's emphasis on military intervention, refusal to negotiate, and pursuit of regime change a better approach? How can the United States best address the ongoing turmoil in Tehran? This book provides a definitive and comprehensive analysis of the Obama administration's early diplomatic outreach to Iran and discusses the best way to move toward more positive relations between the two discordant states. Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert with extensive Capitol Hill and United Nations experience, interviewed 70 high-ranking officials from the U.S., Iran, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Brazil-including the top American and Iranian negotiators-for this book. Parsi uncovers the previously unknown story of American and Iranian negotiations during Obama's early years as president, the calculations behind the two nations' dealings, and the real reasons for their current stalemate. Contrary to prevailing opinion, Parsi contends that diplomacy has not been fully tried. For various reasons, Obama's diplomacy ended up being a single roll of the dice. It had to work either immediately-or not at all. Persistence and perseverance are keys to any negotiation. Neither Iran nor the U.S. had them in 2009.

• Introduction
• Imprints from inside America
• American footprints abroad
• Images from the image machines
• The United States looms: measuring reality
• Conveying and distorting images
• Predispositions
• Romanticism versus democratic liberalism
• Traditional societies
• Disappointment: envy and the American dream
• Dealing with it.

Since September 11, 2001, the extensive literature on the United States' image abroad, by popular pundits and academics alike, leaves the reader with a false impression that foreigners' views of America are normally negative and impervious to change. In fact they are complex, emotional, frequently internally contradictory, and often change quickly. Barry A. Sanders corrects this misimpression with a rigourous and insightful textual analysis of the roots of people's views of the United States and what can be done to alter them. According to Sanders, the attitudes a person expresses about the United States consist of two separate components: the person's memory bank of images (informed by American geography, people, philosophy, history, and foreign policy) and a predisposition or bias that influences which images are called forth from memory. Opinion surveys, such as the Pew Global Attitude Survey, only record the spoken result of this two-step process in their tabulation of"favourable" or "unfavourable" comments. They necessarily fail to see the underlying complexity. Examining the biases or predispositions that guide people in selecting among the myriad stored images to express an opinion on a given day, Sanders analyses both anti-American and pro-American biases but focuses on the former, explaining which criticisms should be heeded when crafting foreign policy and communicating national objectives to friends and foes alike.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• Imprints from inside America
• American footprints abroad
• Images from the image machines
• The United States looms: measuring reality
• Conveying and distorting images
• Predispositions
• Romanticism versus democratic liberalism
• Traditional societies
• Disappointment: envy and the American dream
• Dealing with it.

Since September 11, 2001, the extensive literature on the United States' image abroad, by popular pundits and academics alike, leaves the reader with a false impression that foreigners' views of America are normally negative and impervious to change. In fact they are complex, emotional, frequently internally contradictory, and often change quickly. Barry A. Sanders corrects this misimpression with a rigourous and insightful textual analysis of the roots of people's views of the United States and what can be done to alter them. According to Sanders, the attitudes a person expresses about the United States consist of two separate components: the person's memory bank of images (informed by American geography, people, philosophy, history, and foreign policy) and a predisposition or bias that influences which images are called forth from memory. Opinion surveys, such as the Pew Global Attitude Survey, only record the spoken result of this two-step process in their tabulation of"favourable" or "unfavourable" comments. They necessarily fail to see the underlying complexity. Examining the biases or predispositions that guide people in selecting among the myriad stored images to express an opinion on a given day, Sanders analyses both anti-American and pro-American biases but focuses on the former, explaining which criticisms should be heeded when crafting foreign policy and communicating national objectives to friends and foes alike.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part 1 : Latin America
• Year 514 : globalization for whom?
• Latin America and U.S. foreign policy
• Democracy and development : their enemies, their hopes
• Latin American and Caribbean unity
• Part II : North America
• "Good news" Iraq and beyond
• Free elections, good news and bad
• Century's challenges
• Turning point?
• Elections 2008 : hope confronts the real world
• Obama on Israel-Palestine
• The torture memos
• 1989 and beyond.

In this urgent new book, Noam Chomsky surveys the dangers and prospects of our early twenty-first century. Exploring challenges such as the growing gap between North and South, American exceptionalism (including under President Barack Obama), the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.-Israeli assault on Gaza, and the recent financial bailouts, he also sees hope for the future and a way to move forward--in the democratic wave in Latin America and in the global solidarity movements that suggest "real progress toward freedom and justice." Hopes and Prospects is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the primary challenges still facing the human race. "This is a classic Chomsky work: a bonfire of myths and lies, sophistries and delusions. Noam Chomsky is an enduring inspiration all over the world--to millions, I suspect--for the simple reason that he is a truth-teller on an epic scale. I salute him." --John Pilger "In dissecting the rhetoric and logic of American empire and class domination, at home and abroad, Chomsky continues a longstanding and crucial work of elucidation and activism...the writing remains unswervingly rational and principled throughout, and lends bracing impetus to the real alternatives before us." --Publisher's Weekly "Chomsky's commentary is razor sharp and offers a compendium of facts that make a well-supported--and undoubtedly controversial--claim of the incongruity between US actions and the democratic ideals it professes....A valuable resource for both academics and everyday concerned citizens." --ForeWord Professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Noam Chomsky is widely regarded to be one of the foremost critics of U.S. foreign policy in the world. He has published numerous groundbreaking books, articles, and essays on global politics, history, and linguistics. Among his recent books are The New York Times bestsellers Hegemony or Survival and Failed States.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Text; Copyright Page.

While Americans focus on terrorism, a more insidious Islamist threat to our way of life lurks. It is the agenda of sharia, Islama (TM)s authoritarian legal and political system. The global Islamist movement aims, in the words of the international Muslim Brotherhood, to destroy the West by sabotaging it from within. Its principal strategy is not mass-murder but the exploitation of Western freedoms and the insinuation of sharia principles into Western legal systems. Because those principles are hostile to our core liberties - indeed, hostile even to the bedrock premise that people are free to govern themselves as they see fit - shariaa (TM)s advance gradually undermines our culture. The sharia agenda has found a friend in the Obama administration, which has embraced its vanguard, including the Brotherhood and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. President Obama is actively abetting the Islamist platform: promoting sharia in his foreign policy, easing enforcement of laws that stop Islamic "charitiesa from diverting funds to jihadist terror, and even sponsoring a United Nations resolution that - under the guise of insulating Islam from criticism - would stifle First Amendment rights.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Chapter 1 Preface
• Chapter 2 Introduction
• Chapter 3
• 1. 'Islam' and US Foreign Policy
• Chapter 4
• 2. President Obama and the Muslim World
• Chapter 5
• 3. Why Do They Hate Us? Anti-US Sentiment and the Battle to Win Hearts and Minds
• Chapter 6
• 4. Why the US Image Declined in the Muslim World?
• Chapter 7
• 5. Impact of US Anti-Terrorist Financing Laws on Muslim International Charities
• Chapter 8
• 6. American Media and the Muslim World
• Chapter 9
• 7. 11 September 2001 Attack on US and West Asia
• Chapter 10
• 8. Probing Smart Power Paradigm in US-Iran Relations
• Chapter 11
• 9. Neo-Conning America: Deception and the Iraq War
• Chapter 12
• 10. US-Pakistan Relations after 9/11: Threats and Responses
• Chapter 13
• 11. US-Bangladesh Relations: From Initial Hostility to Enduring Partnership
• Chapter 14
• 12. Post- 9/11 United States Policy towards Afghanistan
• Chapter 15
• 13. International Terrorism and Religious Extremism: Challenges to US and India
• Chapter 16
• 14. US in Eurasia: Geopolitical Overtures on a Treacherous Terrain
• Chapter 17 List of Contributors
• Chapter 18 Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

By all accounts, the overall relationship between the US and the Muslim world is marked by confrontation at several levels. In the aftermath of 9/11, a great deal needs to be done to build bridges between America and the Muslim world. A broad and immediate shift in America's policies towards the Muslim world is necessary. What is the appropriate paradigm for the war on terrorism? How should the US now deal with authoritarian regimes considered its traditional allies in the Muslim world? How should the US deal with civil society, opposition parties, and other Islamist groups, often located within these friends and allies? How can the US maintain a close alliance with Israel while still continuing positive relations with Muslim states and movements? US Policy Towards the Muslim World seeks to find answers to these and similar questions. The volume is comprised of fourteen contributions from specialists in the field. It is a serious attempt to address and analyze key factors affecting US interests and suggests measures for the US policy makers. The main objective is to provide a policy framework that will enable the US to face the challenges posed and opportunities thrown open in the Muslim world.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)