Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 240
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-4422-4837-3 • Hardback • February 2017 • $116.00 • (£89.00)
978-1-4422-4838-0 • Paperback • February 2017 • $50.00 • (£38.00)
978-1-4422-4839-7 • eBook • February 2017 • $47.50 • (£37.00)
LTC USA (Ret.) John T. Fishel, Lecturer in the College of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is Professor Emeritus from the National Defense University. He served 28 years as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army both active and reserve and was chief of the Policy and Strategy Division of the Policy, Strategy & Programs Directorate of the U.S. Southern Command, Chief of Research and Assessments of the Small Wars Operations Research Directorate (SWORD), and Deputy Chief of the US Forces Liaison Group.
Forward by Ambassador Edwin G. Corr
Acknowledgements
Preface
Part I: A Touch of Theory
Chapter 1. A Practitioners Guide to Realism
Part II: The Practitioners’ Textbook
Chapter 2. Legal Authorities
Chapter 3. National Security Organizations
Chapter 4. The National Security Council Process
Chapter 5. Defense Planning Systems
Part III: The Cases
Chapter 6. Panama: National Security Policy from Below
Chapter 7. “I Love it When a Plan Comes Together”
Chapter 8. Adventures in Peace Enforcement: The Somalia Tragedy
Chapter 9. The “Intervasion” of Haiti
Chapter 10. “Some Damned Foolish Thing in the Balkans”
Chapter 11. 9/11 and the Invasion of Afghanistan
Chapter 12. Iraq: Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory and Victory From the Jaws of Defeat
Chapter 13. The Afghanistan Surge: Obama’s Finest Hour?
Part IV: Some Conclusions
Chapter 14. How National Security Policy Is Really Made: Lessons From the Cases
Bibliography
American National Security Policy should be read by anyone wanting to be a United States national security professional, by anyone who wants to understand how United States national security policy is formulated, and especially by public policy faculty charged with teaching future national security practitioners. These faculty should use this book in their classes. Superbly organized and clearly written, American National Security Policy is a practitioners’ guide to the subject. It explains succinctly how ideas shape policy makers’ world views and then proceeds to describe clearly each of the elements of the United States national security policy-making process. It also contains a varied and fascinating set of cases, in some of which the author was a direct participant, to illustrate points in a manner useful for future practitioners. Readers seeking fiction or fantasy about United States national security policy should avoid this book. Those compelled by facts should give it their full attention.
— Louis W. Goodman, Emeritus Dean of the School of International Service at American University
John Fishel provides a compelling insider's perspective on some of the most important political crises the United States has faced over the past thirty years, including conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yugoslavia, and Panama. As he adeptly demonstrates, the details matter, and lives are lost or saved depending on a complex interaction of policies, ideological agendas, professional relationships, and decisions made by individuals at all levels of the chain of command. Fishel's work has shaped my thinking about national security strategies for a long time, and it will continue to do so for many years to come.
— Adam Lankford, Criminology Professor, The University of Alabama
This is a realistic book about U.S. security policy and a superb starting point for a course on security policy for leaders or students in any country that deals with America—and that’s most of the world. Fishel’s case studies are redolent with the lessons of the generations who have passed through his classrooms. Security policy making is a living art, and the practice has changed with each of the operations described. This is a readable, teachable, text. We can only hope that somewhere in Moscow and Beijing there are Russian and Chinese counterparts working to explain the reality of those powers’ national security policy making. I think that would help to make the world a safer place.
— David Last, Royal Military College of Canada