White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan – May 4, 2023 by Mick Ryan
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White Sun War is a fictional account of a future invasion of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China, and the regional war that occurs as the U.S., Japan, and other nations support Taiwan’s defense. The author, strategist and retired Australian Army general Mick Ryan, remains an avid writer in the field of future warfare and the implications of technology on conflict. His expertise in these areas shines throughout White Sun War, which eclipses the human element of the conflict that Ryan still successfully weaves into the book
Daring to Struggle: China’s Global Ambitions under Xi Jinping – June 10, 2022 by Bates Gill
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“Daring to Struggle: China’s Global Ambitions Under Xi Jinping” presents a comprehensive exploration of China’s evolving role on the world stage, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. Authored by a team of seasoned experts, this insightful book sheds light on China’s bold endeavors, its strategies, and the challenges it faces as it strives to reshape the global order.
In this meticulously researched work, the author delves into Xi Jinping’s leadership style, his political ideology, and the various economic, political, and technological initiatives that have marked China’s ascent as a global powerhouse. The book serves as an invaluable resource for anyone seeking a nuanced understanding of China’s motives, actions, and impact on the international community.
The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future – October 23, 2018 by Victor Cha
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In The Impossible State, seasoned international-policy expert and lauded scholar Victor Cha pulls back the curtain on provocative, isolationist North Korea, providing our best look yet at its history and the rise of the Kim family dynasty and the obsessive personality cult that empowers them. Cha illuminates the repressive regime’s complex economy and culture, its appalling record of human rights abuses, and its belligerent relationship with the United States, and analyzes the regime’s major security issues—from the seemingly endless war with its southern neighbor to its frightening nuclear ambitions—all in light of the destabilizing effects of Kim Jong-il’s death and the transition of power to his unpredictable heir.
The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare – March 15, 2022 by Christian Brose
For generations of Americans, our country has been the world’s dominant military power. How the US military fights, and the systems and weapons that it fights with, have been uncontested. That old reality, however, is rapidly deteriorating. America’s traditional sources of power are eroding amid the emergence of new technologies and the growing military threat posed by rivals such as China. America is at grave risk of losing a future war. Examining threats from China, Russia, and elsewhere, The Kill Chain offers hope and, ultimately, insights on how America can apply advanced technologies to prevent war, deter aggression, and maintain peace
The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters by Matthew Kroenig
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For decades, the reigning scholarly wisdom about nuclear weapons policy has been that the United States only needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and still be able to respond with a devastating counterattack. This argument is reasonable, but, empirically, we see that the US has always maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. In The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy, Matthew Kroenig challenges the conventional wisdom and explains why a robust nuclear posture, above and beyond a mere second-strike capability, contributes to a state’s national security goals. In fact, when a state has a robust nuclear weapons force, such a capability reduces its expected costs in a war, provides it with bargaining leverage, and ultimately enhances nuclear deterrence. Buoyed by an innovative thesis and a vast array of historical and quantitative evidence, this book provides the first coherent theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it resolves one of the most-intractable puzzles in international security studies.
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Media and public discussion tends to understand Russian politics as a direct reflection of Vladimir Putin’s seeming omnipotence or Russia’s unique history and culture. Yet Russia is remarkably similar to other autocracies―and recognizing this illuminates the inherent limits to Putin’s power. Weak Strongman challenges the conventional wisdom about Putin’s Russia, highlighting the difficult trade-offs that confront the Kremlin on issues ranging from election fraud and repression to propaganda and foreign policy.
Drawing on three decades of his own on-the-ground experience and research as well as insights from a new generation of social scientists that have received little attention outside academia, Timothy Frye reveals how much we overlook about today’s Russia when we focus solely on Putin or Russian exceptionalism. Frye brings a new understanding to a host of crucial questions: How popular is Putin? Is Russian propaganda effective? Why are relations with the West so fraught? Can Russian cyber warriors really swing foreign elections? In answering these and other questions, Frye offers a highly accessible reassessment of Russian politics that highlights the challenges of governing Russia and the nature of modern autocracy.
Rich in personal anecdotes and cutting-edge social science, Weak Strongman offers the best evidence available about how Russia actually works.
This is not Propaganda by Peter Pomeranstev.
When information is a weapon, every opinion is an act of war.
We live in a world of influence operations run amok, where dark ads, psyops, hacks, bots, soft facts, ISIS, Putin, trolls, and Trump seek to shape our very reality. In this surreal atmosphere created to disorient us and undermine our sense of truth, we’ve lost not only our grip on peace and democracy — but our very notion of what those words even mean.
Peter Pomerantsev takes us to the front lines of the disinformation age—from Kiev to Manilla–where he meets Twitter revolutionaries and pop-up populists, “behavioral change” salesmen, Jihadi fanboys, Identitarians, truth cops, and many others. Forty years after his Ukranian dissident parents were pursued by the KGB, Pomerantsev finds the Kremlin re-emerging as a great propaganda power. His research takes him back to Russia — but the answers he finds there are not what he expected.
Blending reportage, family history, and intellectual adventure, This Is Not Propaganda explores how we can reimagine our politics and ourselves when reality seems to be coming apart.
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