Seeing the Elephant ― The U.S. Role in Global Security

Writing primarily for students of US war colleges, the authors (both of the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense U. in Washington, DC) chart the intellectual history of national security thinking since the end of the Cold War. They suggest that, like the fabled Buddhists feeling different parts of an elephant, surveying together the different concepts and schools of thought of books by the 50 American national security writers discussed can lead to a better understanding of the holistic picture of the United States and its role in international affairs. They have structured their analysis according to authors that offer a neo-Kantian view of growing democratization and economic prosperity, those that put forward a neo-Hobbesian perspective emphasizing stressful security affairs and frequent military solutions, those that emphasize the impact of technological developments in world affairs, and those that examine the evolution of American national security strategy in the contemporary world. Distributed in the US by Books International. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)