Beyond traditional threats from states such as China and Russia and non-state actors employing violent extremism, can America’s politics and political system withstand the assaults of the Fifth Horseman and the new MAD, Massive Attacks of Disruption? The Covid-19 pandemic, the January 6 insurrection and takeover of the US Capitol, SolarWinds cyber attacks, the Texas storms that cut power, and the blocking of the Suez Canal are harbingers of the new MAD. And the nation is unaware and unprepared to deal with them. What must be done? First, we must recognize the potentially existential dangers posed by MAD. Second, we must reorganize government to meet these dangers. Third, we need new national security strategies to protect, defend, and mitigate these new threats. Fourth, we must create a private-public partnership in a national re-investment fund that can redress many of the risks of MAD. In this transformative and highly innovative and provocative book, Dr. Harlan Ullman issues a dramatic warning about so far unrecognized existential dangers to the nation and offers a plan of action America must take if the Fifth Horseman and the new MAD are to be tamed or broken.
Why, since the end of World War II, has the United States either lost every war it started or failed in every military intervention it prosecuted? Harlan Ullman's new book answers this most disturbing question, a question Americans would never think of even asking because this record of failure has been largely hidden in plain sight or forgotten with the passage of time. The most straightforward answer is that presidents and administrations have consistently failed to use sound strategic thinking and lacked sufficient knowledge or understanding of the circumstances prior to deciding whether or not to employ force. Making this case is an in-depth analysis of the records of presidents from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama and Donald Trump in using force or starting wars. His recommended solutions begin with a "brains-based" approach to sound strategic thinking to address one of the major causes of failure ----the inexperience of too many of the nation's commanders-in-chief. Ullman reinforces his argument through the use of autobiographical vignettes that provide a human dimension and insight into the reasons for failure, in some cases making public previously unknown history. The clarion call of Anatomy of Failure is that both a sound strategic framework and sufficient knowledge and understanding of the circumstance that may lead to using force are vital. Without them, failure is virtually guaranteed.
The military posture and capability of the United States of America are, today, dominant. Simply put, there is no external adversary in the world that can successfully challenge the extraordinary power of the American military in either regional conflict or in "conventional" war as we know it once the United States makes the commitment to take whatever action may be needed. To be sure, the first phase of a crisis may be the most difficult-if an aggressor has attacked and U.S. forces are not in place. However, it will still be years, if not decades, before potential adversaries will be able to deploy systems with a full panoply of capabilities that are equivalent to or better than the aggregate strength of the ships, aircraft, armored vehicles, and weapons systems in our inventory. Even if an adversary could deploy similar systems, then matching and overcoming the superb training and preparation of American service personnel would still be a daunting task.
After a tsunami destroyed the cooling system at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, triggering a meltdown, protesters around the world challenged the use of nuclear power. Germany announced it would close its plants by 2022. Although the ills of fossil fuels are better understood than ever, the threat of climate change has never aroused the same visceral dread or swift action. Spencer Weart dissects this paradox, demonstrating that a powerful web of images surrounding nuclear energy holds us captive, allowing fear, rather than facts, to drive our thinking and public policy. Building on his classic, Nuclear Fear, Weart follows nuclear imagery from its origins in the symbolism of medieval alchemy to its appearance in film and fiction. Long before nuclear fission was discovered, fantasies of the destroyed planet, the transforming ray, and the white city of the future took root in the popular imagination. At the turn of the twentieth century when limited facts about radioactivity became known, they produced a blurred picture upon which scientists and the public projected their hopes and fears. These fears were magnified during the Cold War, when mushroom clouds no longer needed to be imagined; they appeared on the evening news. Weart examines nuclear anxiety in sources as diverse as Alain Resnais's film Hiroshima Mon Amour, Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road, and the television show The Simpsons. Recognizing how much we remain in thrall to these setpieces of the imagination, Weart hopes, will help us resist manipulation from both sides of the nuclear debate.
When a group of international terrorists unleashes a biological weapon into the Euphrates River, the resulting fallout will threaten to spark a deadly war in the Middle East.
PANDORA CITY sits on the cattle trail north to Babylon. One day a wounded rider arrives with death stalking hard on his heels. The legends say that four horsemen will come to burn the earth and one will come to save it. So who is this rider? Over two centuries have passed since events chronicled in The Forsaken. Survivors have climbed out of the ruins and struggle to build a new life on the frontier of a dying world. The Apocalypse Trilogy gallops to its horrifying conclusion in The Fifth Horseman. This explosive mix of classic western storytelling and Gothic horror delivers a terrifying and bloodstained final act to G. Wells Taylor's doomsday epic.
Documents the life story of a record-breaking champion horse whose disabilities nearly caused his euthanasia at birth, in an account that also describes the contributions of his shopkeeper owner and alcoholic driver. 50,000 first printing.
