New Books in National Security Podcast
1) Mark L. Haas, "The Geriatric Peace: Population Aging and the Decline of War" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The vast majority of the world's countries are experiencing a demographic revolution: dramatic, sustained, and likely irreversible population aging. States' median ages are steadily increasing as the ...Show More
2) Gregory A. Daddis, "Faith and Fear: America's Relationship with War Since 1945" (Oxford UP, 2025)
In a groundbreaking reassessment of the long Cold War era, historian Gregory A. Daddis argues that ever since the Second World War's fateful conclusion, faith in and fear of war became central to Amer...Show More
3) Stephan Kieninger, "Securing Peace in Europe: Strobe Talbott, NATO, and Russia After the Cold War" (Columbia UP, 2025)
This deeply researched book offers new perspective on the NATO-Russia relationship through the eyes of Strobe Talbott, a deputy secretary of state for seven years under President Bill Clinton and the ...Show More
4) Ben Connable, "Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War" (Georgetown UP, 2025)
Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War (Georgetown UP, 2025) reveals the gritty details of land warfare at the tactical level and challenges the overly subjective and often inaccurate Ameri...Show More
5) Daniel Lomas, "The Secret History of UK Security Vetting from 1909 to the Present" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Using newly available government records, private papers, and documents obtained through Freedom of Information, The Secret History of UK Vetting from 1909 to the Present (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Dan...Show More
6) Thomas Christian Bächle and Jascha Bareis eds., "The Realities of Autonomous Weapons (Bristol UP, 2025)
Autonomous weapons exist in a strange territory between Pentagon procurement contracts and Hollywood blockbusters, between actual military systems and speculative futures. For this week's Liminal Libr...Show More
7) Reid B. C. Pauly, "The Art of Coercion: Credible Threats and the Assurance Dilemma" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Strong states are surprisingly bad at coercion. History shows they prevail only a third of the time. Dr. Pauly argues that coercion often fails because targets fear punishment even if they comply. In ...Show More
8) Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, "Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century" (Princeton UP, 2022)
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ruled through violence, fear, and ideology. But in recent decades a new breed of media-savvy strongmen has been redesigning authoritarian rule for a more sophisticated, globall...Show More
9) Edward Luce, "Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
Zbigniew Brzezinski was a key architect of the Soviet Union’s demise, which ended the Cold War. A child of Warsaw—the heart of central Europe’s bloodlands—Brzezinski turned his fierce resentment at hi...Show More
10) Aviva Guttmann, "Operation Wrath of God: The Secret History of European Intelligence and Mossad's Assassination Campaign" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
In this unprecedented history of intelligence cooperation during the Cold War, Aviva Guttmann uncovers the key role of European intelligence agencies in facilitating Mossad's Operation Wrath of God; a...Show More