Insanity Defense: Why Our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes Us Less Safe,Jane Harman

-About this book

An insider’s account of America’s ineffectual approach to some of the hardest defense and intelligence issues in the three decades since the Cold War ended.
Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. As a nation, America has cycled through the same defense and intelligence issues since the end of the Cold War. In Insanity Defense, Congresswoman Jane Harman chronicles how four administrations have failed to confront some of the toughest national security policy issues and suggests achievable fixes that can move us toward a safer future.
The reasons for these inadequacies are varied and complex, in some cases going back generations. American leaders didn’t realize soon enough that the institutions and habits formed during the Cold War were no longer effective in an increasingly multi-power world transformed by digital technology and riven by ethno-sectarian conflict. Nations freed from the fear of the Soviets no longer deferred to America as before. Yet the United States settled into a comfortable, at times arrogant, position as the lone superpower. At the same time our governing institutions, which had stayed resilient, however imperfectly, through multiple crises, began their own unraveling.
Congresswoman Harman was there—as witness, legislator, exhorter, enabler, dissident and, eventually, outside advisor and commentator. Insanity Defense is an insider’s account of decades of American national security—of its failures and omissions—and a roadmap to making significant progress on solving these perennially difficult issues.

-CONTENTS

Dedication

INTRODUCTION

Insanity Defense

1  Paying the Price for Over-Militarizing Security

2  The Threats Keep Evolving and We’re Still Unprepared

3  Power over Truth Corrupts Intelligence

4  Stumbling Through the Fog of Law on Captured Terrorists

5  Pitting Liberty Against Security (Ben Franklin Was Right)

6  Presidential Power Unchecked and Unbalanced

7  The Incredible Shrinking Congress

Afterword

Notes

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

-caractéristiques

Date de parution:18 mai 2021

Éditeur : St. Martin’s Press

Langue : Anglais

NB.de pages : 272 pages

ISBN-10 : 1250758777

ISBN-13 : 978-1250758774

Poids de l’article : 386 g

Dimensions : 14.05 x 2.62 x 21.89 cm