P atricia L. Sullivan’s Who Wins? seeks to understand why strong states so often are unable to achieve their aims in wars against weaker adversaries. She demonstrates that the reason rests not merely with the belligerents’ resolve or their strategic choices, but rather with the nature of the political objectives they pursue. In particular, she argues strong states are most likely to succeed when their aim is to seize territory from a weaker opponent or overthrow its regime. By contrast, victory is least likely to follow attempts to coerce a weaker adversary into changing its behavior.
P .阿特里夏·l·沙利文的《谁赢了?》试图理解为什么强国经常无法在与弱小对手的战争中实现其目标。她指出，原因不仅在于交战双方的决心或战略选择，还在于他们所追求的政治目标的性质。她特别指出，当强国的目标是从较弱的对手手中夺取领土或推翻其政权时，它们最有可能取得成功。相比之下，试图强迫弱小的对手改变其行为是最不可能取得胜利的。
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Pub Date : 2013-12-22DOI: 10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim260040031
W. Terrill
Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency By Daniel Klaidman New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013 304 pages $14.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Daniel Klaidman's Kill or Capture provides an in-depth examination of the Obama administration's policies on terrorism-related issues including Guantanamo Bay prisoners, harsh interrogations, military commissions, and the use of armed drones to strike against terrorists. According to Klaidman, President Obama had emerged as a foreign policy realist by the time he was elected and repeatedly proved himself to be "ruthlessly pragmatic" on terrorism issues despite his liberal instincts. An ongoing focus of this book is the legal and policy disagreements within the administration and the ways in which these struggles influenced the internal debate on a range of contentious issues. The two most important factions within the administration were sometimes slyly referred to as "Tammany Hall" and "the Aspen Institute." The bare knuckles realists of Tammany (such as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) often won the most important debates, and the Aspen idealists often spent more time than they would have wished nursing their political wounds. The author goes into extensive and sometimes painful detail about the debates among administration national security officials, attorneys, and other senior bureaucrats. According to Klaidman, "By the midway point of Obama's first year in office the White House's thermostat had swung toward Tammany." Rahm Emanuel is portrayed as tough and "transactional," focusing heavily on how any action could help the president's agenda without worrying about liberal ideals that were politically costly. Attorney General Eric Holder was often his chief foil and at least on one occasion was pushed to the brink of resignation. While Holder is one of Obama's closest friends, the president still tended to side with Emanuel on most important arguments in the belief that pragmatism was necessary to move the country forward. After over a year in office, Holder ultimately chose not to resign because it would have been widely assumed that he had been driven out by Tammany or become disillusioned with the administration to the point that he could no longer serve it. Holder understood the situation and remained a loyalist. If the president needed any additional push to implement tough-minded policies, he clearly received it when on 25 December 2009 a member of the terrorist group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) barely failed in his mission to destroy a commercial US aircraft with 289 passengers. The consequences of such an action would have been catastrophic for both the country and the administration. In addition, due to an appalling death toll, the attack could have produced serious political pressure to do something dramatic in retaliation and perhaps even undertake some sort of intervention in Yemen, which could have gone very badly. In meetings with his sen
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Operation Anaconda: America's First Major Battle in Afghanistan by Lester W. Grau and Dodge Billingsley University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 2011 459 pages $39.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Les Grau and Dodge Billingsley offer keen insight in their historical account of Operation Anaconda. Both authors are eminently qualified to write such a book. Les Grau is an Afghanistan expert and has written prolifically about the Soviet-Afghan War. Dodge Billingsley is a daring combat journalist who covered the first Russian-Chechen War of 1994-96 and was on the ground in the Shar-i Kot Valley during Operation Anaconda. This book focuses on the tactical level, much like Grau's earlier work The Bear Went over the Mountain. This poorly planned and executed operation shines a light on the conspicuously regrettable arrogance and ignorance engendered in the Pentagon and US Central Command during the first years of the Afghan War. The detailed anatomy of the March 2002 debacle in the Shard Kot Valley is an enduring testimony to strategic failure of significant magnitude mainly because various officials and planners in the Pentagon did not comprehend or plan for any long-term outcome in Afghanistan or Pakistan. To be certain, in the 2001-02 period, US military thinking, doctrine, and organization were focused almost exclusively on potential adversaries. Ultimately, this book recalls the fundamental risks in engaging in wars without fully understanding the enemy, our own capabilities, and the type of conflict we were about to enter into. The book's beginning includes a cogent quote attributed to Field Marshal William Slim: "preparation for war is an expensive, burdensome business, yet there is one important part of it that costs little--study." This aptly sets the context for Operation Anaconda; there were few people in the US defense community in early 2002 who knew much about Afghanistan or about fighting irregular forces in the Hindu Kush. As a result, the Pentagon and CENTCOM failed to understand and apply the many lessons from the Soviet-Afghan War. The United States undertook the early Afghan War with too few forces and ad hoc and convoluted command and control arrangements. The leadership in the Pentagon mistakenly inferred the Soviets had failed in Afghanistan because they had committed too many forces. A large part of the explanation for the Soviets' failure, however, was that they had too few of the right type of forces, fought with the wrong tactics, and were hamstrung by a convoluted command and control. Anaconda was, to a degree, a metaphor for the first eight years of the war--years that saw forces employing untenable tactics encumbered by ludicrously complicated command and control arrangements. Anaconda violated almost every axiom that students of military art and science learn. It was an ad hoc and poorly planned fight, with terrible interservice coordination, abysmal command and control, and far too few forces. In fact, these forces essential
《蟒蛇行动:美国在阿富汗的第一次重大战役》莱斯特·w·格劳和道奇·比林斯利著，堪萨斯大学出版社，劳伦斯，堪萨斯，2011年，459页39.95美元[插图省略]莱斯·格劳和道奇·比林斯利在他们对蟒蛇行动的历史叙述中提供了敏锐的洞察力。两位作者都极有资格写出这样一本书。莱斯·格劳是阿富汗问题专家，撰写了大量关于苏阿战争的文章。道奇·比林斯利(Dodge Billingsley)是一位勇敢的战地记者，他报道了1994年至1996年的第一次俄罗斯-车臣战争，并在“水蟒行动”(Operation Anaconda)期间在沙里科特山谷(shari Kot Valley)的地面上。这本书侧重于战术层面，很像格劳早期的作品《熊翻山》。这次计划和执行不力的行动暴露了五角大楼和美国中央司令部在阿富汗战争的头几年里明显令人遗憾的傲慢和无知。对2002年3月沙德科特山谷溃败的详细剖析是重大战略失败的持久证据，主要是因为五角大楼的各种官员和规划者没有理解或计划在阿富汗或巴基斯坦的任何长期结果。可以肯定的是，在2001- 2002年期间，美国的军事思想、理论和组织几乎完全集中在潜在的对手身上。最后，这本书回顾了在没有充分了解敌人、我们自己的能力和我们即将进入的冲突类型的情况下参与战争的根本风险。这本书的开头引用了陆军元帅威廉·斯利姆的话:“准备战争是一件昂贵而繁重的事情，但其中有一个重要部分花费很少——学习。”这恰好为《蟒蛇行动》设定了背景;2002年初，美国防务界很少有人了解阿富汗或在兴都库什山脉打击非正规部队。结果，五角大楼和中央司令部未能理解和运用从苏联-阿富汗战争中吸取的许多教训。在阿富汗战争初期，美国的兵力太少，指挥和控制安排也特别复杂。五角大楼的领导层错误地推断苏联在阿富汗的失败是因为他们投入了太多的军队。然而，苏联的失败在很大程度上是由于他们缺少合适类型的部队，使用了错误的战术，并且被复杂的指挥和控制所束缚。在某种程度上，蟒蛇是战争头八年的隐喻——在这八年里，军队采用了站不住脚的战术，受到了荒谬复杂的指挥和控制安排的阻碍。《蟒蛇》几乎违反了军事艺术和科学学生所学的所有公理。这是一场临时的、计划不周的战斗，各军种之间的协调很糟糕，指挥和控制很糟糕，而且兵力太少。事实上，这些部队基本上以一种灾难性的零碎方式占领了敌人的交战区域。…
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The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire By Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013 466 pages $30.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This work provides a welcome reappraisal of the British loss of their American colonies, i.e., the American Revolution during 1775-83, in the context of British global strategic decisionmaking. The subject is not new. Author Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy credits Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775-1783 (1964, reprinted 1992), on the first page of the Acknowledgment, highlighting Mackesy's belief that the war was winnable but was lost to poor generalship, among other things. O'Shaughnessy states clearly that American victory was not inevitable. It is a somewhat harder task to challenge the conventional wisdom that the British loss was due to "incompetence and mediocre leadership," both political and military. The author packages the monograph in nine biographical chapters, examining ten British leaders at policy, strategic, and theater strategic/operational levels, in sequence: King George III; Lord North as prime minister; the Howe brothers, Admiral Lord Richard and Lieutenant General Sir William; Major General John Burgoyne; Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, a third Secretary of State created in 1768; Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton; Major General Charles, 1st Marquis Cornwallis; Admiral Sir George Rodney; and John Montague, Earl of Sandwich, as First Lord of the Admiralty. The work features senior leaders wrestling with an unprecedented set of problems, in the author's words "obstacles of such magnitude." He explains their decisionmaking in the overall context of the eighteenth century; the nature of the English state, extant political institutions, and their processes; global strategy; and ultimately the nature of the military element of power, land and naval. For example, despite the previously showcased ministry of Sir Robert Walpole in British history, O'Shaughnessy underlines the as-yet evolutionary nature of English government at the time, especially the gradual development of true cabinet government with collective ministerial responsibility. His interpretation is not without controversy, at least insofar as extant practice to ensure political survival resulted in conduct for collective shielding. He believes the "most fundamental miscalculation" of these senior leaders was the belief that Loyalists constituted a majority of the population in America. Moreover, these same leaders did not understand the changes that took place in the war's nature. Its length, seeming without end, increased popular antipathy toward British military presence. Significantly, O'Shaughnessy cites the Declaration of Independence as a seminal document for genuine, revolutionary change: a radical republican creed which beckoned a better future. Furthermore, in current terms, he sees a serious imbalance in ends, ways, and
《失去美国的人:英国的领导、美国革命和帝国的命运》作者:安德鲁·杰克逊·奥肖内西纽黑文，康涅狄格州:耶鲁大学出版社，2013年，466页$30.00[插图略]这本书在英国全球战略决策的背景下，对英国失去美洲殖民地，即1775年至1783年的美国革命进行了令人欢迎的重新评估。这个话题并不新鲜。作者安德鲁·杰克逊·奥肖内西将皮尔斯·麦克西的《为美国而战，1775-1783》(1964年，1992年重印)放在了《承认》的第一页上，强调了麦克西的信念，即战争是可以打赢的，但失败的原因之一是糟糕的指挥能力。奥肖内西明确指出，美国的胜利并非不可避免。传统观点认为，英国的失败是由于政治和军事上的“无能和平庸的领导”，要挑战这一观点，难度要大一些。作者将这本专著打包成9个传记章节，依次考察了10位英国领导人在政策、战略和战区战略/作战层面的情况:国王乔治三世;诺斯勋爵出任首相;豪兄弟、海军上将理查德勋爵和中将威廉爵士;约翰·伯戈因少将;乔治·热尔曼勋爵，殖民地事务大臣，1768年任命的第三任大臣;亨利·克林顿中将;查尔斯少将，第一代康沃利斯侯爵;海军上将乔治·罗德尼爵士;桑威奇伯爵约翰·蒙塔古被任命为第一海军部大臣。这部作品描绘了高级领导人与一系列前所未有的问题作斗争，用作者的话来说就是“如此巨大的障碍”。他在18世纪的大背景下解释了他们的决策;英国国家的性质、现存的政治制度及其进程;全球战略;最后是军事力量的本质，陆地和海军。例如，尽管英国历史上曾出现过罗伯特·沃波尔爵士(Sir Robert Walpole)的内阁，但奥肖内西强调了当时英国政府仍在进化的本质，尤其是逐步发展成为真正的内阁政府，拥有集体部长责任。他的解释并非没有争议，至少就目前确保政治生存的做法导致集体庇护的行为而言。他认为，这些高级领导人“最根本的误判”是，他们认为保皇派占美国人口的大多数。此外，这些领导人不了解战争性质发生的变化。它的长度，似乎没有尽头，增加了民众对英国军事存在的反感。值得注意的是，奥肖内西引用《独立宣言》作为真正的革命性变革的开创性文件:一种激进的共和信条，预示着更美好的未来。此外，就目前而言，他看到了目的、方式和手段的严重失衡。他强调了1748年奥地利王位继承战争结束后战后军队缩减的主要方面。他的结论是，皇家海军和英国陆军都太小，无法完成手头的任务。后者根本缺乏征服和占领美国殖民地的力量，特别是考虑到爱国者部队迅速控制了既定机构，这进一步凸显了保皇派的弱点。对军事力量的多重需求加剧了这种不平衡。奥肖内西反复提醒读者要理解英国的全球责任。针对美国十三个殖民地的战争同时发生在加拿大、加勒比地区、印度和欧洲本身。从1778年开始，由于法国和其他国家积极干预战争，这些剧院变得迫在眉睫。…
{"title":"The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire","authors":"James D. Scudieri","doi":"10.5860/choice.51-2282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.51-2282","url":null,"abstract":"The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire By Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013 466 pages $30.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This work provides a welcome reappraisal of the British loss of their American colonies, i.e., the American Revolution during 1775-83, in the context of British global strategic decisionmaking. The subject is not new. Author Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy credits Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775-1783 (1964, reprinted 1992), on the first page of the Acknowledgment, highlighting Mackesy's belief that the war was winnable but was lost to poor generalship, among other things. O'Shaughnessy states clearly that American victory was not inevitable. It is a somewhat harder task to challenge the conventional wisdom that the British loss was due to \"incompetence and mediocre leadership,\" both political and military. The author packages the monograph in nine biographical chapters, examining ten British leaders at policy, strategic, and theater strategic/operational levels, in sequence: King George III; Lord North as prime minister; the Howe brothers, Admiral Lord Richard and Lieutenant General Sir William; Major General John Burgoyne; Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, a third Secretary of State created in 1768; Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton; Major General Charles, 1st Marquis Cornwallis; Admiral Sir George Rodney; and John Montague, Earl of Sandwich, as First Lord of the Admiralty. The work features senior leaders wrestling with an unprecedented set of problems, in the author's words \"obstacles of such magnitude.\" He explains their decisionmaking in the overall context of the eighteenth century; the nature of the English state, extant political institutions, and their processes; global strategy; and ultimately the nature of the military element of power, land and naval. For example, despite the previously showcased ministry of Sir Robert Walpole in British history, O'Shaughnessy underlines the as-yet evolutionary nature of English government at the time, especially the gradual development of true cabinet government with collective ministerial responsibility. His interpretation is not without controversy, at least insofar as extant practice to ensure political survival resulted in conduct for collective shielding. He believes the \"most fundamental miscalculation\" of these senior leaders was the belief that Loyalists constituted a majority of the population in America. Moreover, these same leaders did not understand the changes that took place in the war's nature. Its length, seeming without end, increased popular antipathy toward British military presence. Significantly, O'Shaughnessy cites the Declaration of Independence as a seminal document for genuine, revolutionary change: a radical republican creed which beckoned a better future. Furthermore, in current terms, he sees a serious imbalance in ends, ways, and ","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71143909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere Edited by Philip H. J. Davies and Kristian C. Gustafson Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013 320 pages $34.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Cultural analysis is an academic tool that holds considerable potential for understanding complicated issues outside an analyst's normal frame of reference. However, within the intelligence community, this tool is often misunderstood or misapplied, producing disappointing results that tend to discredit the discipline as a component in the production of quality intelligence analysis. The authors and editors of Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere provide a different view. They claim that cultural analysis is beneficial and possibly vital to understanding both allies and adversaries. They build their argument by using comparative analysis to examine case studies written by multiple authors about a wide selection of intelligence services from non-Western countries. This book serves as both an example of how cultural analysis might be applied by practitioners of intelligence as well as an insightful collection of case studies about intelligence services that have often been neglected in the body of Western intelligence research. This book devotes four early chapters to examining ancient intelligence traditions arising from China, the Maurya Empire in India, the Byzantine Empire, and the foundation of Islam. The authors and editors believe these traditions have a profound, but often unrecognized, impact on a swath of modern states and their security services. The book continues to describe individual countries and their security apparatus in terms of historical layers, each of which contributes a portion to the explanation of their organization's current status. As asserted by multiple authors throughout the text, the study of culture cannot predict what action a country or its leaders will take in any given circumstance, but it can offer great insight into how they will carry it out. Furthermore, even the individual actors themselves may not be fully aware of the influences that color their own decisionmaking processes. The chapter on Russian security services, entitled "Protecting the New Rome," is a high point in the book. Russia's tilt away from the West since the end of the Soviet Union towards an authoritarian model has tended to baffle many Western observers. However, an examination of Russia's Byzantine influences provides a fascinating perspective on the culture that underlies this process. President Putin's patriarchal behavior toward the Russian Orthodox Church draws parallels to emperors of a millennium past, but far from being an isolated anachronism, this chapter demonstrates elements of this pattern have perpetuated, even during the Soviet Union. This culminates today in a security culture that has allowed Russia's intelligence services to weather extreme political change with surprisingly little
{"title":"Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere","authors":"Joseph M. Becker","doi":"10.5860/choice.51-1736","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.51-1736","url":null,"abstract":"Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere Edited by Philip H. J. Davies and Kristian C. Gustafson Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013 320 pages $34.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Cultural analysis is an academic tool that holds considerable potential for understanding complicated issues outside an analyst's normal frame of reference. However, within the intelligence community, this tool is often misunderstood or misapplied, producing disappointing results that tend to discredit the discipline as a component in the production of quality intelligence analysis. The authors and editors of Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere provide a different view. They claim that cultural analysis is beneficial and possibly vital to understanding both allies and adversaries. They build their argument by using comparative analysis to examine case studies written by multiple authors about a wide selection of intelligence services from non-Western countries. This book serves as both an example of how cultural analysis might be applied by practitioners of intelligence as well as an insightful collection of case studies about intelligence services that have often been neglected in the body of Western intelligence research. This book devotes four early chapters to examining ancient intelligence traditions arising from China, the Maurya Empire in India, the Byzantine Empire, and the foundation of Islam. The authors and editors believe these traditions have a profound, but often unrecognized, impact on a swath of modern states and their security services. The book continues to describe individual countries and their security apparatus in terms of historical layers, each of which contributes a portion to the explanation of their organization's current status. As asserted by multiple authors throughout the text, the study of culture cannot predict what action a country or its leaders will take in any given circumstance, but it can offer great insight into how they will carry it out. Furthermore, even the individual actors themselves may not be fully aware of the influences that color their own decisionmaking processes. The chapter on Russian security services, entitled \"Protecting the New Rome,\" is a high point in the book. Russia's tilt away from the West since the end of the Soviet Union towards an authoritarian model has tended to baffle many Western observers. However, an examination of Russia's Byzantine influences provides a fascinating perspective on the culture that underlies this process. President Putin's patriarchal behavior toward the Russian Orthodox Church draws parallels to emperors of a millennium past, but far from being an isolated anachronism, this chapter demonstrates elements of this pattern have perpetuated, even during the Soviet Union. This culminates today in a security culture that has allowed Russia's intelligence services to weather extreme political change with surprisingly little","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71143386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection By Blake W. Mobley Combating terrorism has been the focal point of US policy following that fateful day on 11 September 2001. Many in both the academic and professional worlds often fail to realize the most prominent terrorist groups in media headlines are not backwoods ad hoc organizations. They are not the groups of disturbed children or adults attempting to find their place in society as some analysts tend to portray. Many of these organizations are, in fact, quite sophisticated, well-organized groups that control their members via opportunities for improved living standards and an agenda in line with the population's values at the time. Sophisticated organizations, both past and present, such as al Qaeda, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), Egyptian Islamic Group (IG), and Fatah all use a variety of techniques described throughout this book to evade their adversaries' most effective counterintelligence methods, and it is these four groups the case studies represent. Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection examines the intricate webs that make a terrorist group successful, and begins its review by defining the words "terrorism" and "counterintelligence." Academics and other professionals often disagree on the basic definitions of these broad and manipulative terms, which in turn cause problems in the thorough analysis and interpretation of the reasoning behind a group's actions. In a society with a plethora of definitions of terrorism and counterintelligence, the author does an exceptional job of defining these terms in line with the key underlining message of this book, which is to scrutinize the structure of these organizations and attempt to understand how they function from the inside out. The counterintelligence techniques used throughout the case studies include basic denial, adaptive denial, and covert manipulation. Basic denial includes training members of the group in basic counterintelligence techniques such as limited information of the telephone and internet networks and maintaining a low profile. Adaptive denial is adjusting the group's counterintelligence techniques to combat an adversary's intelligence methods; lastly, covert manipulation, uses double agents and false defectors to provide false information to the adversary. All these tactics prove useful and both the adversary and the terrorist group must create new forms of intelligence and counterintelligence techniques to combat older tactics. This book does not discuss specific terrorist plots or provide the reader with dramatic stories; it is rather a book with an in-depth focus on the inner workings of how terrorist cells relay information and the degree to which they keep their most sensitive information secret. …
{"title":"Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection","authors":"Ross W. Clark","doi":"10.5860/choice.50-4099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.50-4099","url":null,"abstract":"[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection By Blake W. Mobley Combating terrorism has been the focal point of US policy following that fateful day on 11 September 2001. Many in both the academic and professional worlds often fail to realize the most prominent terrorist groups in media headlines are not backwoods ad hoc organizations. They are not the groups of disturbed children or adults attempting to find their place in society as some analysts tend to portray. Many of these organizations are, in fact, quite sophisticated, well-organized groups that control their members via opportunities for improved living standards and an agenda in line with the population's values at the time. Sophisticated organizations, both past and present, such as al Qaeda, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), Egyptian Islamic Group (IG), and Fatah all use a variety of techniques described throughout this book to evade their adversaries' most effective counterintelligence methods, and it is these four groups the case studies represent. Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection examines the intricate webs that make a terrorist group successful, and begins its review by defining the words \"terrorism\" and \"counterintelligence.\" Academics and other professionals often disagree on the basic definitions of these broad and manipulative terms, which in turn cause problems in the thorough analysis and interpretation of the reasoning behind a group's actions. In a society with a plethora of definitions of terrorism and counterintelligence, the author does an exceptional job of defining these terms in line with the key underlining message of this book, which is to scrutinize the structure of these organizations and attempt to understand how they function from the inside out. The counterintelligence techniques used throughout the case studies include basic denial, adaptive denial, and covert manipulation. Basic denial includes training members of the group in basic counterintelligence techniques such as limited information of the telephone and internet networks and maintaining a low profile. Adaptive denial is adjusting the group's counterintelligence techniques to combat an adversary's intelligence methods; lastly, covert manipulation, uses double agents and false defectors to provide false information to the adversary. All these tactics prove useful and both the adversary and the terrorist group must create new forms of intelligence and counterintelligence techniques to combat older tactics. This book does not discuss specific terrorist plots or provide the reader with dramatic stories; it is rather a book with an in-depth focus on the inner workings of how terrorist cells relay information and the degree to which they keep their most sensitive information secret. …","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71141356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream By Gregg Jones New York: New American Library, 2012 430 pages $26.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] America went to war in 1898 for a noble cause--to lift the yoke of Spanish colonial oppression from the peoples of Cuba and the Philippines. Although ill-equipped for expeditionary warfare, the United States Army, Navy, and fledgling Marine Corps, managed in short order to deploy forces sufficiently capable of securing victories in both the Caribbean island and distant archipelago in the Pacific. Flush with the spoils of its easy victories, the United States quickly installed a compliant government in the Philippines, with the objective of developing the former Spanish colony into a distant outpost from where parochial national interests could be looked after. Filipino nationalists, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, objected to the replacement of one colonial power with another, sparking an insurgency that spread throughout the islands. Years of counterinsurgency warfare followed, during which time American values were sorely tested as allegations of torture and brutality toward enemy soldiers and the civilian population who supported them became a daily staple of reporting in the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. American honor, so highly trumpeted at the onset of the war, became mired in the dust of discouragement and disappointment as victory in the war against the insurgents proved elusive. Gregg Jones's account of America's well-intentioned, but ill-fated, experiment with colonialism is told in a narrative style that reminds the reader of the author's roots as a journalist. There is much in the story that appeals to these sometimes prurient instincts, such as the prologue, which begins with a vivid description of US troops using a form of interrogation euphemistically referred to as "the water cure" on a suspected insurgent. From the outset it is clear that Jones finds many parallels between the War in the Philippines and America's experiences in later wars in general, and the Global War on Terror in particular. For many readers this will be an introduction to a forgotten chapter in our nation's history. The book begins with an overview of events leading to the outbreak of war; fighting in Cuba, to include an account of Roosevelt's Rough Riders and Kettle Hill; and Dewey's defeat of the Spanish navy in Manila Bay. With the onset of a counterinsurgency campaign, the narrative gathers a momentum that carries through the rest of the book. How American values fell victim to the charges that would tarnish the nation's honor is the question Jones finds morbidly interesting. In short, at the tactical level of war, the answer lies with badly trained and poorly led troops confronting an unfamiliar style of warfare and resorting to brutal tactics, including torture, in their efforts to defeat the insurgents. At the strategic level, th
{"title":"Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream","authors":"Len Fullenkamp","doi":"10.5860/choice.50-1608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.50-1608","url":null,"abstract":"Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream By Gregg Jones New York: New American Library, 2012 430 pages $26.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] America went to war in 1898 for a noble cause--to lift the yoke of Spanish colonial oppression from the peoples of Cuba and the Philippines. Although ill-equipped for expeditionary warfare, the United States Army, Navy, and fledgling Marine Corps, managed in short order to deploy forces sufficiently capable of securing victories in both the Caribbean island and distant archipelago in the Pacific. Flush with the spoils of its easy victories, the United States quickly installed a compliant government in the Philippines, with the objective of developing the former Spanish colony into a distant outpost from where parochial national interests could be looked after. Filipino nationalists, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, objected to the replacement of one colonial power with another, sparking an insurgency that spread throughout the islands. Years of counterinsurgency warfare followed, during which time American values were sorely tested as allegations of torture and brutality toward enemy soldiers and the civilian population who supported them became a daily staple of reporting in the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. American honor, so highly trumpeted at the onset of the war, became mired in the dust of discouragement and disappointment as victory in the war against the insurgents proved elusive. Gregg Jones's account of America's well-intentioned, but ill-fated, experiment with colonialism is told in a narrative style that reminds the reader of the author's roots as a journalist. There is much in the story that appeals to these sometimes prurient instincts, such as the prologue, which begins with a vivid description of US troops using a form of interrogation euphemistically referred to as \"the water cure\" on a suspected insurgent. From the outset it is clear that Jones finds many parallels between the War in the Philippines and America's experiences in later wars in general, and the Global War on Terror in particular. For many readers this will be an introduction to a forgotten chapter in our nation's history. The book begins with an overview of events leading to the outbreak of war; fighting in Cuba, to include an account of Roosevelt's Rough Riders and Kettle Hill; and Dewey's defeat of the Spanish navy in Manila Bay. With the onset of a counterinsurgency campaign, the narrative gathers a momentum that carries through the rest of the book. How American values fell victim to the charges that would tarnish the nation's honor is the question Jones finds morbidly interesting. In short, at the tactical level of war, the answer lies with badly trained and poorly led troops confronting an unfamiliar style of warfare and resorting to brutal tactics, including torture, in their efforts to defeat the insurgents. At the strategic level, th","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71139346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power By Rachel Maddow New York: Crown, 2012 276 pages $25.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rachel Maddow is probably the best well-known woman commentator in the twenty-first century. Host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, her brand is one of biting humor and striking analysis from a liberal perspective. I expect she would be amused and flattered that a review of her book, Drift, is included in Parameters. To dismiss Maddow out-of-hand as a liberal policy wonk would be imprudent given her credentials as a Rhodes Scholar who holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Politics from Oxford University. Drift is her first book and could easily have been written as a string of half-hour commentaries on the state of the US military. Given the nine chapters with prologue and epilogue, this would fit the format of a week-long series for her news show. As the "Unmooring" title suggests, Maddow's premise is the manifestation of American military power is insufficiently linked to the national discourse on its use. Her concerns are American military power has migrated from that envisioned by the founding fathers, debate between the executive and legislative branches on its use is ineffective, and, perhaps most important, there is a dangerous lack of engagement and accountability with the American people. Accordingly, Maddow opens the book with a 1795 quote from then-Congressman (and "Father of the Constitution") James Madison, "Of all enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded.... War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes.... In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people." Her focus is on military power that emerged with the national experience of the Vietnam War. Two key items sprung from that conflict--the restructuring of the Army Guard and Reserve by then-Chief of Staff Creighton Abrams and the War Powers Resolution of 1973--serve as the foundation of Maddow's discourse on the American attitude toward persistent conflict and war. She contends it is, "as if peace ... made us edgy, as if we no longer knew, absent an armed conflict, how to be our best selves." Her analysis of modern US history has four main tenets that interested this reviewer, which individually and collectively decoupled the US military from its society. The reforms of General Abrams were designed to ensure that citizen-soldiers were inextricably bound to deployments for major military operations, such that when the president and Congress committed to war, the nation was also committed across a wide swath of its population. Concurrently, the War Powers Resolution was a clear attempt by Congress to check the presidential power to commit US forces without informing Congress and obtaining its authorization. While enacted during the term of a Republican president (Richard Nixon), the challenge to execu
{"title":"Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power","authors":"Charles D Allen","doi":"10.5860/choice.50-1148","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.50-1148","url":null,"abstract":"Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power By Rachel Maddow New York: Crown, 2012 276 pages $25.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rachel Maddow is probably the best well-known woman commentator in the twenty-first century. Host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, her brand is one of biting humor and striking analysis from a liberal perspective. I expect she would be amused and flattered that a review of her book, Drift, is included in Parameters. To dismiss Maddow out-of-hand as a liberal policy wonk would be imprudent given her credentials as a Rhodes Scholar who holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Politics from Oxford University. Drift is her first book and could easily have been written as a string of half-hour commentaries on the state of the US military. Given the nine chapters with prologue and epilogue, this would fit the format of a week-long series for her news show. As the \"Unmooring\" title suggests, Maddow's premise is the manifestation of American military power is insufficiently linked to the national discourse on its use. Her concerns are American military power has migrated from that envisioned by the founding fathers, debate between the executive and legislative branches on its use is ineffective, and, perhaps most important, there is a dangerous lack of engagement and accountability with the American people. Accordingly, Maddow opens the book with a 1795 quote from then-Congressman (and \"Father of the Constitution\") James Madison, \"Of all enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded.... War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes.... In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people.\" Her focus is on military power that emerged with the national experience of the Vietnam War. Two key items sprung from that conflict--the restructuring of the Army Guard and Reserve by then-Chief of Staff Creighton Abrams and the War Powers Resolution of 1973--serve as the foundation of Maddow's discourse on the American attitude toward persistent conflict and war. She contends it is, \"as if peace ... made us edgy, as if we no longer knew, absent an armed conflict, how to be our best selves.\" Her analysis of modern US history has four main tenets that interested this reviewer, which individually and collectively decoupled the US military from its society. The reforms of General Abrams were designed to ensure that citizen-soldiers were inextricably bound to deployments for major military operations, such that when the president and Congress committed to war, the nation was also committed across a wide swath of its population. Concurrently, the War Powers Resolution was a clear attempt by Congress to check the presidential power to commit US forces without informing Congress and obtaining its authorization. While enacted during the term of a Republican president (Richard Nixon), the challenge to execu","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71139064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power by Zbigniew Brzezinski New York: Basic Books, 2012 208 pages $26.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Is America up or down? Will China eclipse America as the world's hegemon? What is the shape of the global landscape emerging in the twenty-first century, and how should the US chart its course in this new world? These questions of critical moment are addressed by the eminent scholar and practitioner of statecraft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in Strategic Vision. His book invites comparison with Robert Kagan's recent work, The World America Made. While Kagan calls for a muscular defense of a historically unique liberal world order made by America, Brzezinski offers a new strategic vision for a world where American dominance is no longer attainable. According to Brzezinski, our interactive, interdependent world is marked by a shift in geopolitical power from West to East, with the rise to global preeminence of China, India, and Japan. This redistribution of power is accompanied by the mass political awakening of previously repressed peoples in the Arab world and Central or Eastern Europe. These trends portend instability, yet human survival requires global cooperation. Europe is a spent political model for the world taking shape, and US global supremacy is no longer possible. American society still appeals to the world's peoples, provided it can revitalize itself and adopt a new strategic vision. Brzezinski ascribes greater significance to the nation's domestic problems than does Kagan: a crushing national debt; a financial system driven by self-destructive greed; widening inequality; decaying infrastructure; a citizenry ignorant of the world; and a gridlocked political system. The author denounces America's Iraq and Afghanistan imperial wars and repeats the canard that President George W. Bush's global war on terrorism fostered anti-Islamic sentiment, tarnishing our international reputation. In fact, the Bush administration scrupulously tried to avoid this. On 17 September, six days after 9/11, President Bush visited the Islamic Center in Washington to assure members that America understands the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and that we are at war with radical jihadist terrorists, not Islam. The President and his aides reaffirmed that message in numerous speeches and remarks. Surveying the world "after America," Brzezinski predicts not Chinese dominance, but instead, like Kagan, a chaotic multipolar world where several roughly equal powers compete for regional hegemony. This conflict will jeopardize international cooperation and the promotion of democracy while placing the fate of the global commons up for grabs. East and South Asia will be the flashpoints of geopolitical rivalry with Japan, India, and Russia wary of a rising China. Brzezinski states as axiomatic that the United States must avoid military involvement or, quite differently, any conflict on the mainland between rival Asian powers. The U
{"title":"Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power","authors":"John W. Coffey","doi":"10.5860/choice.51-0511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.51-0511","url":null,"abstract":"Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power by Zbigniew Brzezinski New York: Basic Books, 2012 208 pages $26.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Is America up or down? Will China eclipse America as the world's hegemon? What is the shape of the global landscape emerging in the twenty-first century, and how should the US chart its course in this new world? These questions of critical moment are addressed by the eminent scholar and practitioner of statecraft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in Strategic Vision. His book invites comparison with Robert Kagan's recent work, The World America Made. While Kagan calls for a muscular defense of a historically unique liberal world order made by America, Brzezinski offers a new strategic vision for a world where American dominance is no longer attainable. According to Brzezinski, our interactive, interdependent world is marked by a shift in geopolitical power from West to East, with the rise to global preeminence of China, India, and Japan. This redistribution of power is accompanied by the mass political awakening of previously repressed peoples in the Arab world and Central or Eastern Europe. These trends portend instability, yet human survival requires global cooperation. Europe is a spent political model for the world taking shape, and US global supremacy is no longer possible. American society still appeals to the world's peoples, provided it can revitalize itself and adopt a new strategic vision. Brzezinski ascribes greater significance to the nation's domestic problems than does Kagan: a crushing national debt; a financial system driven by self-destructive greed; widening inequality; decaying infrastructure; a citizenry ignorant of the world; and a gridlocked political system. The author denounces America's Iraq and Afghanistan imperial wars and repeats the canard that President George W. Bush's global war on terrorism fostered anti-Islamic sentiment, tarnishing our international reputation. In fact, the Bush administration scrupulously tried to avoid this. On 17 September, six days after 9/11, President Bush visited the Islamic Center in Washington to assure members that America understands the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and that we are at war with radical jihadist terrorists, not Islam. The President and his aides reaffirmed that message in numerous speeches and remarks. Surveying the world \"after America,\" Brzezinski predicts not Chinese dominance, but instead, like Kagan, a chaotic multipolar world where several roughly equal powers compete for regional hegemony. This conflict will jeopardize international cooperation and the promotion of democracy while placing the fate of the global commons up for grabs. East and South Asia will be the flashpoints of geopolitical rivalry with Japan, India, and Russia wary of a rising China. Brzezinski states as axiomatic that the United States must avoid military involvement or, quite differently, any conflict on the mainland between rival Asian powers. The U","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71142992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2012-09-22DOI: 10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim150080022
Josiah T. Grover
Eisenhower: The White House Years by Jim Newton New York: Doubleday, 2011 451 pages $29.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 2009, the Eisenhower Presidential Library revealed .the prolific historian and Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose fabricated interviews he claimed to have had with the former president. Ambrose's biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower had long been regarded as the definitive biography because of the author's unique access to the 34th president. The discovery of Ambrose's deception has made his biography suspect for both scholars and leaders seeking to understand Ike, while opening the door for new and more genuine appraisals of the former president. Jim Newton offers one such appraisal with a new biography of Ike in Eisenhower: The White House Years. The author of the previous work, Justice for All, a historical account of Chief Justice Earl Warren, is the latest Eisenhower biographer seeking to rehabilitate the image of a supposed caretaker president. Contrary to contemporary critics like Marquis Childs, who portrayed Eisenhower as "indecisive and lazy, stodgy and limited ... a weak president," Newton argues Ike was "certain, resolute, and, though respectful of his advisers, commandingly their boss." In offering the thesis that President Eisenhower was an active leader in his administration, Newton builds upon the work of diplomatic historians and political scientists, notably Fred Greenstein, and does so in a very sympathetic fashion. As the title suggests, however, the author delivers not so much a biography of President Eisenhower but a biography of his presidency. The story begins with Ike's childhood and passes rapidly through adolescence, tracing his path to the United States Military Academy, where Ike was both average and memorable." An assignment in Texas followed graduation, where he met Mamie Doud. They married, welcomed and then lost a son, and decamped for Panama, where Eisenhower served under the tutelage of mentor General Fox Connor. That apprenticeship on the perimeter of the American empire kept Ike out of troop command in World War I. In the interwar period he served a second apprenticeship under the gimlet eye of General Douglas MacArthur. Service with MacArthur in Washington and later in the Philippines made Eisenhower wary of theatrics. When war broke out in 1941, General George Marshall selected the young general to head the War Plans Division on the Army Staff and then, ultimately, to lead Allied forces to victory in Europe. The author covers all of this background rather quickly, driving the narrative toward Eisenhower's presidential years, which comprise 85 percent of the biography. The theme throughout is Ike's search for a "middle way," an attempt to steer policy between perceived extremist positions on the political right and left. Seeing as The Middle Way is the title of Eisenhower's presidential papers, it is an easy assertion to accept, though there are holes in every story. Newton gives cautious credi
《艾森豪威尔:白宫岁月》，吉姆·牛顿著，纽约:双日出版社，2011年，共451页，售价29.95美元。2009年，艾森豪威尔总统图书馆披露，多产的历史学家、艾森豪威尔传记作者斯蒂芬·安布罗斯捏造了他声称与前总统的采访。安布罗斯的德怀特·d·艾森豪威尔传记一直被认为是权威的传记，因为作者与这位第34任总统有独特的接触。安布罗斯的欺骗行为的发现，让试图了解艾克的学者和领导人对他的传记产生了怀疑，同时也为对这位前总统进行新的、更真实的评价打开了大门。吉姆·牛顿在他的新书《艾森豪威尔:白宫岁月》中给出了这样的评价。前一部作品《人人享有正义》(Justice for All)的作者是首席大法官厄尔·沃伦(Earl Warren)的历史记述，他是最新的艾森豪威尔传记作者，试图重塑一个所谓的看守总统的形象。与同时代的评论家如马奎斯·蔡尔兹(Marquis Childs)相反，蔡尔兹将艾森豪威尔描述为“优柔寡断、懒惰、刻板、有限……牛顿认为艾克是一个“软弱的总统”，他“坚定、果断，尽管尊重他的顾问，但对他们的老板颐指气使。”牛顿以外交历史学家和政治学家，尤其是弗雷德·格林斯坦(Fred Greenstein)的著作为基础，以一种非常同情的方式提出了艾森豪威尔总统是一个积极的bbb领导人的论点。然而，正如书名所示，作者与其说是在讲述艾森豪威尔总统的传记，不如说是在讲述他的总统任期。故事从艾克的童年开始，迅速进入青春期，追溯他进入美国军事学院的道路，在那里，艾克既普通又令人难忘。”毕业后，他被派往德克萨斯州，在那里他遇到了玛米·杜德。他们结婚了，生了一个儿子，然后又失去了一个儿子，然后逃往巴拿马，艾森豪威尔在那里的导师福克斯·康纳将军(Fox Connor)的指导下服役。在美帝国周边的学徒生涯使艾克在第一次世界大战期间无法指挥部队。在两次世界大战之间的时期，他在道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟将军的锐利目光下做了第二次学徒。艾森豪威尔在华盛顿和后来在菲律宾与麦克阿瑟共事，这使他谨防演戏。当1941年战争爆发时，乔治·马歇尔将军选择这位年轻的将军领导陆军参谋部的战争计划部，然后最终领导盟军在欧洲取得胜利。作者很快就涵盖了所有这些背景，将叙述推向艾森豪威尔的总统时代，这占了传记的85%。贯穿全书的主题是艾克寻求一条“中间道路”，试图在政治上的右翼和左翼极端立场之间引导政策。鉴于《中间道路》是艾森豪威尔总统文件的标题，这是一个容易接受的断言，尽管每个故事都有漏洞。牛顿谨慎地称赞艾克在民权方面的成就，他断言，总统支持司法部长赫伯特·布朗内尔(Herbert Brownell)，是在实践一种经过校准的策略，以便在适当的时候缓解种族紧张关系。一位更具批判性的传记作家可能会将艾克在民权方面的记录解读为总统对执法责任的放弃。其他国内话题包括艾森豪威尔对最高法院的任命，政府对行政特权的主张，以及总统在红色恐慌最严重的时候拒绝与参议员乔·麦卡锡对峙，牛顿断言“没有什么是不可避免的，即使艾森豪威尔与麦卡锡决裂。”．..
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