Wendy Hunter explores civil-military relations in Brazil following the transition to civilian leadership in 1985. She documents a marked, and surprising, decline in the political power of the armed forces, even as they have remained involved in national policy making. To account for the success of civilian politicians, Hunter invokes rational-choice theory in arguing that politicians will contest even powerful forces in order to gain widespread electoral...

The former Secretary of Defense offers a candid account of serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Starting in the early 1960s, there was fear in America about the proliferation of computer database and networking technologies. People worried that these systems were going to be used by both corporations and governments for surveillance and control. Indeed, the dominant cultural view at the time was that computers were tools of repression, not liberation -- and that included the ARPANET, the military research network that would grow into the Internet...

The regime in Tehran, traditionally ruled by the Shia clergy, is transforming into a military dictatorship dominated by the officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The rise of the IRGC is bound to challenge the interests of the United States in the Middle East and beyond. The author uses rarely studied sources from the Persian-language press to reveal how the IRGC officers have risen to power in Iran and the impact of the Islamic...

"This revelatory history of the elusive National Security Council shows how staffers operating in the shadows have driven foreign policy clandestinely for decades. When Michael Flynn resigned in disgrace as the Trump administration's national security advisor the New York Times referred to the National Security Council as "the traditional center of management for a president's dealings with an uncertain world." Indeed, no institution or individual...

The founder of Blackwater, the world's most controversial military contractor, describes how the company took on high-risk security jobs around the world, completing nearly 100,000 missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, only to have opponents tarnish their reputation.