Leadership and Professionalism Reading List: Future Security Environment

A groundbreaking reexamination of U.S. and global security, certain to be one of the most talked about books of the year. Since the end of the Cold War, America's national security establishment has been searching for a new operating theory to explain how this seemingly "chaotic" world actually works. Gone is the clash of blocs, but replaced by what? Thomas Barnett has the answers. A senior military analyst with the U.S. Naval War College, he has given a constant stream of briefings over the past few years, and particularly since 9/11, to the highest of high-level civilian and military policymakers-and now he gives it to you. The Pentagon's New Mapis a cutting-edge approach to globalization that combines security, economic, political, and cultural factors to do no less than predict and explain the nature of war and peace in the twenty-first century. Building on the works of Friedman, Huntington, and Fukuyama, and then taking a leap beyond, Barnett crystallizes recent American military history and strategy, sets the parameters for where our forces will likely be headed in the future, outlines the unique role that America can and will play in establishing international stability-and provides much-needed hope at a crucial yet uncertain time in world history. For anyone seeking to understand the Iraqs, Afghanistans, and Liberias of the present and future, the intimate new links between foreign policy and national security, and the operational realities of the world as it exists today, The Pentagon's New Mapis a template, a Rosetta stone. Agree with it, disagree with it, argue with it-there is no book more essential for 2004 and beyond.

The Supreme Allied Commander who directed and won NATO's war in Kosovo offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at how the war was actually fought, and explains the conflict's surprising implications for how war will be waged in the decades to come. Ugly, shocking, frightening, war came to Europe once more in March 1999. The world watched in dismay as Yugoslavia's military machine attacked its own citizens in the province of Kosovo. Pictures of refugees fleeing and stories of murder and rape flashed to the top of the news. But this time, the United States and its allies intervened. Using an innovative, high-technology air operation, NATO brought modern military power to bear against Serb forces in the field and the machinery of repression that backed them up. It was modern war - limited in scope, measured in effect, extraordinarily complex in execution. The American commander who oversaw this massive military effort and managed the often incompatible demands of NATO's 19 governments was General Wesley K. Clark.

'I commend the book to those interested in the history of the first Hague Peace Conference, not least because it contains an intelligent contribution by Prince Willem-Alexander, the great-grandson of the Queen who was co-convenor (with Tsar Nicholas) of the conference.' Roger Williamson, International Affairs, 77.

As people increasingly define themselves by ethnicity or religion, the West will find itself more and more at odds with non-western civilizations that reject its ideals of democracy, human rights, liberty, the rule of law, and the separation of the church and the state.