Nations carry out geopolitical combat through economic means. Yet America often reaches for the gun over the purse to advance its interests abroad. Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris show that if U.S. policies are left uncorrected, the price in blood and treasure will only grow. Geoeconomic warfare requires a new vision of U.S. statecraft.

A new era of great power competition places a strategic premium on the efficiency with which states can pursue their aims. There is therefore likely to be an expanded scope for partnered operations. Partner force capacity building has a long history, with very mixed results, yet there is little historical memory in the institutions tasked with carrying it out. War by Others’ Means uses archival research, interviews with practitioners, and observation of capacity building to understand why states undertake it, how they should select, train and equip their partners, and how they should manage the generation and withdrawal of trainers.

The key legal architect of the Bush administration’s response to 9/11 delivers a fascinating insider account of the war on terror. While America reeled from the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001, John Yoo and a skeletal staff of the Office of Legal Counsel found themselves on the phone with the White House. In a series of memos, Yoo offered his legal opinions on the president’s authority to respond, and in the process had an almost unmatched impact on America’s fight against terrorism. His analysis led to many of the Bush administration’s most controversial policies, including detention at Guantanamo Bay, coercive interrogation, and military trials for terrorists, preemptive attacks, and the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program. In fascinating detail, Yoo takes us inside the corridors of power and examines specific cases, from John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla to an American al-Qaeda leader assassinated by a CIA pilotless drone in the deserts of Yemen. “At its core, War by Other Means offers spirited, detailed and often enlightening accounts of the decision-making process behind the key 2001-03 legal decisions.” —The Washington Post “Unambiguous and combative, Yoo’s philosophy is sure to spark further debate.” —Publishers Weekly

General Keith Kellogg saw it all. The only national security advisor to work side by side with both President Trump and Vice President Pence, he was their confidant as they made their most momentous decisions. No one knows better than he that the hysterical accusations of the administration’s partisan detractors were unconnected to reality. Demolishing baseless caricatures of Donald Trump, General Kellogg provides one of the few reliable accounts of the administration from the earliest days of the 2016 campaign to the end of the president’s term. Kellogg reveals: How Trump’s “America First” policies strengthened the nation after Obama’s eight-year apology tour Why the president’s tough approach to China worked—and why future administrations must continue to take the China threat seriously How withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the strike on General Soleimani slowed the spread of radical Islamist terror Why Democrats’ appeasement policies are courting disaster for America and the world The radicals attacking President Trump’s legacy are sacrificing sound policy to politics. Kellogg’s account is an urgently needed reminder that politics is “war by other means.” Our enemies never forget that, and Americans forget it to their peril.

As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive: “It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.” Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies—corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.

Between 1960 and 1996, Guatemala's civil war claimed 250,000 lives and displaced one million people. Since the peace accords, Guatemala has struggled to address the legacy of war, genocidal violence against the Maya, and the dismantling of alternative projects for the future. War by Other Means brings together new essays by leading scholars of Guatemala from a range of geographical backgrounds and disciplinary perspectives. Contributors consider a wide range of issues confronting present-day Guatemala: returning refugees, land reform, gang violence, neoliberal economic restructuring, indigenous and women's rights, complex race relations, the politics of memory, and the challenges of sustaining hope. From a sweeping account of Guatemalan elites' centuries-long use of violence to suppress dissent to studies of intimate experiences of complicity and contestation in richly drawn localities, War by Other Means provides a nuanced reckoning of the injustices that made genocide possible and the ongoing attempts to overcome them. Contributors. Santiago Bastos, Jennifer Burrell, Manuela Camus, Matilde González-Izás, Jorge Ramón González Ponciano, Greg Grandin, Paul Kobrak, Deborah T. Levenson, Carlota McAllister, Diane M. Nelson, Elizabeth Oglesby, Luis Solano, Irmalicia Velásquez Nimatuj, Paula Worby