New Books in National Security

Marshall Poe
  • 4.5 (19)
  • SOCIAL SCIENCES
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY
New Books in National Security

Interviews with Scholars of National Security about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

  1. DEC 13

    Timothy Gitzen, "Banal Security: Queer Korea in the Time of Viruses" (Helsinki UP, 2023)

    For more than 70 years, South Korea has woven the threat of North Korea into daily life. But now that threat has become mundane, and South Korean national security addresses family, public health, and national unity. Banal Security: Queer Korea in the Time of Viruses (Helsinki University Press, 2023) illustrates how as a result, queer Koreans are seen to represent a viral threat to national security. Taking readers from police stations and the Constitutional Court to queer activist offices and pride festivals, Timothy Gitzen shows how security weaves through daily life and diffuses the queer threat, in a context where queer Koreans are treated as viral carriers, disruptions to public order, and threats to family and culture. Timothy Gitzen is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wake Forest University. Qing Shen recently obtained his PhD in anthropology from Uppsala University, Sweden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

    58 min

  2. DEC 8

    Tristan A. Volpe, "Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology" (Oxford UP, 2023)

    Over the last seven decades, some states successfully leveraged the threat of acquiring atomic weapons to compel concessions from superpowers. For many others, however, this coercive gambit failed to work. When does nuclear latency--the technical capacity to build the bomb--enable states to pursue effective coercion? In Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology (Oxford UP, 2023), Tristan A. Volpe argues that having greater capacity to build weaponry doesn't translate to greater coercive advantage. Volpe finds that there is a trade-off between threatening proliferation and promising nuclear restraint. States need just enough bomb-making capacity to threaten proliferation but not so much that it becomes too difficult for them to offer nonproliferation assurances. The boundaries of this sweet spot align with the capacity to produce the fissile material at the heart of an atomic weapon. To test this argument, Volpe includes comparative case studies of four countries that leveraged latency against superpowers: Japan, West Germany, North Korea, and Iran. Volpe identifies a generalizable mechanism--the threat-assurance trade-off--that explains why more power often makes compellence less likely to work. Volpe proposes a framework that illuminates how technology shapes broader bargaining dynamics and helps to refine policy options for inhibiting the spread of nuclear weapons. As nuclear technology continues to cast a shadow over the global landscape, Leveraging Latency systematically assesses its coercive utility. Our guest today is Tristan Volpe, an Assistant Professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School and a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

    1h 12m

  3. NOV 26

    Osamah F. Khalil, "A World of Enemies: America's Wars at Home and Abroad from Kennedy to Biden" (Harvard UP, 2024)

    A sobering account of how the United States trapped itself in endless wars—abroad and at home—and what it might do to break free. Over the past half-century, Americans have watched their country extend its military power to what seemed the very ends of the earth. America’s might is felt on nearly every continent—and even on its own streets. Decades ago, the Wars on Drugs and Terror broke down the walls separating law enforcement from military operations. A World of Enemies: America's Wars at Home and Abroad from Kennedy to Biden (Harvard UP, 2024) tells the story of how an America plagued by fears of waning power and influence embraced foreign and domestic forever wars. Osamah Khalil argues that the militarization of US domestic and foreign affairs was the product of America’s failure in Vietnam. Unsettled by their inability to prevail in Southeast Asia, US leaders increasingly came to see a host of problems as immune to political solutions. Rather, crime, drugs, and terrorism were enemies spawned in “badlands”—whether the Middle East or stateside inner cities. Characterized as sites of endemic violence, badlands lay beyond the pale of civilization, their ostensibly racially and culturally alien inhabitants best handled by force. Yet militarized policy has brought few victories. Its failures—in Iraq, Afghanistan, US cities, and increasingly rural and borderland America—have only served to reinforce fears of weakness. It is time, Khalil argues, for a new approach. Instead of managing never-ending conflicts, we need to reinvest in the tools of traditional politics and diplomacy. Osamah F. Khalil is an Associate Professor of History at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the author of America’s Dream Palace, which was named a Best Book of 2017 by Foreign Affairs. His research on foreign policy, national security, and military affairs has been featured widely, from PBS NewsHour to USA Today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

    1h 18m

  4. NOV 24

    Katherine C. Epstein, "Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

    At the beginning of the twentieth century, two British inventors, Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood, became fascinated by a major military question: how to aim the big guns of battleships. These warships—of enormous geopolitical import before the advent of intercontinental missiles or drones—had to shoot in poor light and choppy seas at distant moving targets, conditions that impeded accurate gunfire. Seeing the need to account for a plethora of variables, Pollen and Isherwood built an integrated system for gathering data, calculating predictions, and transmitting the results to the gunners. At the heart of their invention was the most advanced analog computer of the day, a technological breakthrough that anticipated the famous Norden bombsight of World War II, the inertial guidance systems of nuclear missiles, and the networked “smart” systems that dominate combat today. Recognizing the value of Pollen and Isherwood’s invention, the British Royal Navy and the United States Navy pirated it, one after the other. When the inventors sued, both the British and US governments invoked secrecy, citing national security concerns. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State (University of Chicago Press, 2024) by Dr. Katherine C. Epstein analyzes these and related legal battles over naval technology, exploring how national defense tested the two countries’ commitment to individual rights and the free market. Dr. Epstein deftly sets out Pollen’s and Isherwood’s pioneering achievements, the patent questions raised, the geopolitical rivalry between Britain and the United States, and the legal precedents each country developed to control military tools built by private contractors. Dr. Epstein’s account reveals that long before the US national security state sought to restrict information about atomic energy, it was already embroiled in another contest between innovation and secrecy. The America portrayed in this sweeping and accessible history isn’t yet a global hegemon but a rising superpower ready to acquire foreign technology by fair means or foul—much as it accuses China of doing today. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

    1h 8m

  5. NOV 22

    Youcef Soufi, "Homegrown Radicals: A Story of State Violence, Islamophobia, and Jihad in the Post-9/11 World" (NYU Press, 2025)

    Youcef Soufi’s Homegrown Radicals: A Story of State Violence, Islamophobia, and Jihad in the Post-9/11 World (NYU Press, 2025) tells the story of three Muslim university students who disappeared from Winnipeg, Canada. In this gripping narrative, we learn that these young men had become “radicalized”, which brought the attention of Canadian and American security agencies to this small town. What is different about the journey we go on with Soufi is the story of families, friends, and the Muslim community who are left behind grappling with loss, grief, and hyper-surveillance as the result of the disappearance of these young men. From university to the courtroom, and beyond, Soufi’s moving narrative forces us to grapple with the affective injury faced by the Winnipeg Muslim community as discourse of radicalization, Islamophobic state policies, and military response to the war on terror, reminded Muslims of the ungrievability of their lives. Soufi’s writing is poignant; he moves between his scholarly command of Islamic history, archival data, and interviews and deeply vulnerable auto-ethnography. The book is a must read for anyone interested in Muslims and Islam, especially in North America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

    1h 23m

  6. NOV 15

    D. M. Giangreco, "Truman and the Bomb: The Untold Story" (Potomac Books, 2023)

    Many myths have grown up around President Harry S. Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons against Imperial Japan. In destroying these myths, D. M. Giangreco’s Truman and the Bomb: The Untold Story (Potomac Books, 2023) will discomfort both Truman’s critics and his supporters, and force historians to reexamine what they think they know about the end of the Pacific War. Myth: Truman didn’t know of the atomic bomb’s development before he became president. Fact: Truman’s knowledge of the bomb is revealed in his own carefully worded letters to a Senate colleague and specifically discussed in the correspondence between the army officers assigned to his Senate investigating committee. Myth: The huge casualty estimates cited by Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson were a postwar creation devised to hide their guilt for killing thousands of defenseless civilians. Fact: The flagrantly misrepresented “low” numbers are based on narrow slices of highly qualified—and limited—U.S. Army projections printed in a variety of briefing documents and are not from the actual invasion planning against Japan. Myth: Truman wanted to defeat Japan without any assistance from the Soviet Union and to freeze the USSR out of the postwar settlements. Fact: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Truman desperately wanted Stalin’s involvement in the bloody endgame of World War II and worked diligently—and successfully—toward that end. Using previously unpublished material, D. M. Giangreco busts these myths and more. An award-winning historian and expert on Truman, Giangreco is perfectly situated to debunk the many deep-rooted falsehoods about the roles played by American, Soviet, and Japanese leaders during the end of the World War II in the Pacific. Truman and the Bomb, a concise yet comprehensive study of Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb, will prove to be a classic for studying presidential politics and influence on atomic warfare and its military and diplomatic components. Making this book particularly valuable for professors and students as well as for military, diplomatic, and presidential historians and history buffs are extensive primary source materials, including the planned U.S. naval and air operations in support of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. These documents support Giangreco’s arguments while enabling the reader to enter the mindsets of Truman and his administration as well as the war’s key Allied participants. Dr. Andrew O. Pace is a historian of the US in the world who specializes in the moral fog of war. He is currently a DPAA Research Partner Fellow at the University of Southern Mississippi and a co-host of the Diplomatic History Channel on the New Books Network. He is also working on a book about the reversal in US grand strategy from victory at all costs in World War II to peace at any price in the Vietnam War. He can be reached at andrew.pace@usm.edu or via https://www.andrewopace.com/. Andrew is not an employee of DPAA, he supports DPAA through a partnership. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DPAA, DoD or its components. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

    1h 12m

  7. NOV 9

    Jeremy Black, "Introduction to Global Military History: 1775 to the Present Day" (Routledge, 2018)

    Introduction to Global Military History:: 1775 to the Present Day (Routledge, 2018) provides a lucid and comprehensive account of military developments around the modern world from the eighteenth century up to the present day. Beginning with the background to the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary wars and ending with the recent conflicts of the twenty-first century, this third edition combines fully up-to-date global coverage with close analysis not only of the military aspects of war but also its social, cultural, political and economic dimensions and repercussions. The new edition includes a fully revised chapter on conflicts during the eighteenth century, updated coverage of events post-1990 and increased coverage of non-Western conflicts to provide a truly international account of the varied and changing nature of modern military history. Covering lesser-known conflicts as well as the familiar wars of history and illustrated throughout with maps, primary source extracts and case studies, it is essential reading for all students of modern military history and international relations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

    48 min

  8. NOV 6

    Artur Gruszczak and Sebastian Kaempf, "Routledge Handbook of the Future of Warfare" (Routledge, 2023)

    This handbook provides a comprehensive, problem-driven and dynamic overview of the future of warfare. The volatilities and uncertainties of the global security environment raise timely and important questions about the future of humanity's oldest occupation: war. Routledge Handbook of the Future of Warfare (Routledge, 2023) edited by Artur Gruszczak and Sebastian Kaempf addresses these questions through a collection of cutting-edge contributions by leading scholars in the field. Its overall focus is prognostic rather than futuristic, highlighting discernible trends, key developments and themes without downplaying the lessons from the past. By making the past meet the present in order to envision the future, the handbook offers a diversified outlook on the future of warfare which will be indispensable for researchers, students and military practitioners alike. This book will be of great interest to students of strategic studies, defence studies, war and technology, and International Relations. Artur Gruszczak is Professor of Social Sciences and Chair of National Security at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He is author/editor of three books, including Technology, Ethics and the Protocols of Modern War, co-edited with Pawel Frankowski (Routledge 2018). Sebastian Kaempf is Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is the author of Saving Soldiers or Civilians (Cambridge University Press 2018). Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

    1h 21m
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Interviews with Scholars of National Security about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

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