Lawrence D. Freedman

Gavin is concerned that U.S. nuclear policy is distorted by myths about the past, and he believes that a better understanding of the history of the nuclear age would improve the contemporary approach.

Wirtz and Lavoy assembled top experts to consider which countries might go nuclear next. Solingen’s team makes the case for using both sticks and carrots but notes that positive incentives are harder to design.

O’Connell, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, analyzes the development of the corps’ culture from World War II to the Vietnam era.

In narrating the history of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Gordon and Trainor finish the job they started in Cobra II, their 2006 book on the origins of the Iraq war. Their Iraqi and American sources are extraordinary, allowing them to describe events with an enormous, and sometimes overwhelming, amount of detail.

Comparing earlier wars with contemporary “fights to the finish” allows Whitman to ruminate about the possibilities for restraint in war and to challenge international lawyers to develop a “law of victory” that would support agreement on who had won a war and what was gained as a result.

Logevall's megisterial book describes how the United States' role in former French Indochina developed during the 1950s; it is, in essence, pre-histories of the Vietnam War.

Veith’s intensive research and interviews yield a level of detail that is a bit overwhelming and likely to deter all but the most enthusiastic readers. The book is nonetheless a service to military history, for no one has produced nearly as thorough an account of these events.

In this book, Hastings, a young freelance reporter, chronicles his adventures covering the war in Afghanistan. The heart of the book is the story of how Hastings managed to get access to General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and members of his inner circle in order to write a profile for Rolling Stone.

This is an intriguing little book. When, Dudziak asks, does “wartime” begin and end?

O’Hanlon, a leading specialist on military budgets, argues that cuts can be made but should not be too drastic and should not usher in a disengaged foreign policy.

These two books tell the story of the United States’ struggle against terrorism from 9/11 to the death of Osama bin Laden, concentrating on the intelligence and police operations that led to the capture or killing of a collection of true believers and naive fantasists who sought to kill as many Westerners as possible.

Compared with southern and western Europe’s experience of World War II, the course of the war in the East has been far less thoroughly researched. But the East is now catching up.