Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American PowerNever before in the history of mankind have so few people had so much power over so many. The people at the top of the American national security establishment, the President and his principal advisors, the core team at the helm of the National Security Council, are without question the most powerful committee in the history of the world. Yet, in many respects, they are among the least understood. A former senior official in the Clinton Administration himself, David Rothkopf served with and knows personally many of the NSC's key players of the past twenty-five years. In Running the World he pulls back the curtain on this shadowy world to explore its inner workings, its people, their relationships, their contributions and the occasions when they have gone wrong. He traces the group's evolution from the final days of the Second World War to the post-Cold War realities of global terror -- exploring its triumphs, its human dramas and most recently, what many consider to be its breakdown at a time when we needed it most. Drawing on an extraordinary series of insider interviews with policy makers including Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, senior officials of the Bush Administration, and over 130 others, the book offers unprecedented insights into what must change if America is to maintain its unprecedented worldwide leadership in the decades ahead. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 22 | |
Greatness Thrust Upon Them | 33 |
Gulliver Embarks Leaders Leadership and the Difference Between the Two | 61 |
Bound in Lilliput | 80 |
America in Decline the NSC Ascendant | 108 |
A Superpower in Search of Itself | 157 |
Morning in America Twilight at the NSC | 210 |
The Beginning of the End of the End of History | 344 |
A Thumb on the Scales Tipping the Balance in the Battle Between the Traditionalists and the Transformationalists | 389 |
U S Foreign Policy in the Age of Ambiguity | 448 |
A Guide to Abbreviations and Acronyms | 471 |
acknowledgments | 475 |
notes | 479 |
| 519 | |
| 533 | |
Across a Bright Line in History | 260 |
The New Improved PostCold War InformationAge Indispensable Nation | 303 |
Other editions - View all
Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the ... David Rothkopf No preview available - 2006 |
Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the ... David Rothkopf No preview available - 2009 |
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Popular passages
Page 27 - Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free> enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a People always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.
Page 5 - Council is to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security...
Page 5 - Council" ) . The President of the United States shall preside over meetings of the Council: Provided, That in his absence he may designate a member of the Council to preside in his place.