Buying National Security
How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home
Cindy Williams author Gordon Adams author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:16th Dec '09
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£53.99(9780415954402)
This book provides a critical analysis of U.S. national security planning and budgeting, highlighting the need for reforms to meet contemporary challenges. Buying National Security offers essential insights.
In Buying National Security, the authors delve into the intricate planning and budgeting processes of the United States, offering a comprehensive look at how these mechanisms function within the White House. They assess the current structures and processes, identifying potential areas for reform to better align with the complexities of the 21st-century security landscape. This exploration is crucial for understanding how national security resources are allocated and managed in a rapidly changing global environment.
The authors, Adams and Williams, highlight the often-overlooked tools of American statecraft, including defense, diplomacy, and intelligence. By examining these elements together, they provide valuable insights into how they are planned for and budgeted. Through this lens, readers can discern the true priorities of national leaders, separating genuine commitments from those that may be merely rhetorical. The connection between policy and resource allocation is emphasized, illustrating that effective strategies require corresponding financial backing.
Buying National Security intricately weaves together the various institutions, organizations, and processes that underpin the national security framework in the United States. The authors analyze the collaboration across Executive branch agencies and scrutinize the Congressional oversight mechanisms that guide national security budgeting. Their evaluation of current practices and proposed reforms offers a thoughtful roadmap for enhancing the effectiveness of American national security in the face of modern challenges.
"Far too little policy commentary ever gets below the high altitude of objectives and strategy. Here two superbly qualified experts who have analyzed resource allocation from the outside and practiced it from the inside provide an unmatched guide to how the rubber meets the road in national security, an indispensable window to how choices by officials with green eyeshades mold policy options."
—Richard K. Betts, Director, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University
"Gordon Adams and Cindy Williams have accomplished a rare feat: producing the first major study of how America budgets for national security while simultaneously substantiating the eternal political truth that money is policy."
—Marc Grossman, Principal, Cohen Group; Former Director General of the Foreign Service
"A valuable book, focusing in on crucial yet often under-addressed issues, by two authors astute in their analytic insights and rich in policy experience."
—Bruce W. Jentleson, Duke University
"Gordon Adams and Cindy Williams write with deep knowledge and authority about the complex and difficult problems of funding our foreign policy and national security programs and objectives. Clear and concise, this book is a treasure trove of information on a vitally important and almost always difficult and confusing subject."
—Tom Pickering, Vice-Chairman of Hills and Company; former Under Secretary of State; former Ambassador to the United Nations
"Anybody seeking to get a grip on defense budgets and the associated expenditures on diplomacy, foreign aid, intelligence, and homeland security should start with the authoritative description by Adams and Williams of how these budgets are put together. It is hard to imagine that anyone will ever do a more thorough job making sense of the bewildering complexity of the relevant processes."
--Foreign Affairs, September/October 2010
"Well written and painstakingly documented, this book is must reading for anyone seeking to understand the ins and outs of federal budget policy as it relates to national security issues. Summing Up: Essential. All collections and readership levels." - J. H. Turek, CHOICE (August 2010)
ISBN: 9780415954396
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 612g
364 pages