In recent years the American national security policy and decision-making process has tilted far more toward the military than ever before in American history in peacetime. Military officers, as well as civilians, must restore the understandings, behaviors, and attitudes that once made civilian control of the military a conscious civic principle of American life.

The Greater Middle East

Arcs of Instability
U.S. Relations in the Greater Middle East
Geoffrey Kemp

The terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon has produced dramatic changes in American relationships with many of the nations of the “Greater Middle East,” often for the better. However, threats and uncertainties have been intensified, and the U.S. need for regional support in the war against terrorism has become more compelling than ever.

The U.S. Military and the Evolving Challenges in the Middle East
Anthony H. Cordesman

The 11 September 2001 attacks and the Afghan war that followed did not change fundamental American interests in the Middle East or the basic strategic rationale behind the American military presence in the region. They did, however, add new dimensions, underscore the depth of the stakes involved, and reveal vulnerabilities and shortcomings that the U.S. military must address as it comes to grips with the security problems of the Middle East.

Our Special Correspondent
Letter from South America
Geoffrey Wawro

Review Essay

China's New "Imperial" Navy
The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the Twenty-first Century,
by Bernard D. Cole,
China's Naval Power,
by Srikanth Kondapalli,
The Chinese Steam Navy, 1862-1945,
by Richard N. J. Wright
reviewed by Bruce Elleman

Book Reviews

Central Asian Security: The New International Context,
edited by Roy Allison
reviewed by Ahmed Hashim

The Great North Korean Famine: Famine, Politics, and Foreign Policy,
by Andrew S. Natsios
reviewed by Lyle J. Goldstein

Rockets' Red Glare: Missile Defenses and the Future of World Politics,
edited by James J. Wirtz and Jeffrey A. Larsen
reviewed by Carl Schloemann

Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War,
by Judith Miller, Stephen Engleberg, and William Broad
reviewed by Christopher C. Harmon

Rickover: The Struggle for Excellence,
by Francis Duncan
reviewed by William S. Murray

We Come Unseen,
by Jim Ring
reviewed by Nigel West

The Navy Times Book of Submarines: A Political, Social, and Military History,
by Brayton Harris
reviewed by Christopher Cooper

War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War,
edited by David R. McCann and Barry S. Strauss
reviewed by Karl Walling

Fleets of World War II,
by Richard Worth
reviewed by Frank Uhlig, Jr.

200,000 Miles aboard the Destroyer Cotten,
by C. Snelling Robinson
reviewed by William Cooper

The Royal Navy and the Capital Ship in the Interwar Period: An Operational Perspective,
by Joseph Moretz
reviewed by Christopher Bell

Waiting for Dead Men's Shoes: Origins and Development of the U.S. Navy's Officer Personnel System, 1793-1941,
by Donald Chisholm
reviewed by James Barber

On Seas of Glory: Heroic Men, Great Ships, and Epic Battles of the American Navy
by John Lehman
reviewed by Andrew G. Gibson

Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security,
edited by Peter D. Feaver and Richard H. Kohn
reviewed by James Stavridis

The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime,
by Miles Harvey
reviewed by Xavier Maruyama