Potomac Books Inc : 472 books

Although Abraham Lincoln was among seven presidents who served during the tumultuous years between the end of the Mexican War and the end of the Reconstruction era, history has not been kind to the others: Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses...

From 1789 to 1800, the Federalist and Republican parties held opposing visions for America’s future. Led by Alexander Hamilton, the Federalists sought to establish a strong central government that would lead an American commercial, financial, technological, industrial, and military revolution, and...

Effective strategic thinking requires a clear understanding of oneÆs external environment. Each organization has a unique environment, but as Ross Harrison explains in Strategic Thinking in 3D, any environmentùwhether in the fields of national security, foreign policy, or businessùhas three dimensions: systems, opponents, and groups.

In the natural order, virtue and vice each carries its own consequences. On the one hand, virtue yields largely positive results. Hard work, patience, and carefulness, for example, tend to generate prosperity. Vice, on the other hand, brings negative consequences. Sloth, impatience, and recklessness,...

On September 5, 2009, the commanding officer of NATO's German troops in Afghanistan ordered a U.S. Air Force fighter to destroy two fuel trucks hijacked by theTaliban. Within hours, he was being investigated by German prosecutors for the murder of innocent civilians—collateral damage. Under German...

Now in its sixth year, the conflict in Mexico is a mosaic of several wars occurring at once: cartels battle one another, cartels suffer violence within their own organizations, cartels fight against the Mexican state, cartels and gangs wage war against the Mexican people, and gangs combat gangs. The...

Wanting War is the first comprehensive analysis of the often contradictory reasons why President George W. Bush went to war in Iraq and of the war's impact on future U.S. armed intervention abroad. Though the White House sold the war as a necessity to eliminate an alleged Iraqi threat, other agendas...

There have been numerous attempts to engage the United Nations in a meaningful campaign against state-supported and other terrorist activities. But the inherently political nature of terrorism has made it exceedingly difficult to gain global consensus on who even qualifies as a terrorist, much less agreement...

GPS Declassified examines the development of GPS from its secret, Cold War military roots to its emergence as a worldwide consumer industry. Drawing on previously unexplored documents, the authors examine how military rivalries influenced the creation of GPS and shaped public perceptions about its...

For nearly ten years beginning in 1993, Robert Eringer lived a clandestine life of intrigue, conducting a spectrum of covert operations for the FBI's foreign counterintelligence division. His primary assignment: to lure American traitor Edward Lee Howard to capture. About to be arrested by the FBI for...

In 2002 John Cencich traveled to a safe house in Belgrade to interview the former head of a Yugoslav secret intelligence agency. In less than an hour, Cencich had what he needed: corroboration of information provided by another spy. This evidence would be used against Slobodan Milo?evic in his war...

Our national identity is defined by what it means to be an American and whom we include and why when we talk about “the American people.” A country’s national identity is fluid, and Ian Reifowitz argues that President Barack Obama, by emphasizing the ideals Americans hold dear, hopes to redefine...

“Do you know what military glory is? It is ‘that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood—that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.'” —Abraham LincolnThe Union in dire peril! The war that began in Peter G. Tsouras's previous alternate history, Britannia's Fist, accelerates during...

ôThe ugly wife is a treasure at homeö is not just an idle expression in China. For centuries, Chinese marriage involved matchmakers, child brides, dowries, and concubines, until the PeopleÆs Republic of China was established by Mao Zedong and his Communist Party in 1949. Initially encouraging citizens...