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This book explores narratives of Germany in the United States, with a particular focus on the post–World War II period. It examines how a wide range of actors—including special interest groups and U.S. and West German policymakers—sought to deploy representations of Germany to influence public opinion and achieve their domestic and foreign policy objectives. The book analyzes cultural artifacts such as popular books, films, and television shows to reveal how narratives about the Third Reich and Cold War Germany were manufactured, contested, and co-opted as rival viewpoints competed for legitimacy. The book demonstrates the contingent nature of many of the powerful moral symbols associated with Germany in the postwar period. It uses theories drawn from public diplomacy and public memory to show how these narratives of Germany served as ways to understand not only American identity but international relations and state power.

Landpower in the Long War is the first holistic account of the projection of landpower during the wars of post-9/11. Moving beyond the existing accounts of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the book includes vital chapters on socio-cultural and institutional factors that influence the power-projection of American landpower. Although there are a number of positive accounts herein, such as the recounting of successful humanitarian missions, the underlying theme is one of the need for landpower reform better to achieve U.S. strategic objectives. This is not an account of why America has looked to military power in the post-9/11 world, but how it has projected it.

As the United States faces new foreign threats and security challenges, U.S. foreign-policy makers continue to find novel ways of using military force abroad. During the Obama presidency, the United States has engaged in a number of controversial military operations that remain politically contentious and unresolved today. The political process between the president and the Congress over when and how to use the military remains as relevant as ever. In this study of the use of U.S. military power abroad, Ryan C. Hendrickson examines the political process between the president and Congress that has led to military action during the Obama presidency. In his case study analyses of military action in Afghanistan and the corresponding drone missile strikes, counterpiracy operations on the Indian Ocean, the U.S Special Forces hunt for African warlord Joseph Kony, and the U.S. air strikes on Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, Hendrickson finds that President Barack Obama has acted much like previous commanders in chief, who often made unilateral military decisions for the United States. Presidents draw their own “red lines” for war with little input from Congress. In contrast to other research on Congress’s role in shaping U.S. foreign policy, Hendrickson also finds that congressional deference remains the norm on war powers issues. An absence of partisanship in Congress on this issue, perpetuated by Congress’s senior leadership from both parties, helps explain why the commander in chief is given such wide latitude in foreign and military affairs.

Why have the major post-9/11 US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances in the United States' favor, significant capacity-building efforts, and repeated tactical victories by what many observers call the world's best military, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned intractable. The US government's fixation on zero-sum, decisive victory in these conflicts is a key reason why military operations to overthrow two developing-world regimes failed to successfully achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In Zero-Sum Victory, retired US Army colonel Christopher D. Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the government's insistence on zero-sum victory. First, the US government has no organized way to measure successful outcomes other than a decisive military victory, and thus, selects strategies that overestimate the possibility of such an outcome. Second, the United States is slow to recognize and modify or abandon losing strategies; in both cases, US officials believe their strategies are working, even as the situation deteriorates. Third, once the United States decides to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries and disconnects in strategy undermine the prospects for a successful transition or negotiated outcome. Relying on historic examples and personal experience, Kolenda draws thought-provoking and actionable conclusions about the utility of American military power in the contemporary world—insights that serve as a starting point for future scholarship as well as for important national security reforms.