John M. Collins began to amass military experience when he enlisted in the Army as a private in 1942. Thirty years and three wars later, in 1972, he retired as a colonel. He spent the next quarter century as the leading analyst on military and defense issues at the Congressional Research Service.
Seven years ago, he established the Warlord Loop, a by-invitation-only e-mail forum that fosters voluminous, freewheeling exchanges seven days a week. Resultant brainstorming is roughly equivalent to a graduate education in national security at no cost save time expended. The Warlord Loop's current reading list features two books apiece that a cross section of 300 cosmopolitan members believe would best enable practitioners at every level to prepare for an uncertain future and concurrently help concerned citizens understand salient issues.
This compilation differs from countless competitive lists because contributors include civilian national security specialists along with Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard representatives who range in rank from NCO stripes to four-stars. Males, females, liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, and nonpartisans touch every point on the public opinion spectrum.
Lieutenant Colonel Rizwan Ali, U.S. Air Force, is a cyberspace specialist at U.S. Strategic Command.
Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Colonel Bill Andrews, U.S. Air Force, repeatedly served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a prisoner of war in Baghdad in 1991 and now teaches at the National War College.
Edgar Jones and Simon Wessely, Shell-Shock to PTSD: Military Psychiatry from 1900 to the Gulf War
Charles Figley and William Nash, Combat Stress Injury: Theory, Research, and Management
Jim Bartlett recently was a freelance correspondent and security specialist in Bosnia and Iraq; author of Miracle on Bourbon Street.
Robert Bly, The Sibling Society
Allan and Barbara Pease, Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps
Lieutenant Colonel Bob Bateman, U.S. Army, Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense; author or editor of two books, including No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident.
Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands With the Devil
Peter Singer, Children at War
Richard Best for many years has concentrated on U.S. national intelligence issues as a specialist in national defense at the Congressional Research Service.
Douglas F. Garthoff, Directors of Central Intelligence as Leaders of the U.S. Intelligence Community, 1946-2005
David M. Barrett, The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story
Admiral Dennis Blair, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, Director of the Joint Staff, and Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support.
Roger Hill, Destroyer Captain
Sandy Woodward, One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander
Lieutenant Colonel Don Bowman, U.S. Army (Retired), former deputy commander, Ranger Department, U.S. Army Infantry School.
Colonel John W. Thomason, Fixed Bayonets!
Colonel John W. Thomason, Lone Star Preacher
Shawn Brimley is a Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, where he works on a variety of defense issues including operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Robert Kagan, The Return of History and the End of Dreams
Robert Kaplan, Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground.
General Art Brown, U.S. Army (Retired), served two tours in Vietnam, then was Deputy Superintendent at West Point, Director of the Army Staff, and capped his career as Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army.
Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers
John Keegan, The Mask of Command
Lieutenant General Frederic (Rick) Brown, U.S. Army (Retired), Olmsted Scholar, Switzerland, Ph.D., Chief of Armor/Cavalry, service on the Joint Staff, the National Security Council staff, and in the White House.
James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
Jean Larteguy, The Centurions
Dr. Janet Breslin-Smith, a Senate staffer (1976-92) and National War College national security strategy professor (1992-2006), is co-authoring a history of the college.
Graham Green, The Quiet American
Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Commander John Burnham, U.S. Navy, a SEAL with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, is deputy commander, Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
Vali Nasr, The Shi'a Revival: How Conflicts with Islam Will Shape the Future
Philip Bobbitt, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century
Pamela Caruso, a missile defense specialist for 25 years, is an engineer/manager with NASA's Engineer Directorate, which focuses on current and future launch capabilities.
Joseph Trento, Prescription for Disaster
William Scott, Michael J. Coumatos, and William J. Birne, Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III
Dr. Caleb Carr has specialized in terrorism and counterterrorism studies since the early 1990s and teaches military matters, including insurgency and counterinsurgency, at Bard College.
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
Keith Bickel, Mars Learning: The Marine Corps' Development of Small Wars Doctrine, 1915-1940
Commander Ward Carroll, U.S. Navy (Retired) is editor of military.com; author of five novels, including Militia Kill.
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Steven Pressfield, Killing Rommel
Captain Philip Carter, U.S. Army, former Iraqi police adviser, now practices government contract law.
Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
Fred Kaplan, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power
Dean Cheng, CNA Corporation's Senior Asia Analyst, specializes in Chinese security affairs, with particular attention to technological issues and space programs.
Richard E. Nisbett, The Geography of Thought
Bowyer Bell and Barton Whaley, Cheating and Deception
Eric Chewning, U.S. Army Reserve, a former military intelligence captain with service in Iraq and New Orleans, now is a commercial strategy consultant in Booz Allen Hamilton's aerospace-defense practice.
Albert Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Colonel John Clark, U.S. Air Force, Deputy J3 at U.S. Forces, Korea, soon to become a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets...and How We Could Have Stopped Him
Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe
Major Christopher M. Coglianese, U.S. Army, is a battalion executive officer in the 1st Cavalry Division, having previously served in Baghdad as the division battle major, a combined arms battalion S3, and as an Olmsted Scholar in Mumbai, India.
T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness
Fred Charles Ikle, Every War Must End
Colonel John Collins, U.S. Army (Retired), senior specialist in national defense, Congressional Research Service, 1972-96; author of 12 books, including America's Small Wars: Lessons for the Future.
Makers of Modern Strategy: Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Ed. By Peter Paret
Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace
Colonel Joseph Collins, U.S. Army (Retired), professor of strategy, National War College; author or editor of three books, including American Military Culture in the Twenty-First Century.
Stephen Flanagan and James Schear, eds., Strategic Challenges: America's Global Security Agenda
Steven Metz, Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy
Dr. Sean Collins has been a ballistic missile defense specialist for nearly 30 years and now is vice president/chief technical officer, Missile Defense Sector, Sparta, Inc.
Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon
Robert Timberg, The Nightingale's Song
Dr. Patrick Cronin, recently director of studies, International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, now is director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University.
Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East
Audrey Kurth Cronin, Ending Terrorism: A Strategy for Ending Al-Qaeda
Captain Scott Cuomo, U.S. Marine Corps, is the primary Small Wars/Counterinsurgency Instructor at the Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course.
Charles E. White, The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805
F. J. "Bing" West, The Village
Dr. Catherine Dale, formerly speechwriter for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, now is the Congressional Research Service military operations and policy analyst who handles Iraq and Afghanistan.
Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime
Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
Lieutenant Colonel Terry Daly, U.S. Army Reserve (Retired), is a counterinsurgency strategist.
David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice
Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency
John Dickert, resource specialist, Defense Technical Information Service.
T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
John M. Collins, Military Geography: For Professionals and the Public
Major David Dilegge, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Retired), who is co-owner of the Small Wars Journal, also is a small wars and urban operations consultant for the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.
Robin Wright, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East
Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Captain Brian Donlon, U.S. Marine Corps, served twice in Iraq as a platoon leader, was an Enlisted Combat Instructor in the Basic School, and now is an Infantry Officer Course instructor.
Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire
Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
Kimberly Dozier has filed TV and radio reports from hot spots such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, the Balkans, and North Ireland since 1993, mainly for CBS News.
Robin Wright, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East
Carl von Clausewitz, On War
Barry Dwyer served with the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. He is a military historian and freelance writer who has authored three books about naval special warfare, including Scouts and Raiders: The Navy's First Special Warfare-Commandos.
Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of Maps
Douglas Feith, War And Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism
Command Sergeant Major Dan Elder, U.S. Army (Retired), served in the Balkans and Iraq, was on the Sergeants Major Academy faculty, and now is Knowledge Management Adviser, Computer Sciences Corporation.
Gene Smith, Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing
Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror
V. L. Elliott, adjunct professor, Terrorism and Asymmetric Warfare Studies Program, National Defense Intelligence College; co-author, Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy.
Jack Hirshleifer, The Dark Side of the Force: Economic Foundations of Conflict Theory
Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism
Janice Elmore, a retired career foreign service officer, is consulting and writing a book on the Sudanese Liberation Army and Darfur.
Fred Pearce, When the Rivers Run Dry: Water—The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century
Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington, Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress
Lieutenant Colonel Pete Evans, Royal Marines, former military policy adviser in the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. and UK Liaison Officer to the Political Military Bureau in the State Department, now covers counter-terrorism issues for the UK Ministry of Defence.
Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia
Basil H. Liddell Hart, Strategy
Ben Fitzgerald, an Australian, is country manager for Noetic's U.S. operations. He helps the Secretary of Defense, the United Nations, and several other clients develop concepts, strategies, and doctrines.
Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World
T. X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
Evelyn Farkas, recently on the Senate Armed Services Committee staff, now is Executive Director, Committee on the Prevention of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict
David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals
Colonel Paul Friedrichs, U.S. Air Force, former Chief, Clinical and Aeromedical Services at Air Force Space Command, is hospital commander at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska.
Philip Bobbitt, Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History
James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science
Lieutenant General Robert Gard, U.S. Army (Retired), past President of National Defense University and Monterey Institute of International Studies, consults on international security and education issues.
Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Lieutenant General William Ginn, U.S. Air Force (Retired), a member of the Air Commando Hall of Fame, was commander, U.S. Forces Japan and Fifth Air Force.
James Parton, Air Force Spoken Here
DeWitt S. Copp, Forged in Fire: Strategy and Decisions in the Air War Over Europe
Tommy Glakas worked at the Congressional Research Service, for Representative Ike Skelton, at the Marshall Center in Germany, and now at the National Inteligence Council as an analyst/editor on mid- and long-term strategic analyses.
Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England
Joseph E. Persico, Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage
Robert Goldich, former military personnel specialist, Congressional Research Service.
Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization
Sean Michael Flynn, The Fighting 69th: One Remarkable National Guard Unit's Journey from Ground Zero to Baghdad
Colonel Tom Greenwood, U.S. Marine Corps, an Iraq War veteran, was aide to the Marine Corps Commandant, served on the National Security Council staff, and now is Director, Marine Corps Command and Staff College.
John Hersey, A Bell for Adano
Bernard Brodie, War and Politics
Lieutenant General Chip Gregson, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), served in Vietnam, Somalia, Egypt, and CIA, was Pacific Command's senior Marine, and now is a national security consultant.
Colin S. Gray, Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare
Robert D. Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground
Major Stephen M. Grenier, U.S. Army, is a Special Forces officer serving as the Chief of Current Operations for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan.
Charles W. Gwynn, Imperial Policing
Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis
Dr. Richard Grimmett concentrates on war powers and international arms trade, but ranges widely as a specialist in international security at the Congressional Research Service.
Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution
Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Richard Halloran, free-lance writer, former foreign correspondent in Asia and military correspondent in Washington for The New York Times; author of six books, including To Arm a Nation: Rebuilding America's Endangered Defenses.
James Lilley, China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia
Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia
James Hailer, founder Hailer Publishing.
Piers Brendon, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s
A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh
Colonel T. X. Hammes, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), is an independent consultant on insurgency and homeland security and also is pursuing a doctorate in history at Oxford University.
Richard E. Nesbitt, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why
Steven Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software
Captain Dan Helmer, U.S. Army, a Rhodes Scholar, served in Iraq in 2004, helped establish Afghanistan's Counterinsurgency Academy, and now trains combat advisers going to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sevid Qutb, Milestones
Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
Captain Todd Hildebrant, U.S. Army, has served in Germany, Kosovo, and twice in Iraq. He now is a support battalion communications officer in Balad.
John Hersey, A Bell for Adano
C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice
Steven Hildreth for many years has concentrated on ballistic missile defense issues as a specialist in national defense at the Congressional Research Service.
Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, Warday
Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire
Colonel Bill Hix, U.S. Army, formerly Chief, Strategy, Multi-National Force-Iraq, is chief of staff/executive officer to the Commander of Coalition Security Transition Command—Afghanistan.
Charles Allen, God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad
Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on US-GVN Performance in Vietnam
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), is a research fellow at the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command; authored Decisive Force: The New American Way of War.
Colin S. Gray, Another Bloody Century, Future Warfare
Bing West, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah
Dr. Tim Hoyt taught at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service before joining the Naval War College's Strategy and Policy Department where he stresses counterinsurgency and counterterrorism; author of Military Industry and Regional Power: India, Iraq, and Israel.
Toby Harnden, Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh
Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
Colonel Robert Killebrew, U.S. Army (Retired), who served with SOG in Vietnam, finished his career on the faculty of the Army War College and at TRADOC. He currently speaks, writes, and consults on national security issues.
George MacDonald Frasier, any of the Flashman books, preferably the whole series
George MacDonald Frasier, Quartered Safe Out Here
Major Ray Kimball, U.S. Army, is an operations officer, Center for Company Leaders at West Point.
Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don't
Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Dr. Dave Koplow is a professor of international law at Georgetown University law school; author of four books, including Non-Lethal Weapons: The Law and Policy of Revolutionary Technologies for the Military and Law Enforcement.
Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law
John Rawcliffe (ed.), Operational Law Handbook
Colonel Cliff Krieger, U.S. Air Force (Retired), was JCS Strategy Division Chief, held the National War College JCS Chairman's Chair, and now is co-authoring a National War College history.
John Masters, Bugles and a Tiger
George Kenney, General Kenney Reports
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Krohn, U.S. Army (Retired), formerly Army Deputy Director of Public Affairs, is Deputy Director of Public Affairs, American Battle Monuments Commission; author of The Lost Battalion of Tet: Breakout of the 2/12th Cavalry at Hue.
David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice
Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency
Rear Admiral Ronald Kurth, U.S. Navy (Retired), was naval, then defense attache in Moscow, President of the Naval War College, and Headmaster of St. John's Northwestern Military Academy.
Skip Vogel, Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range
Timothy J. Colton, Yeltsin: A Life
Colonel Richard Lacquement, U.S. Army, specializes in military education, doctrine, interagency operations, and counterinsurgency. He now is chief, J5 Plans, U.S. Forces Korea; author of Shaping American Military Capabilities after the Cold War.
Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder, Strategy, Politics & Defense Budgets
James Locher, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon
Jon Lellenberg, former section head, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.
Lee Harris, The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the Enlightenment
Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941
Lieutenant Commander Tom Mahnken, U.S. Naval Reserve, formerly a strategy professor at the Naval War College, now is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning.
Carl von Clausewtiz, On War
Philip Carl Salzman, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East
Carter Malkasian, Center for Naval Analyses, is an adviser attached to the I Marine Expeditionary Force. His three deployments to Iraq since February 2003 total almost two years.
Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence
Carl von Clausewitz, On War
Captain Lory Manning, U.S. Navy (Retired), is an authority on women in the U.S. armed forces. She now directs a related project at the Women's Research and Education Institute.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God
Colonel Peter Mansoor, U.S. Army, formerly General Petraeus's executive officer in Iraq, occupies a key history chair with Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Security Studies.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050
Dr. Daniel Marston, senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, also reviews counterinsurgency doctrine for the British and U.S. armies as well as the U.S. Marine Corps.
Tony Jeapes, SAS Secret War
John Masters, Bugles and a Tiger
Colonel David Maxwell, U.S. Army, most recently commanded the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines and now is G-3, U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.
Colin S. Gray, Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace and Strategy
Jeffrey Record, Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win
Major William McCallister, U.S. Army (Retired), a former infantry officer, is currently serving as the II Marine Expeditionary Force tribal advisor in Anbar province, Iraq.
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Gustave Le Bon, The French Revolution and The Psychology of Revolution
Dr. Steven Metz, Chairs the Regional Strategy and Planning Department at the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute; author or editor of more than 20 books.
John Robb and James Fallows, Brave New War
Brian Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army's Way of War
Major Andrew Morgado, U.S. Army, professor of military science, Siena College.
Dietrich Dorner, The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations
Robert B. Asprey, War In the Shadows: The Guerilla In History
Carson Morris, formerly CACI's executive vice president, director of Strategic Planning, and Homeland Defense Coordinator, now is a director of the Association for Intelligence Officers.
John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda
Andrew Wheatcroft, Infidels: A History of the Conflict between Christendom and Islam
Captain Steve Mullaney, U.S. Army, a Rhodes Scholar who served in Afghanistan, then with the Old Guard at Arlington Cemetery, is a history professor at the U.S. Naval Academy; author of The Unforgiving Minute (January 2009).
Epictetus, The Enchiridion
Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One
Williamson Murray, military/diplomatic historian, Institute of Defense Analyses; author or co-author of 14 books, including the Making of Strategy: Rules, States, and War.
Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire
James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Myers, U.S. Army, is an instructor at the Joint Special Operations University and is the Army adviser to the commandant, Air Command and Staff College.
Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib Trans. Noah Ha Mim Keller, Umdat al-Salik (The Reliance of the Traveller): The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law
Brigadier S. K. Malik, The Quranic Concept of War
Captain Michael Noonan, U.S. Army Reserve, served in Tal Afar, Iraq, and is managing director, Program on National Security Studies, Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Bernard Brodie, War and Politics
William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American
Lieutenant Colonel Doug Ollivant, U.S. Army, a political philosophy Ph.D., is director for Iraq, National Security Council, after completing two tours in Baghdad.
Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Chris Preble, who served as a Navy lieutenant during Operation Desert Storm, is director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, and author of John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap.
Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers
Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War
Tom Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent, The Washington Post; author of three books, including Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.
Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775-1783
Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962
Colonel Ed Rowe, U.S. Army (Retired), was Assistant Secretary of Defense SO/LIC's assistant for policy before he joined Science Applications Incorporated Corporation as a special operations/terrorism specialist.
David M. Abshire, A Call to Greatness: Challenging Our Next President
Anne-Marie Slaughter, The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World
Command Sergeant Major Robert Rush, U.S. Army (Retired), is a Ph.D. who specializes in small unit cohesion and rotation policy. He is chief, Field and International Programs, U.S. Army Center of Military History.
Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers
Jean Larteguy, The Centurions
Erin Simpson, an associate professor at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, focuses on terrorism, civil wars, insurgencies, and internal security forces during counterinsurgency campaigns.
Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962
Rory Stewart, The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq
David Southworth, a nontraditional warfare analyst with Science Applications Incorporated Corporation, covers the global war on terrorism and homeland security.
Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
Michael B. Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to Present
John Sullivan, recently director of the National Terrorism Early Warning Resource Center, is a lieutenant and urban operations specialist with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department; co-authored or co-edited five books, including Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-terrorism Network.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Shimon Naveh, In Pursuit of Military Excellence: The Evolution of Operational Theory
Jamie Tarabay, an Australian, covered the Middle East since 2000 for the Associated Press, then National Public Radio. She now is NPR's Muslim/Islam specialist in Washington, D.C.
Jamie Tarabay, A Crazy Occupation: Eyewitness to the Intifada
Ali Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace
Brigadier General Paula Thornhill, U.S. Air Force, former special assistant to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and acting deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Near East and South Asia, now heads the Air Force Institute of Technology.
The Landmark Thucydides (Strassler, ed)
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Captain Robert Timberg, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), a Baltimore Sun reporter and editor for 30 years, now is editor-in-chief of Proceedings, the U.S. Naval Institute's flagship publication; author of three books, including The Nightingale's Song.
Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership from FDR to Carter
David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest
Pat Towell covered defense issues for Congressional Quarterly, then special projects at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, and now is a budget analyst at the Congressional Research Service.
Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army's Art of Attack, 1916-1918
Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
Lieutenant General Bernard "Mick" Trainor, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), former director of plans, policies, and operations, U.S. Marine Corps; coauthor of two books, including The General's War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf.
Chris Bellamy, Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War
Ulrich Straus, The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II
Lieutenant General Richard Trefry, U.S. Army (Retired), culminated his military career as the Army's Inspector General and now is first vice president, Army Force Management School.
Viscount William Slim, Defeat Into Victory
Lucien K. Truscott, Command Missions: A Personal Story
Major Don Vandergriff, U.S. Army (Retired), specializes in junior leader education, training, and personnel management at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command; author of three books including Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War.
Dr. Chuck White, The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805
William S. Lind, The Maneuver Warfare Handbook
General John Vessey, U.S. Army (Retired), the tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1982-85), is the only occupant of that office ever to receive a battlefield commission. He served as presidential emissary to Hanoi for POW/MIA matters from 1987 until 1991.
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
General Volney Warner, U.S. Army (Retired), former commander-in-chief, U.S. Readiness Command.
Mark Perry, Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace
Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England
Colonel Shawn Welch, U.S. Army, currently serves as Deputy Director, Resources, Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, Headquarters, Department of the Army.
Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944
Anton Meyer, Once An Eagle
Captain Jaron Wharton, U.S. Army, served three times in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is a Center for a New American Security military fellow and soon will enter Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American
Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Lieutenant Colonel Greg Wilcox, U.S. Army (Retired) served three tours in Vietnam. He has been a senior systems analyst and research engineer with SRI International since 1984.
Anton Meyer, Once An Eagle
Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
Major General Thomas Wilkerson, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), a fighter pilot and former Chief of Plans, U.S. Marine Corps, currently is Chief Executive Officer, U.S. Naval Institute.
C. S. Forester, The General
Viscount William Slim, Defeat Into Victory
Captain John Allen (Jay) Williams, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired), Ph.D., a Loyola University professor of political science, chairs the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society; authored or co-authored four books, including U.S. National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics, Third Edition, with Sam C. Sarkesian and Stephen J. Cimbala.
Sam C. Sarkesian, America's Forgotten Wars: The Counterrevolutionary Past and Lessons for the Future
Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait
Lieutenant General Samuel Wilson, U.S. Army (Retired), spearheaded Merrill's Marauders in 1944, later was director, Defense Intelligence Agency, and now is an Army special operations elder statesman.
Men At War, an anthology edited by Ernest Hemingway
Charlton Ogburn, Jr., The Marauders
Captain Rick Woolard, U.S. Navy (Retired), commanded several SEAL teams.
Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice
Henry Wooster, a career Foreign Service officer formerly in Russia, Tajikistan, Georgia, Haiti, and the U.S. Mission to NATO, is the State Department's deputy director, Office of Iranian Affairs.
Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics
Ernest May, "Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy
Colonel Robert Work, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), was director of the Marine Corps' Strategic Initiatives Branch, then executive assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. He now is a vice president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
Walter MacDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: America's Encounter With the World Since 1776
Rear Admiral George Worthington, U.S. Navy (Retired), former commander, Naval Special Warfare Command.
Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power
Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History 1500-Today
Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Yoswa, U.S. Army, is a career public affairs officer (PAO) with lengthy, broad practical experience. He currently is General Petraeus's Deputy PAO.
Michael Bauman, Adjust Fire: Transforming to Win in Iraq
Mark Steyn, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It