United States Strategic Command - Command's Professional Reading List

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United States Strategic Command - Command's Professional Reading List
http://www.stratcom.mil/reading_list/



The Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the 21st Century - Dr. Keith Payne

Dr. Keith Payne has painstakingly and skillfully developed a masterful analysis of American Cold War nuclear deterrence theory to practice with insightful critique and prescriptive considerations for the post-Cold War era. Keith utilizes a vast amount of previously classified information to facilitate the comprehension of high-level key deterrence decisions. A 'must read' for defense policy professionals, scholars, and concerned citizens. (review of the book by ADM Henry Chiles Jr., USN (ret.), former Commander in Chief, U.S. Strategic Command)

The Nuclear Express - Thomas C. Reed

This is a political history of nuclear weapons from the discovery of fission in 1938 to the nuclear train wreck that seems to loom in our future. It is an account of where those weapons came from, how the technology surprisingly and covertly spread, who is likely to acquire those weapons next and most importantly why.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes

The breadth and scope of this gripping narrative is almost as impressive as the story itself. This Pulitzer Prize-winning work describes the theoretical origins of the bomb, the lab experiments, the building of the prototype, the test at Alamagordo, the training of the B-29 crews assigned to deliver the first two combat bombs and the missions themselves. Additionally, the author reveals the personalities and emotional dynamics among Niels Bohr, Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, Ernest Lawrence, Robert Oppenheimer, General Leslie Groves, Colonel Paul Tibbets and others responsible for conceiving, engineering, testing and ultimately dropping the apocalyptic devices on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Dark Sun: Making of the Hydrogen Bomb - Richard Rhodes

An engrossing history of the scientific discoveries, political maneuverings, and cold-war espionage leading to the creation of mankind's most destructive weapon.
The book includes 94 archival photographs and a glossary with brief descriptions of the hundreds of people interviewed and discussed.

The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age - Walter A. McDougall

"The definitive, surprising and highly readable history of the U.S. space program. Forget visionary rhetoric about humans' need to explore the next frontier: McDougall demonstrates how NASA's moon missions grew directly from Hitler's V-2 rocket project at Pennemunde and were all about the classic military necessity of controlling the high ground -- in this case the really high ground... [One of] the five best books I have read about the U.S. space program." (Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down)

Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age - Dr. Everett C. Dolman

This book identifies and evaluates the relationship between outer-space geography and geographic position (astrogeography), and the evolution of current and future military space strategy.

Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III - Michael Coumatos

This book depicts how the first hours of World War III might play out in the year 2010. The authors take the reader inside U.S. Strategic Command, where top military commanders, space-company executives, and U.S. intelligence experts are conducting a DEADSATS II wargame, exploring how the loss of critical satellites could lead to nuclear war. The players don't know that the war they are gaming has already begun, miles above them in the lifeless, silent cold of space.

Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld - Jeffrey Carr

This book provides fascinating and disturbing details on how nations, groups, and individuals throughout the world are using the Internet as an attack platform to gain military, political, and economic advantages over their adversaries. Discusses how sophisticated hackers, working on behalf of states or organized crime, patiently play a high-stakes game targeting anyone, regardless of affiliation or nationality. (Amazon.com)

Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet - Joseph Menn

In this disquieting cyber thriller, Joseph Menn takes readers into the murky hacker underground, traveling the globe from San Francisco to Costa Rica and London to Russia. His guides are California surfer and computer whiz Barrett Lyon and a fearless British high-tech agent. Through these heroes, Menn shows the evolution of cyber-crime from small-time thieving to sophisticated, organized gangs, who began by attacking corporate websites but increasingly steal financial data from consumers and defense secrets from governments. Using unprecedented access to Mob businesses and Russian officials, the book reveals how top criminals earned protection from the Russian government.

How the Internet Works (8th Edition) - Preston Gralla

The Internet does many wondrous things, but an alarming number of them remain "black boxes" whose interior workings are a mystery. In How the Internet Works, Preston Gralla shows how information gets from here to there on the world's biggest computer network. With assistance from illustrators Sarah Ishidi, Mina Reimer, and Stephen Adams, Gralla presents a series of full-color spreads, each of which picks apart some aspect of Internet technology. You'll find explanations of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), Web browsers, electronic mail, Web search engines, multimedia, and more.

Biohazard - Ken Alibek

In this fast-paced memoir, Ken Alibek combines cutting-edge science with the narrative techniques of a thriller to describe some of the most awful weapons imaginable. The result will remind readers of The Hot Zone, Richard Preston's smart bestseller about the Ebola virus. That book focuses on the dangers of a freak accident; Biohazard shows how disease can become a deliberate tool of war. Alibek, once a top scientist in the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, describes putting anthrax on a warhead and targeting a city on the other side of the world. (Amazon)

Information Operations: Warfare and the Hard Reality of Soft Power - Lt. Cdr. Edwin L. Armistead, USN

The modern means of communication have turned the world into an information fishbowl and have helped transform international power politics. Information operations (IO) involve the use of modern technology to deliver critical information and influential content in an effort to shape perceptions, manage opinions, and control behavior. Contemporary IO differs from traditional psychological operations practiced by nation-states, because the availability of low-cost high technology permits nongovernmental organizations and rogue elements, such as terrorist groups, to deliver influential content of their own as well as facilitates damaging cyber-attacks on computer networks and infrastructure.

Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Future of International Nonproliferation Policy - Nathan E. Busch

This book pairs real-world case histories with discussions of the latest problems and risks affecting weapons of mass destruction and their spread. It is a collection of articles from experts in nonproliferation studies who examine special challenges and offer directions for policy and law making, making for an outstanding reference to any discussion of nuclear or military might.

Contemporary Nuclear Debates: Missile Defense, Arms Control, and Arms Races in the Twenty-First Century - Alexander T. J. Lennon ED

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in the hands of both states and terrorist networks, is considered by many to be the greatest threat to global security today. Contemporary Nuclear Debates discusses the key issues surrounding that threat. The book is divided into four parts that discuss the future of U.S. national missile defense, global perceptions of missile defense, and the current and future trends in arms control.

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia - Peter Hopkirk

In a phrase coined by Captain Arthur Connolly of the East India Company before he was beheaded in Bokhara for spying in 1842, a "Great Game" was played between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England for supremacy in Central Asia. At stake was the security of India, key to the wealth of the British Empire. When play began early in the 19th century, the frontiers of the two imperial powers lay two thousand miles apart, across vast deserts and almost impassable mountain ranges; by the end, only 20 miles separated the two rivals.

Islam: A Short History - Karen Armstrong

Delving deep into Islamic history, the author seeks to lay to rest the picture of Islam as a violent, backward, and insular tradition. The story begins with the stirring of revelation in an Arab businessman named Muhammad and his concern with the poor who were being left behind in the blush of his society's new prosperity. Muhammad's ideas catch fire, quickly blossoming into a political empire. The book discusses numerous aspects of Islamic history including the Sunni-Shi'ite schism, the rise of Persian influence, European colonialism and various issues leading right up to current headlines.

Among the Believers - V. S. Naipaul

This is V. S. Naipaul's classic account of his 7-month journey through Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia; 'the believers' are the Muslims he met on that journey, young men and women battling to regain the original purity of their faith in the hope of restoring order to a chaotic world. It is a unique insight into modern Islam and religious fanaticism.

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The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 - Sir Alistair Horne

The battle of Verdun lasted ten months. It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles. Its aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death and a battleground whose once fertile terrain is even now a haunted wilderness. Alistair Horne's classic work, continuously in print for over fifty years, is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the battle and the men who fought there. It shows that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War to the minds of those who waged it, the traditions that bound them and the world that gave them the opportunity.

Gallipoli - Alan McCrae Moorehead

When Turkey unexpectedly sided with Germany in World War I, Winston Churchill, as Sea Lord for the British, conceived a plan: smash through the Dardanelles, reopen the Straits to Russia, and immobilize the Turks. On the night of March 18, 1915, this plan nearly succeeded -- the Turks were virtually beaten. But poor communication left the Allies in the dark, allowing the Turks to prevail and the Allies to suffer a crushing defeat. A vivid chronicle of adventure, suspense, agony, and heroism, Gallipoli brings fully to life the tragic waste in human life, the physical horror, and the sheer heartbreaking folly of fighting for impossible objectives with inadequate means on unknown, unmapped terrain.

Galloping Ghost: The Extraordinary Life of Submarine Captain Eugene Fluckey - Carl Lavo

Eugene Fluckey was one of the great naval heroes of World War II. His exploits as captain of the submarine USS Barb revolutionized undersea warfare and laid the groundwork for the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine fleet that today is the primary deterrent and capability of the United States against nuclear attack. He earned numerous presidential, congressional, and military honors, including the Medal of Honor and four Navy Crosses. In the war against Japan, Fluckey fired the first ballistic missiles from a submarine and sank more tonnage than any other U.S. submarine skipper.

Submarine Admiral: From Battlewagons to Ballistic Missiles - Ignatius Joseph "Pete" Galantin

In this memoir of his 41-year military career, from midshipman to four-star rank, mostly in the submarine service, Galantin provides an authoritative overview of the evolution of the sub and its role in the U.S. Navy. A distinguished combat veteran of WWII, he saw postwar service as head of the Navy Department's submarine branch; and, as director of the Navy's Special Projects Office, he had a leading role in developing the Polaris missile system for subs. Long involved in high-level planning and policy-making in the Pentagon, he gives a good account of how the Navy met the Soviet challenge at sea as well as the submarine's role in the post-Cold War era. Our nuclear subs, he argues, remain the chief deterrent to global strategic aggression.

Lemay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis Lemay - Warren Kozak

Kozak's biography of Curtis Lemay and his outstanding competence as a leader and organizer of strategic airpower in World War II and during the cold war is convincingly presented. Kozak suggests that LeMay was utterly dedicated to the mission of destroying his country's enemies and to the men under his command charged with carrying out that mission. This led to what can only be called a certain lack of the social graces and a good many of what might charitably be called misinterpretations of where LeMay's patriotism led him.

A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon - Neil Sheehan

This is the intriguing history of the men who built America's ICBM program in the ‘50s and '60s. Gen. Bernard Schriever and his colorful band of military aides, civilian patrons, defense intellectuals and aerospace entrepreneurs are portrayed as a guerrilla insurgency fighting Pentagon red tape, and hostile Air Force brass. The book is a fascinating run-down of the engineering challenges posed by nuclear missiles, but the main action consists of bureaucratic intrigues, procurement innovations and epic briefings that catch the President's ear and open the funding spigots.

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action - Simon Sinek

In studying the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way -- and it's the complete opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be lead, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY. Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how they do it; but very few can clearly articulate why. Starting with WHY works in big business and small business, in the nonprofit world and in politics. Those who start with WHY never manipulate, they inspire. And the people who follow them don't do so because they have to; they follow because they want to.

Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, an Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond. - Dr. Henry "Harry" Lodge, & Chris Crowley

Authors Crowley and Lodge provide no-nonsense advice to help both men and women become functionally younger every year. The books can show us how to turn back our biological clocks, how to put off 70% of the normal problems of aging (weakness, sore joints, bad balance) and eliminate 50% of serious illness and injury. The key to the program is found in Harry's Rules (seven rules all together) and they are based on the latest findings in cell physiology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and experimental psychology. Both men and women can become functionally younger every year for the next five to ten years, and then continue to live with newfound vitality and pleasure deep into our 80s and beyond.

Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, an Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond. - Dr. Henry "Harry" Lodge, & Chris Crowley

Authors Crowley and Lodge provide no-nonsense advice to help both men and women become functionally younger every year. The books can show us how to turn back our biological clocks, how to put off 70% of the normal problems of aging (weakness, sore joints, bad balance) and eliminate 50% of serious illness and injury. The key to the program is found in Harry's Rules (seven rules all together) and they are based on the latest findings in cell physiology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and experimental psychology. Both men and women can become functionally younger every year for the next five to ten years, and then continue to live with newfound vitality and pleasure deep into our 80s and beyond.