On the night of the 2008 presidential election, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel spoke for many: “For the first time in decades, electoral politics became a vehicle for raising expectations and spreading hope.” But, she cautioned, “We progressives need to be as clear-eyed, tough, and pragmatic about Obama as he is about us.” Where I Stand collects vanden Heuvel’s commentaries and columns from the first years of the Obama administration, an era that has come to be defined by reform and reaction. In the wake of the economic crisis and challenges from the insurgent Tea Party movement, it is clear that it will take more than one election (and one person) to reshape American politics and repair the damage wreaked by a decade of calamitous conservative rule. Vanden Heuvel challenges the limits of our downsized political debate, arguing that timid incrementalism and the forces of money and establishment power that debilitate American politics will be overcome only by independent organizing, strategic creativity, bold ideas, and determined idealism.

"This book offers the first comprehensive examination of Israeli policies and practice in both the civil and military cyber realms and insights into what other countries can learn from its experience. The book is designed for cyber theorists and practitioners, people interested in the Middle East, and general audiences. It explores how and why Israel has become a global cyber power, despite its small size, arguing that a combination of strategic and economic necessity, along with an innovative culture, has driven Israel's success. The Israeli cyber experience is studied in the lens of realist and constructivist international relations theories and analyzes many of the major quandaries facing cyber theorists and practitioners alike. The book focuses both on Israel's civil and military cyber strategies, including the organizational structures and policies it has put in place, national capacity building, including the unique contribution of the IDF and defense establishment to Israel's cyber ecosystem, and international cyber cooperation. It presents a comprehensive picture all significant cyber attacks conducted against Israel, including a comprehensive picture of Iran's cyber policies, institutions and capabilities. Particular attention is devoted to Israel's military cyber response, including the cyber attacks it has known to have conducted. Each chapter takes an in depth look at the major actions Israel has taken in a different dimension of the cyber realm, placing them in a broader context to help readers understand state behavior in the cyber realm generally. The book concludes with the first proposal for a comprehensive Israeli national cyber strategy"--

In his fascinating new book, Jonathan D. Moreno investigates the deeply intertwined worlds of cutting-edge brain science, U.S. defense agencies, and a volatile geopolitical landscape where a nation's weaponry must go far beyond bombs and men. The first-ever exploration of the connections between national security and brain research, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense reveals how many questions crowd this gray intersection of science and government and urges us to begin to answer them. From neuropharmacology to neural imaging to brain-machine interface devices that relay images and sounds between human brains and machines, Moreno shows how national security entities seek to harness the human nervous system in a multitude of ways as a potent weapon against the enemy soldier. Moreno charts such projects as monkeys moving robotic arms with their minds, technology to read the brain’s thought patterns at a distance, the development of "anti-sleep" drugs to enhance soldiers’ battle performance and others to dampen their emotional reactions to the violence, and advances that could open the door to "neuroweapons"—virus-transported molecules to addle the brain. "As new kinds of weapons are added to the arsenal already at the disposal of fallible human leaders," Moreno writes, "we need to find new ways to address the problem"--of the ethical military application of so powerful and intimate a science. This book is the first step in confronting the quandaries inherent in this partnership of government and neuroscience, serves as a compelling wake-up call for scientists and citizens, and suggests that, with imagination, we might meet the needs of both security and civil liberty.

This is an Occasional Paper originating from a discussion that took place at a meeting of the Committee on International Security Studies of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Chapter 1. U.S. National Security In Search of Balance. Chapter 2. Gambling on Force, Order, and the Implications of Attacking Iraq. Chapter 3. The Economic Consequences of a War with Iraq.