WHEN I joined the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, it was my first career change since I entered West Point at age seventeen. When I retired from the U.S. Army after thirty-four years, I knew I would miss serving alongside dedicated and talented young men and women. I am grateful now to work with graduate and undergraduate students at Stanford who also possess a strong desire to contribute to our nation and all humanity. I could not have completed a project of this scope and ambition without the assistance of a tremendous team of student research assistants who filled out innumerable evidence sheets, cleaned up the text and references, organized reviewer criticisms, and deciphered my cursive handwriting, which, for a generation who grew up with computers, must have been the equivalent of transcribing cuneiform. Our seminar-like discussions of the challenges to national and international security and the connections between them were enriching and helped me impose order on complex problems. I am particularly indebted to Chelsea Burris Berkey, Kate Yeager, Jeffery Chen, Sri Muppidi, Sylvie Ashford, Edouard Asmar, Lee Bagan, Megan Chang Haines, Rand Duarte, Eddy Rosales Chavez, Aron Ramirez, Nolan Matcovich, Griffin Bovée, Taek Lee, Kyle Duchynski, Sophia Boyer, Jonathan Deemer, David Jaffe, Samantha Thompson, Emma Bates, Lisa Einstein, William Howlett, Isaac Kipust, Cyrus Reza, Carter Clelland, Katherine Du, Hiroto Saito, Theo Velaise, and James Kanoff. Getting to know these talented young people bolstered my confidence in our ability to overcome the challenges that are the subject of this book.
There is no better place to research and write than at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. My colleagues at Hoover, the Freeman Spogli Institute, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business provided sage advice and contributed through their scholarship and research. I am grateful for assistance from Nadia Schadlow, Jakub Grygiel, Michael Auslin, Victor Davis Hanson, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Russell Berman, Michael McFaul, Abbas Milani, Kathryn Stoner, Daniel Sneider, Kevin Warsh, Niall Ferguson, Amy Zegart, James Timbie, Condoleezza Rice, David Mulford, Scott Sagan, George Shultz, Larry Diamond, Stephen Kotkin, Timothy Garton Ash, Michael Bernstam, Arye Zvi Carmon, Glenn Tiffert, Tim Kane, Peter Robinson, Karl Eikenberry, Herb Lin, Alex Stamos, Raj Shah, David Berkey, Saumitra Jha, and Charles O’Reilly. Erik Jensen from the Stanford School of Law also provided valuable advice. My thanks to the entire Hoover staff who, under director Tom Gilligan, provided encouragement and the ideal environment to write. Special thanks to Eryn Witcher Tillman, Denise Elson, Jeff Jones, Mandy MacCalla, Juanita Rodriguez, Erika Monroe, Silvia Sandoval, the late Celeste Szeto, Laurie Garcia, Dan Wilhelmi, Shana Farley, Megan King, James Shinbashi, and Rick Jara. Writing this book made me appreciate even more the privilege of holding the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellowship, a position named for a man I admired and made possible by the generosity of Michelle Ajami and Patrick Byrne.
Friends, former colleagues, and subject matter experts provided early guidance, read portions of the manuscript, and made helpful corrections and suggestions. I learned much from Zachary Shore, Fiona Hill, Marin Strmecki, Clare Lockhart, Michael Brown, Janan Mosazai, Hussain Haqqani, Seth Center, John “Mick” Nicholson, Norine MacDonald, Melissa Skorka, Gretchen Peters, Rob Kee, Larry Goodson, Fernando Lujan, Lisa Curtis, Michael Bell, Matthew Pottinger, Toby Dodge, Tristan Abbey, Thomas Lafleur, Joe Wang, Omar Hossino, Kenan Rahmani, Regis Matlak, Emma Sky, Dana Eyre, Kenneth Pollack, David Pearce, Ryan Crocker, Alton Buland, Diana Sterne, Kirsten Fontenrose, Ali Ansari, Yll Bajraktari, Ylber Bajraktari, Matt Turpin, Jeremie Waterman, Chas Freeman, Charles Eveslage, Jimmy Goodrich, Orville Schell, Alexander Bernard, Donald Sparks, Joseph Byerly, Christopher Starling, Scott Moore, Saad Mohseni, and Jordan Grimshaw.
I am indebted to Mark Dubowitz, Juan Zarate, Samantha Ravich, Bradley Bowman, Bill Roggio, Thomas Joscelyn, Cliff Rogers, and the team at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies for the opportunity to learn from their efforts to improve our strategic competence. This project also benefited tremendously from the opportunity to work with Ken Weinstein, Patrick Cronin, Ben Gillman, Taro Hayashi, and Masashi Murano at the Hudson Institute’s Japan Chair.
Other academic institutions hosted discussions that helped improve particular chapters. My thanks to Graham Allison and Fred Logevall of the Applied History Working Group at Harvard University for convening a group of talented scholars, including Josh Goldstein, Justin Winokur, Calder Walton, Carl Forsberg, Philip Balson, Paul Behringer, Anne Karalekas, Eugene Kogan, Charles Maier, Chris Miller, Nathaniel Moir, Laurie Slap, Peter Slezkine, and Emily Whalen.
I benefited tremendously from discussions that Michael Horowitz convened at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. Christian Ruhl, LaShawn Renee Jefferson, Avery Goldstein, Alexander R. Weisger, Amy E. Gadsden, Scott Michael Moore, Mitchell Orenstein, Shira Eini Pindyck, Christopher William Blair, Casey William Mahoney, Joshua A. Schwartz, Michael Noonan, and Duncan Hollis provided constructive feedback and advice on early drafts. The errors and flaws that remain are mine alone.
I could not have asked for a better team of professionals to help bring this project to fruition. I am grateful for the assistance of Rafe Sagalyn and Amanda Urban at ICM Partners. And it was a pleasure to work with my editor, Jonathan Jao, Sarah Haugen, Jenna Dolan, Tina Andreadis, and the tremendous team at HarperCollins. The late Marion (Buz) Wyeth, with whom I was privileged to work two decades ago, would have been proud. My thanks, too, to Anne Withers, Mike Smith, and Keegan Barber at the White House.
I could not have completed this project without the love and support of my family. Thank you, Katie, for your encouragement, understanding, and for providing the foundation for our growing family. And thanks to my daughters, Katharine, Colleen, and Caragh, sons-in-law Alex and Lee, and my sister, Letitia, who all read portions of the manuscript and made helpful suggestions. And finally, thanks to my grandsons, Henry and Jack Robinson, who brought our family such joy and reminded me of our generation’s duty to provide future generations with an inheritance of peace and freedom.