Allan E. Goodman - Böcker

Confronted by the new challenges of the information age and the post-Soviet world, the U.S. intelligence community must adapt and change. And marginal change is not enough, the authors of this provocative book insist. Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allan E. Goodman call for fundamental, radical reforms in the organization and approach of America’s intelligence agencies. They show why traditional approaches to intelligence fall short today, and they propose thoughtful alternatives that take into account recent changes in information technology and intelligence requirements. An information-age intelligence service would move away from a rigid, hierarchical structure toward a more fluid, networked organization, the authors explain. They recommend a system that would utilize the private sector—with its access to more capital and its ability to move more quickly than a government organization. At the same time, this system would encourage government intelligence operations to concentrate on the specialized, high-risk activities they are uniquely able to perform. Berkowitz and Goodman examine recent failures of the intelligence community, discuss why traditional principles of intelligence are no longer adequate, and consider the implications for such broad policy issues as secrecy, covert action, and the culture of the intelligence community.

We may notbe able to predict the future with accuracy, but only a tour peril do we ignore imaginative forecasts. Allan Goodman charts the future as historians map the past and in the process uncovers trends that counter conventional wisdom about persistent world problems such as ethnic conflict, environmental degradation, and economic injustice. Just as very few anticipated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the vast changes that followed, many will resist Goodman's vision of a society in which people and robots work side by side and an international polity focuses on the principles of cooperation, interdependency, multilateralism, and interculturalism rather than on conflict models of the nation-state. Looking at the interaction of four central tendencies—democratization, technological expansion, regional integration, and the obsolescence of war—the author sketches a picture of a future imbued with ideas, populated by "ordinary heroes," and governed by the power of vision. Throughout, Goodman's own extraordinary vision is highlighted in breaks from the text to featured previews of news headlines for the 1990s, a series of special information boxes, and a provocative list of 100 inventions/discoveries for the twenty-first century. Challenging and engaging for specialists, students, and general readers alike, A Brief History of the Future is sure to spark the investigation, indignation, and (the author hopes most of all) imagination that the future requires.

As recent conflicts in Panama and the Persian Gulf demonstrate, we know much more about making war than we do about making peace. Such conflicts are not likely to disappear, and this volume reviews what has and hasn't worked in negotiating an end to war. Six case studies—ranging from World War I to the Persian Gulf crisis—illustrate a variety of actors, stakes, and strategies involved in the peacemaking process. Key turning points toward peace or deadlock are identified along the way. Making Peace also provides discussion questions, historical backgrounds, and theoretical introductions to show different—and differentially successful—avenues to peace.

This book provides a representation of a world in which none of us have lived and of its potential dynamics. It looks at the interaction of tendencies such as democratization, technological expansion, regional integration, and the obsolescence of war, and discusses U.S. role in changing world order.

This book focuses on the methods of ending military conflicts through negotiated settlements and the special challenges that negotiating for peace poses for diplomatic personnel and, and, more broadly, for the future welfare of participating nations.