David Rohde, former New York Times reporter, is publishing a book about Trump’s conception of the “deep state.” In an interesting interview with Terry Gross of NPR, Rohde explains how President Trump has successfully politicized the intelligence community and turned his critics among the former spy chiefs into useful foils–even decoys–for his own ambitions. I...
Category: Reviews
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Counterterrorism: A Woman’s Game
From The Interpreter, an Australian blog about international politics. two recently published books on counterterrorism, intelligence, and national security fly in the face of the notion that counterterrorism and national security is a man’s game and show that when it comes to gender and counterterrorism, there is much more than meets the eye. The first...
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‘Electronic Authoritarianism:’ How MBS Rose to Power in Saudi Arabia
A new biography of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), by Ben Hubbard, describes how he perfected “electronic authoritarianism.” From Fred Hiatt’s review in the The Washington Post the most fundamental change the headstrong crown prince has brought about, Hubbard shows, is to turn a “soft-gloved autocracy” that featured multiple centers of power, and...
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‘The Report:’ Torture Meets Truth in Obama’s Washington
For better and worse, “The Report” is a Washington movie, right down to its sanitized title. The credits hint it was originally called “The Torture Report.” A bureaucratic thriller starring Adam Driver as Dan Jones, an obsessed Senate investigator, the movie deploys the iconography of the capital—the looming Capitol dome, the expansive Mall, a cushy...
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The Last Assassination of the Cold War
[This review was first published in The Intercept, Nov. 17, 2019) Review of November, by Jorge Galán (London, Constable, 2019) The assassination of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador 30 years ago this month was the last great crime of the Cold War. It happened on November 16th, 1989, a week after German protesters began...