Enemies Of The State Review
An extended interview with the three political prisoners - a frank discussion of past political movements, victories and errors, and the current political climate for revolutionary struggle within the USA.
Beloved Enemies: Our Need for Opponents Review
Do the fractious groups of Arabs and Israelis actually need each other? Can the Pentagon find new enemies to replace the USSR? Are married couples held together by a shared sense of enmity toward outside parties and even each other? Who is more likely to cultivate enemies - men or women? Is the 'devil' a created enemy? Is the need for enemies psychological, sociological, or biological? These and other fascinating questions are explored by David P. Barash as he skilfully combines findings from biology, psychology, sociology, politics, history, and even literature to shed new and unexpected light on the human condition.Barash also offers startling and controversial observations about who we are as human beings and why we seem to thrive on adversarial relationships. He argues that we create and perpetuate our 'enemy system' by 'passing the pain along' - from child abuse to ethnic antagonism. We may well harbour a vestigial 'Neanderthal mentality', which induces us to behave in ways that were adaptive in our evolutionary past but which have broad and even global implications today. "Beloved Enemies" concludes with a hopeful message: we can overcome, not simply our enemies, but our need to have enemies, and our penchant for creating them. To those who seek a better understanding of the nature of conflict and to those who remain confident that we can find answers to seemingly endless and complex antagonisms, this book offers much food for thought.
Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy: Can the American Way of War Adapt? Review
The author offers a detailed comparison between the character of irregular warfare, insurgency in particular, and the principal enduring features of "the American way." He concludes that there is a serious mismatch between that "way" and the kind of behavior that is most effective in countering irregular foes. The author poses the question, Can the American way of war adapt to a strategic threat context dominated by irregular enemies? He suggests that the answer is "perhaps, but only with difficulty." COLIN S. GRAY is Professor of International Politics and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, England. A graduate of the Universities of Manchester and Oxford, Dr. Gray worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), and at Hudson Institute (Croton-on-Hudson, NY), before founding a defense-oriented think tank in the Washington area, the National Institute for Public Policy. (Originally published by the Strategic Studies Institute)
