Running the World : The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power

by Rothkopf, David J.

• ISBN13: 9781586482480
• ISBN10: 1586482483
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-05-31
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

Never before in the history of mankind have so few people had so much power over so many. The people at the top of the American national security establishment, the President and his principal advisors, the core team at the helm of the National Security Council, are without question the most powerful committee in the history of the world.Yet, in many respects, they are among the least understood.A former senior official in the Clinton Administration himself, David Rothkopf served with and knows personally many of the NSC's key players of the past twenty-five years. InRunning the Worldhe pulls back the curtain on this shadowy world to explore its inner workings, its people, their relationships, their contributions and the occasions when they have gone wrong. He traces the group's evolution from the final days of the Second World War to the post-Cold War realities of global terrorexploring its triumphs, its human dramas and most recently, what many consider to be its breakdown at a time when we needed it most.Drawing on an extraordinary series of insider interviews with policy makers including Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, senior officials of the Bush Administration, and over 130 others, the book offers unprecedented insights into what must change if America is to maintain its unprecedented worldwide leadership in the decades ahead.

Author Biography

David Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and chairman and CEO of The Rothkopf Group LLC.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. ix
The Committee in Charge of Running the World	p. 3
Washington's Choice	p. 22
Greatness Thrust Upon Them	p. 33
Gulliver Embarks: Leaders, Leadership, and the Difference Between the Two	p. 61
Bound in Lilliput	p. 80
America in Decline, the NSC Ascendant	p. 108
A Superpower in Search of Itself	p. 157
Morning in America, Twilight at the NSC	p. 210
Across a Bright Line in History	p. 260
The New, Improved, Post-Cold War, Information-Age, Indispensable Nation	p. 303
The Beginning of the End of the End of History	p. 344
A Thumb on the Scales: Tipping the Balance in the Battle Between the Traditionalists and the Transformationalists	p. 389
U.S. Foreign Policy in the Age of Ambiguity	p. 442
A Guide to Abbreviations and Acronyms	p. 471
Acknowledgments	p. 475
Notes	p. 479
Bibliography	p. 521
Index	p. 535
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