James J. Wirtz

Wirtz explains why U.S. forces were surprised by the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive in 1968 during the Vietnam War.

A debut military thriller that delivers the requisite guts and glory while making a meaningful statement about the ambiguous role of violence in America. Huston, a former Navy F-14 flyboy, bases this intelligent if somewhat wooden page-turner on the scruffy antagonism between Newt Gingrich and President Clinton. His fictional stand-ins lock political horns over the proper response to a terrorist attack on a new American merchant vessel in the South China Sea. After pirates kill the crew, booby-trap the ship, and take the captain as a hostage to an uncharted Indonesian island, gassy President Edward Manchester decides to claim the high moral ground by not responding with force. His situation, we learn through the eyes of his beautiful (and chaste!) aide Molly Vaughan, is that he’s tied by the Indonesians themselves, who refuse to let the US Navy fly over their country. Meanwhile, Molly’s on-again, off-again romantic interest, Jim Dillon, a legal assistant to House Speaker John Stanbridge, points out that the Constitution permits Congress to issue a letter of marque, that is, hire a vessel to make war on another nation for the US. When the terrorists—apparently a group of anti-American Muslims—release a videotape of the captured captain to CNN, Stanbridge, a grandstanding conservative Californian, surfs the wave of public indignation and gets Congress to issue that letter of marque to a bunch of gung-ho Navy brass who want to show the terrorists what Americans are made of. Dillon learns that aggression has its price: To rescue the captain from a pathetic bunch of fake Muslim pirates, 19 Americans die, among them a missionary killed by friendly fire. When motivated by political vanity, are symbolic shows of force worth the cost? Huston’s answer, a qualified yes, is supported by numerous heartstopping scenes of military derring-do, steely camaraderie, and selfless patriotism. [Kirkus Reviews]

"As part of its general rethinking of America's global strategy, the Bush Administration initiated a reexamination of America's nuclear doctrine that has generated considerable controversy with its focus on maintaining a reliance on nuclear weapons and potentially increasing willingness to use them. Here a group of leading strategic analysts examine the background to the reevaluation, issues of implementation, and potential implications internationally."--BOOK JACKET.

"Rockets' Red Glare: Missile Defenses and the Future of World Politics is an examination of the issues at the core of the debate. Leading experts provide the historical background to today's debate, analyze the options, examine the domestic and global contexts, and explore the potential international reactions to an American deployment of missile defenses. The authors suggest that in a deeply connected international system, any American decision will likely have cascading and unintended repercussions, some increasing and others decreasing American security and influence. As the debate on missile defenses intensifies, this book will provide a sound foundation for a fair assessment of arguments from both sides."--BOOK JACKET.