Peter Dombrowski

The book explains how U.S. regulators and foreign policy makers have struggled to keep pace with the internationalization of banks. The nation has modified its laws and foreign economic policies to protect the domestic banking system, ensure the stability of international financial markets, and, at times, promote specific foreign policy goals. Although U.S. policies have often hinged on the actions of private banks, such policies rarely succeed. Despite mutual dependence, the nation's goals often conflict with the imperatives of private business. The author analyzes these conflicts with case studies that include the voluntary foreign credit restraint of the 1960s, the rise of international banking facilities in the 1970s, and strategies for coping with the global debt crisis in the 1980s.

'Balance Sheet' examines both how the Iraq war advanced or impeded the pursuit of other important goals of US national security policy and the war's impact on the ability of the United States to pursue its security interests now and in the future.

"Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective explains the origins, evolution, and implications of the regional approach to missile defense that has emerged since the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and has culminated with the missile defense decisions of President Barack Obama. The Obama administration's overarching concept for American missile defense focuses on developing both a national system of limited ground-based defenses, located in Alaska and California, intended to counter limited intercontinental threats, and regionally-based missile defenses consisting of mobile ground-based technologies like the Patriot PAC-3 system, and sea-based Aegis-equipped destroyer and cruisers. The volume is intended to stimulate renewed debates in strategic studies and public policy circles over the contribution of regional and national missile defense to global security. Written from a range of perspectives by practitioners and academics, the book provides a rich source for understanding the technologies, history, diplomacy, and strategic implications of the gradual evolution of American missile defense plans. Experts and non-experts alike--whether needing to examine the offense-defense tradeoffs anew, to engage with a policy update, or to better understand the debate as it relates to a country or region--will find this book invaluable. While it opens the door to the debates, however, it does not find or offer easy solutions--because they do not exist." --Publisher's Web site.