Examines the Washington consensus on national security and explains why it should change, arguing that America should fix internal problems rather than using the military to fix perceived international ones.

"Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These projects are vital to how we understand the world we really live in: where one nuclear missile begets one in return; where the choreography of the world's end requires massive decisions made on seconds-notice, with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Annie...

Shows Obama making the critical decisions on the Afghanistan War, the secret war in Pakistan, and the worldwide fight against terrorism.

"This suspenseful and propulsive account of the days leading up to the end of World War II, is told through the stories of three men: Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atomic bomb; Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in Europe and the Pacific, who was in charge of actually dropping the bombs; and Shigenori Tōgō, the Japanese Foreign Minister, who was the only one in Emperor...

A meticulously researched account of the three men who were intimately involved with America's decision to drop the atomic bomb--and Japan's decision to surrender--draws on their diaries to bring these critical events to life and contemplate the immense weight of their historic decision.