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National Security and Double Government 1st Edition
Purchase options and add-ons
- ISBN-100190206446
- ISBN-13978-0190206444
- Edition1st
- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication dateOctober 8, 2014
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions9.02 x 5.31 x 0.93 inches
- Print length257 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Bruce Ackerman
Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science
Yale University
"Glennon has written a unique book that stands out among the collection of post-9/11 works for the way it lashes historical trends to the most contemporary problems of government secrecy, power and overreach in a highly readable way. I underlined passages on just about every page and can't wait to reread it. The 'ah ha!' moments are endless."
Dana Priest
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning national security reporter, The Washington Post
"Michael Glennon has written a brilliant book that helps explain why U.S. foreign policy changes so little over time, despite frequent failure.... Glennon shows how the underlying national security bureaucracy in Washington - what might be called the deep state - ensures that presidents and their successors act on the world stage like Tweedledee and Tweedledum."
John J. Mearsheimer
R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science
University of Chicago
"Michael Glennon offers us a penetrating, useful, and ultimately depressing warning about American democracy, indeed all democracies: There's no hope against the technocrats and moneyed interests while the general public remains so incredibly ignorant of public affairs. Liberal advocates take note."
Leslie H. Gelb
President emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former columnist for The New York Times
"National Security and Double Government is brilliant, deep, sad, and vastly learned across multiple fields--a work of Weberian power and stature. It deserves to be read and discussed. The book raises philosophical questions in the public sphere in a way not seen at least since Fukuyama's end of history."
David A. Westbrook
Del Cotto Professor
SUNY Buffalo Law School
"Shrewdly updating Walter Bagehot's theory of 'double government,' Michael Glennon shows how present-day Washington really works. In our faux democracy, those we elect to govern serve largely ornamental purposes, while those who actually wield power, especially in the realm of national security, do so chiefly with an eye toward preserving their status and prerogatives. Read this incisive and richly documented book, and you'll understand why."
Andrew J. Bacevich
Professor of History and International Relations Boston University "Taking a leaf from Walter Bagehot's thesis of dual government in Britain, Michael Glennon has transported the concept of 'double government' to the United States analyzing the constitutional institutions, or what he calls the 'Madisonian' side; and a cohort of several hundred senior military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials who run the daily business of national security, or what he calls the 'Trumanite' side. This explains the relatively little difference between the Bush 43 and the Obama presidencies. In this brilliant, deeply researched book, Glennon spells out the relation of his overall thesis to contemporary issues such as the Snowden revelations."
Charles G. Cogan
Associate, International Security Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Harvard Kennedy School "In this timely book Michael Glennon provides a compelling argument that America's national security policy is growing outside the bounds of existing government institutions. This is at once a constitutional challenge, but is also a case study in how national security can change government institutions, create new ones, and, in effect, stand-up a parallel state. This is a well-argued book of academic import and policy relevance. It is recommended reading for an informed debate on an issue of great significance."
Vali Nasr
Dean of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies "National Security and Double Government is an important and insightful book. It should be read by anyone concerned that Obama's national security policies differ so little from those of the Bush Administration, and by every in-coming President and her staff."
Morton H. Halperin
Senior Advisor Open Society Foundations "Michael Glennon's National Security and Double Government explains why U.S. foreign policy is prone to recurring failure and resistant to genuine reform. Instead of being responsive to citizens or subject to effective checks and balances, U.S. national security policy is in fact conducted by a shadow government of bureaucrats and a supporting network of think tanks, media insiders, and ambitious policy wonks. Presidents may come and go, but the permanent national security establishment inevitably defeats their efforts to chart a new course. Gracefully written and extensively researched, this book is the most penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy that I have read in years."
Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer
Professor of International Affairs Harvard Kennedy School
Book Description
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Oxford University Press; 1st edition (October 8, 2014)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 257 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0190206446
- ISBN-13 : 978-0190206444
- Item Weight : 14.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 9.02 x 5.31 x 0.93 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,030,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #416 in Foreign & International Law
- #992 in General Constitutional Law
- #1,452 in Civil Rights & Liberties (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Michael J. Glennon is Professor of Constitutional and International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He has been Legal Counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1977-1980); Fulbright Distinguished Professor of International and Constitutional Law, Vytautus Magnus University School of Law, Kaunas, Lithuania (1998); a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC (2001-2002); Thomas Hawkins Johnson Visiting Scholar at the United States Military Academy, West Point (2005); Director of Studies at the Hague Academy of International Law (2006); and professeur invité at the University of Paris II, Panthéon-Assas (2006-2013). Professor Glennon has served as a consultant to various congressional committees, the U.S. State Department, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law. A frequent commentator on public affairs, he has spoken widely within the United States and abroad and appeared on Nightline, the Today Show, NPR's All Things Considered and other national news programs. His op-ed pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, International Herald-Tribune, Financial Times, and Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung.
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Glennon has done a measured job with his book. Without getting too dry it has an almost scholarly feel with its strong evidential base and his care in not drawing too long a conclusion from the available evidence (a failing of many others in the area). He provides a very useful and memorable model for interpreting and questioning what is before us. I'd go as far as to call the model compelling, and at that point suggest that this may reflect my satisfaction with the work. Here in NZ we have had sweeping law changes in the last two years designed to bring us into line with the US - these were accomplished largely without public noise (we tend to a disgraceful degree of civic apathy here) and Glennon's model better frames those changes than any other I'm aware of.
If you're a so-called "prepper"or anyone of similar thinking, this book's probably not for you. However, if you want an interesting and illuminating way of interpreting what you see and hear, and a sound option for working through what the events mean - this could be just the ticket.
Prof. Glennon is to be commended for having the intestinal fortitude to write this book and subjecting himself to the inevitable criticism which will follow from the defenders of the status quo.
However, I can only give the book four stars, as it has a serious flaw in my opinion. The author subscribes to a benign explanation for the rise in double government, and unjustly ignores the role of the armaments industry and defense contractors in the explosive growth of the national security state. The motivation is money, and the systematic looting of the U.S. Treasury to benefit private industry, which may ultimately prove the undoing of our democracy.
President Eisenhower, in his now famous farewell address in 1960, warned us all against the gaining of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial establishment. He saw the dangers posed by policies being formulated and operations being conducted by our military and intelligence agencies when the primary benefits flowed to those with an economic stake in the outcomes, rather than acting in the best interests of our citizenry.
Anyone interested in learning how we have gotten to this sad stage, with no real prospects for change from one administration to the next, should read this book.