{"product_id":"9781608194452","title":"Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation Builders","description":"In May 2003, President George W. Bush declared victory in Iraq. But \u003cbr\u003ewhile we won the war, we catastrophically lost the peace. Our failure \u003cbr\u003eprompted a fundamental change in our foreign policy. Confronted with the\u003cbr\u003e shortcomings of \"shock and awe,\" the U.S. military shifted its focus to\u003cbr\u003e \"stability operations\": counterinsurgency and the rebuilding of failed \u003cbr\u003estates. In less than a decade, foreign assistance has become \u003cbr\u003emilitarized; humanitarianism has been armed.\u003cp\u003eCombining recent history and firsthand reporting, \u003ci\u003eArmed Humanitarians\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e traces how the concepts of nation-building came into vogue, and how, \u003cbr\u003eevangelized through think tanks, government seminars, and the press, \u003cbr\u003ethis new doctrine took root inside the Pentagon and the State \u003cbr\u003eDepartment. Following this extraordinary experiment in armed social work\u003cbr\u003e as it plays out from Afghanistan and Iraq to Africa and Haiti, Nathan \u003cbr\u003eHodge exposes the difficulties of translating these ambitious new \u003cbr\u003etheories into action. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUltimately seeing this new era in foreign \u003cbr\u003erelations as a noble but flawed experiment, he shows how armed \u003cbr\u003ehumanitarianism strains our resources, deepens our reliance on \u003cbr\u003eoutsourcing and private contractors, and leads to perceptions of a new \u003cbr\u003eimperialism, arguably a major factor in any number of new conflicts \u003cbr\u003earound the world. As we attempt to build nations, we may in fact be \u003cbr\u003eweakening our own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNathan Hodge is a Washington, D.C.-based writer\u003cbr\u003e who specializes in defense and national security. He has reported from \u003cbr\u003eIran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, and a number of other countries in the \u003cbr\u003eMiddle East and former Soviet Union. He is the author, with Sharon \u003cbr\u003eWeinberger, of \u003ci\u003eA Nuclear Family Vacation\u003c\/i\u003e, and his work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eSlate\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eForeign Policy\u003c\/i\u003e, and many other newspapers and magazines.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury USA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47177823879408,"sku":"9781608194452","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781608194452_p0.jpg?v=1763833759","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781608194452","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}