PositiveThe Wall Street JournalMr. Plokhy examines the range of successful nuclear proliferators, from India and Pakistan to Israel, Iran and North Korea ... Mr. Plokhy has written a useful history of how we reached the present; he reminds us why each ‘next new thing’… should not distract us from the continuing existential need to deal with the power of the sun’s nearest relatives here on earth.
RaveThe Wall Street Journal... combines Washington decision-making with battlefield reporting in ways that few other writers can manage. This account of America’s war against the Islamic State is Mr. Gordon’s first without co-author Bernard Trainor, who died in 2018, but it equals its forerunners in quality. While daily press reporting strains to draw overbroad conclusions from insufficient data, Mr. Gordon, a national security correspondent for the Journal, maximizes history and minimizes judgments. He presents his analysis, of course, but it’s always moored in reality.
Mark T Esper
RaveWall Street JournalMr. Esper details the all-consuming task of managing America\'s largest and most vital cabinet department—instructive reading for those unfamiliar with what operationalizing national security policy decisions involves...Time and again, he shows how presidential inattention, ignorance, incuriosity, duplicity and unwillingness to take responsibility for hard decisions all put the United States at risk...The memoir’s title embodies what Mr. Esper and other national security officials were about, trying to serve their country, not one individual...A Sacred Oath is not a gratuitous tell-all...It is a work of history...Mr. Esper has his perspectives, to which he is entitled, but his willingness to go on the record at length is invaluable.
