Showing results by narrator "Kevin Stillwell" in All Categories

Lawrence Freedman’s massive, ambitious new audiobook, Strategy, offers a personal take on an important term, one so overused that it has become almost meaningless.

Few anticipated that 2016 would see such unprecedented missile and nuclear testing in North Korea, most recently its fifth and largest ever test, reportedly coming in at 10 kilotons. But none of this should have come as a surprise. Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s approach to developing its strategic forces is markedly different - more aggressive - than it was under his father or grandfather.

Brazil has rarely had it so bad. The country’s economy has collapsed: since 2013, its un-employment rate has nearly doubled, to more than 11 percent, and last year its GDP shrank by 3.8 percent, the largest contraction in a quarter century. Petrobras, Brazil’s semipublic oil giant, has lost around 85 percent of its value since 2008, thanks to declining commodity prices and its role in a massive corruption scandal. The Zika virus has infected thousands of Brazilians, exposing the frailty of the country’s health system.

Pat Williams has drawn on his basketball industry connections to compile great stories from on and off the court. Fans will be inspired, surprised, and even amused, by inside stories from well-known coaches and players, fascinating looks behind the scenes, and anecdotes from the people who make it all possible - the fans. Includes first person stories from 21 basketball celebrities, plus Pat Williams.

Contrary to popular belief, the reunification of North Korea and South Korea would not spell disaster for South Korea, nor would it pose an unacceptable risk for the United States, China, and Japan. Rather, it would produce massiveeconomic and social benefits for the peninsula and the region.

China is part of the solution when it comes to North Korea, but, through its continued material support of the Kim regime, it is also part of the problem.

In Bangladesh, the Copenhagen Consensus Center has used cost-benefit analysis to compare the expected returns from alternative policies, allowing the government to improve its citizens’ lives by choosing the best ones. The approach may sound simplistic, but it has the potential to bring enormous benefits almost everywhere.

Last October, when the American destroyer USS Lassen sailed by Subi Reef, an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea, a number of Chinese merchant ships and fishing boats maneuvered around it, apparently having anticipated its approach. The Lassen was on a freedom of navigation operation, meant to demonstrate the United States’ commitment to maintaining open access to the area, much of which China claims as its own.

To create broad-based and sustainable economic growth, governments in the developing world should foster market-creating innovation - that is, the generation of new products and services that reach an entirely new population of customers.

Until recently, most Europeans believed that their post-Cold War security order held universal appeal and could be a model for the rest of the world.

In this remarkable, groundbreaking new book Sean McMeekin marks a generational shift in our view of Stalin as an ally in the Second World War. Stalin's only difference from Hitler, he argues, was that he was a successful murderous predator. With Hitler dead and the Third Reich in ruins, Stalin created an immense new Communist empire. Among his holdings were Czechoslovakia and Poland, the fates of which had first set the West against the Nazis and, of course, China and North Korea, the ramifications of which we still live with today.

After a tour of Vietnam and a three-year stint in prison, Jason is back in town and wants to rebuild his relationship with Gibby, the younger brother he hasn't seen for years. Determined to make that connection, he coaxes Gibby into a day at the lake: long hours of sunshine and whisky and older women. But when the four of them encounter a prison transfer bus on a stretch of empty road, one of the women taunts the prisoners, causing a riot on the bus.

Investing in Resources: How to Profit from the Outsized Potential and Avoid the Risks details how history and fortunes will be made in another extraordinarily rare investment opportunity that's happening right now. The opportunity that will enable today's savvy investor to realize incredible long-term profits is in commodities.

A Civil War spy is pulled out of retirement to find a killer. It's 1862, and for Harrison Raines, the Civil War is finished. Since the First Battle of Bull Run, he has served the Union Army as a spy, crisscrossing the war-torn country and witnessing more death, misery, and carnage than any man should. Although a Virginian, he loathes slavery and is proud to have served Abraham Lincoln. But Raines has had enough killing and wishes only to retire to a tranquil patch of land.

The Obama administration did not give away the Internet by freeing the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to act autonomously. In fact, its actions will protect the best of the Internet: its openness, diversity, and resilience.

For nearly four centuries, since the Peace of Westphalia, the concept of sovereignty has occupied the core of what international order there has been. But an approach to international order premised solely on respect for sovereignty is no longer sufficient. Today’s circumstances call for an updated operating system—call it World Order 2.0—that includes not only the rights of sovereign states but also those states’ obligations to others.

Fifty years ago this week, the Cultural Revolution began with a sudden shift in power. China’s youth, raised to revere their teachers and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres, were abruptly told to overthrow them instead. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong urged students to “bombard the headquarters,” smoking out crypto-capitalists and spies who had wormed their way into the party and betrayed the revolution. “To rebel,” the chairman assured the young, “is justified.”

This week, Ethiopia is commemorating its national day with an exhibition celebrating the country’s economic progress. More than 140 companies - some state-owned, some private - have set up displays in Millennium Hall, a conference center in Addis Ababa’s upscale Bole neighborhood.

Successful foreign policy is largely invisible. It often means paying up front for benefits that are hard to see until you lose them.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew and former State Department Principal Deputy Coordinator for Sanctions Policy Richard Nephew argue that since the end of the Cold War, the United States’ use of unilateral economic policy, particularly sanctions, has threatened to alienate other countries and undermine U.S. power. Under President Donald Trump, that threat has become a reality.