The November 2013 revision of the Defense Academy of the United Kingdom reading list

(source) As my predecessor said, we cannot predict the future. But we can expect it to test our intellectual mettle. We will have to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, to decide how to achieve the necessary outcomes, and to persuade others of the need to act in a timely and effective fashion. We will have to do this in ways that reflect and advance our national interest and make best use of the resources that we are provided with. This will increasingly require a breadth and depth of contextual understanding, an ability to interpret the lessons of history, agile and creative thinking, and a dedicated, professional approach to all that we do, be that on operations or in the office. This web page is designed to tempt individuals into developing such attributes through reading. It contains lists of books and articles that will provide intellectual stimulus for those who work in or with Defence, be they military or civilian.

This revision

Context

Book cover for The Unfinished Global Revolution: The Pursuit of a New International Politics

Book cover for The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World

Book cover for Victory Among People: Lessons from Countering Insurgency and Stabilising Fragile States

Book cover for Military Orientalism: Eastern War Through Western Eyes

Book cover for Distilling the Frenzy: Writing the History of Our Times

Book cover for The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

Book cover for The Breaking Of Nations

Book cover for At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA

Book cover for The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World

Book cover for Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World

Book cover for The Future of Power

Strategy

Book cover for The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice

Book cover for Military Strategy: The Politics and Technique of War

Book cover for My Share of the Task: A Memoir

Book cover for Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime

Book cover for The Glorious Art of Peace: From the Iliad to Iraq

Book cover for Thucydides on Strategy: Athenian and Spartan Grand Strategies in the Peloponesian War and Their Relevance Today

Book cover for Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters

Warfare

Book cover for Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Book cover for Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945

Book cover for Intelligence and Strategy: Selected Essays

Book cover for Can Intervention Work?

Book cover for The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World

Book cover for An Ethics of Interrogation

Book cover for Morality and War: Can War be Just in the Twenty-first Century?

Book cover for The Mask of Command

Book cover for Decision in Normandy: The Real Story of Montgomery and the Allied Campaign

Book cover for Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression

Book cover for Afghanistan Revealed: Beyond the Headlines

Book cover for Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It

Book cover for Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects

Book cover for Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

Book cover for Precision-Guided Munitions and Human Suffering in War

Book cover for War of Choice: The British in Iraq 2003-9

Book cover for Just And Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations

Book cover for The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command

Partners

Book cover for Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy

Book cover for Spanish Ambassadors Suitcase

Book cover for The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today

Book cover for The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945-1967

Book cover for George Washington and the American Military Tradition

Book cover for The Military Maxims Of Napoleon

Book cover for A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia

Book cover for NATO in Search of a Vision

Book cover for The Return of History and the End of Dreams

Book cover for Tomorrow's War

People

Book cover for On the psychology of military incompetence

Book cover for Thinking, Fast and Slow

Book cover for The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers

Book cover for The Hubris Syndrome: Bush, Blair & the Intoxication of Power

Book cover for The Leadership Skills Handbook: 50 Essential Skills You Need to Be A Leader

Book cover for Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different

Book cover for Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Organization

Book cover for War Diaries, 1939-1945: Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke

Book cover for A Question of Security: The British Defence Review in an Age of Austerity

Book cover for Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War

Book cover for A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War

Book cover for The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable