Max G. Manwaring Poradie kníh

The reality and severity of the threats associated with contemporary transnational security problems indicate that the U.S. and its national and international partners need a new paradigm for the conduct of unconventional asymmetric conflict, and an accompanying new paradigm for strategic leader development. The strategic-level basis of these new paradigms is found in the fact that the global community is redefining security in terms of nothing less than a reconceptualization of sovereignty. In the past, sovereignty was the acknowledged and/or real control of territory and the people in it. Now, sovereignty is the responsibility of governments to protect peoples' well-being and prevent great harm to those peoples. Thus, the security dilemma becomes, "Why, when, and how to intervene to protect people and prevent egregious human suffering?" We address some of the strategic-level questions and recommendations that arise out of that debate. We probably generate more questions than answers, but it is time to begin the strategic-level discussion.

In 2005, Dr. Manwaring wrote a monograph entitled Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare. It came at a time when the United States and Venezuela were accelerating a verbal sparing match regarding which country was destabilizing Latin America more. President Chavez shows no sign of standing down; he slowly and deliberately centralizes his power in Venezuela, and carefully and adroitly articulates his Bolivarian dream (the idea of a Latin American Liberation Movement against U.S. economic and political imperialism). Yet, most North Americans dismiss Chavez as a "nut case," or--even if he is a threat to the security and stability of the Hemisphere--the possibilities of that threat coming to fruition are too far into the future to worry about. Dr. Manwaring's intent is to explain in greater depth what President Chavez is doing and how he is doing it. First, he explains that Hugo Chavez's threat is straightforward, and that it is being translated into a consistent, subtle, ambiguous, and ambitious struggle for power that is beginning to insinuate itself into political life in much of the Western Hemisphere. Second, he shows how President Chavez is encouraging his Venezuelan and other followers to pursue a confrontational, populist, and nationalistic agenda that will be achieved only by (1) radically changing the traditional politics of the Venezuelan state--and other Latin American states--to that of "direct" (totalitarian) democracy; (2) destroying North American hegemony throughout all of Latin America by conducting an irregular Fourth-Generation War "Super Insurgency"; and, (3) country-by-country, building a great new Bolivarian state out of a phased Program for the Liberation of Latin America