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Foundations & Fundamentals
Building a Good Nation and a Great Power
John Jay, Federalist No. 4: The Fleets of America
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 68: The Dangers of Foreign Influence
Constitution of the United States of America
George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Thomas Jefferson, Dreams of the Future, 1816
James Monroe, The Monroe Doctrine, 1823
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
Abraham Lincoln, The Last Best Hope, 1862
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863
Theodore Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Democratic Republic, 1910
Theodore Roosevelt, In the Interest of Humanity, 1904
Martin Luther King, A Special Job for Mankind, 1965
Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 1987
Samuel Huntington, The U.S.—Decline or Renewal?, 1988
Ronald Reagan, Freedom Man, 1989
Paul Johnson, Modern Times, 1992 edition
Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, 2001
Walter Russel Mead, Special Providence, 2001
John Lewis Gaddis, Surprise, Security and the American Experience, 2004
Niall Ferguson, Colossus, 2004
William Odom & Robert Dujarric, America’s Inadvertent Empire, 2004
Michael Mandelbaum, David’s Friend Goliath, 2006
Josef Joffe, The Default Power, 2009
Stephen Ambrose & Douglas Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938, 2011
Robert Kagan, The World America Made, 2012
Henry Nau, Conservative Internationalism, 2013
Robert Kaplan, In Defense of Empire, 2014
Robert Kagan, Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire, 2014
Robert Kaplan, America Is Fated to Lead, 2014
Dick Cheney & Liz Cheney, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, 2015
STEPPING STONES | Declinism, 2007; History Lessons, 2010; The Myth of America’s Decline, 2012; The Face of America, 2014; Mission Statements, 2016; A Whittled Big Stick, 2019
Learning from War
George Washington, The Urgent Need for Men and Supplies, 1777
Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, 1865
Ulysses S. Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, 1885
Theodore Roosevelt, Preparedness, 1897
William McKinley, Message Requesting a Declaration of War, 1898
Theodore Roosevelt, Preparedness without Militarism, 1914
Theodore Roosevelt, The Danger of Making Unwise Peace Treaties, 1914
Woodrow Wilson, War Address: A Fearful Thing, 1917
Franklin Roosevelt, The Great Arsenal of Democracy, 1940
Eleanor Roosevelt, The First Pearl Harbor Address, 1941
Franklin Roosevelt, War Address: A Day of Infamy, 1941
Winston Churchill, America’s Olympian Fortitude, 1941
Franklin Roosevelt, Fireside Chat: The Task We Face, 1942
Dwight Eisenhower, The Great Crusade, 1944
Franklin Roosevelt, D-Day Prayer, 1944
Pearl Harbor Commission Report, 1946
Winston Churchill, Sinews of Peace, 1946
George Kennan, The Long Telegram, 1946
Harry Truman, Free Peoples Look to Us, 1947
Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, 1948
Dwight Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 1948
NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, 1950
Douglas MacArthur, No Substitute for Victory, 1951
George Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1951
T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, 1952
Winston Churchill, Never Despair, 1955
John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961
Douglas MacArthur, Duty, Honor, Country, 1962
Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August, 1962
Burke Davis, Marine: The Life of Lt. Gen. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, 1964
DOD, The Pentagon Papers, 1967
Richard Nixon, Asia after Vietnam, 1967
David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 1972
James Webb, Fields of Fire, 1974
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 1977
Ronald Reagan, The Boys of Point Du Hoc, 1984
Ronald Reagan, Tear Down This Wall, 1987
David Cannadine, Ed., The Speeches of Winston Churchill, 1989
Billy Mossman, Ebb and Flow, 1990
Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once…And Young, 1992
Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms, 1994
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, 1994
H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, 1997
Richard J. Stillman, General Patton’s Timeless Leadership Principles, 1998
Samuel Huntington, The Lonely Superpower, 1999
Robert Kaplan, Kissinger, Metternich and Realism, 1999
Derek Leebaert, The Fifty Year Wound, 2002
Robert Kaplan, Supremacy by Stealth, 2003
The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004
The Iraq WMD Commission Report, 2005
John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History, 2005
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, 2005
Fouad Ajami, The Foreigner’s Gift, 2006
Annelise Anderson & Martin Anderson, Reagan’s Secret War, 2009
William Stueck, The Korean War at Sixty, 2011
Michael Lind, Why We Went to War in Vietnam, 2012
Robert Gates, Duty, 2014
A.J. Baime, The Arsenal of Democracy, 2014
Barack Obama, We Tell This Story, 2014
David Rothkopf, National Insecurity, 2014
Victor Davis Hanson, The Second World Wars, 2017
John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy, 2018
Barry Gewen, The Inevitability of Tragedy, 2020
Robert Kagan, A Superpower, Like It or Not, 2021
Hal Brands & Peter Feaver, The Myth of American Militarism, 2021
STEPPING STONES | Thirteen Years: The Causes and Consequences of the War in Iraq, 2003; V-O Day, 2011; America at War, 2015; Lead Together, Bleed Together, 2016; Tet, 2017; Lessons and Leftovers of the Great War, 2018; A Question of Intervention, 2018; A High Price, 2018; Defending a Dirty Word, 2018; Jackpot, 2019; Post-Truth and Consequences, 2019; Weighing the Soleimani Strike, 2020
Waging Peace
Woodrow Wilson, The 14 Points, 1918
Henry Cabot Lodge, The 14 Reservations, 1919
Franklin Roosevelt, The Four Freedoms, 1941
Franklin Roosevelt & Winston Churchill, Atlantic Charter, 1941
George Marshall, The Responsibility of Victory, 1945
George Marshall, What Must Be Done, 1947
Marshall Plan, 1948
Michael J. Hennelly, Leadership Lessons from General George C. Marshall, 2018
David Rolls, George Marshall: Defender of the Republic, 2019
North Atlantic Treaty, 1949
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, 1952
Harry Truman, Farewell Address, 1953
Dwight Eisenhower, Our Foreign Policy, 1953
Dwight Eisenhower, A Chance for Peace, 1953
Dwight Eisenhower, The Battle for the Free World, 1959
Dwight Eisenhower, A Farewell Warning, 1961
John Kennedy, A Sea of Peace or a Theater of War, 1962
John Kennedy, Let Them Come to Berlin, 1963
Richard Nixon, A New Relationship with the People’s Republic of China, 1971
Richard Nixon, Peace in Asia and Peace in the World, 1972
The Helsinki Accords, 1975
Gerald Ford, To Promote Peace and Progress, 1975
Jimmy Carter, Human Rights and Foreign Policy, 1977
George H.W. Bush, The Cause of Freedom, 1990
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, 1992
George H.W. Bush, We Must Give Them Hope, 1992
George Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 1995
George H.W. Bush & Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 1998
David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, 2001
Max Boot, Savage Wars of Peace, 2002
Robert Kaplan, Imperial Grunts, 2005
Richard Reeves, Daring Young Men, 2010
Robert Kagan, Nation-Building: Our National Pastime, 2011
William Inboden, Religious Freedom and National Security, 2012
Retired Flag Officers, The Need for Strategic Investments in Diplomacy and Development, 2017
Condoleezza Rice & Philip Zelikow, To Build a Better World, 2019
STEPPING STONES | NATO after Kosovo, 1999; The Exertions of Better Men, 2005; NATO at 60, 2009; No Better Friend, 2009; A Freedom Problem, 2009; A World Worth Fighting For: The Power and Promise of the Atlantic Charter, 2011; To Bolster Failed States, Support Freedom, 2012; A Helping Hand for the Commander-in-Chief, 2012; The Special Relationship Deepens, 2013; Our Friends in France, 2016; Bearing the Burden, 2017; A Confluence of Interests and Ideals, 2018; In Defense of Foreign Aid, 2019