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Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats
An urgent look at how America's national security machine went astray and how it fails to keep us safe—and what we can do to fix it.
Again and again, American taxpayers are asked to open their wallets and pay for a national security machine that costs $1 trillion operate. Yet time and time again, the US government gets it wrong on critical issues. So what can be done? Enter bestselling author Thom Shanker and defense expert Andrew Hoehn. With decades of national security expertise between them and access to virtually every expert, they look at what’s going wrong in national security and how to make it go right.
Age of Danger looks at the major challenges facing America—from superpowers like Russia and China to emerging threats like pandemics, cybersecurity, climate change, and drones—and reimagines the national security apparatus into something that can truly keep Americans safe. Weaving together expert analysis with exclusive interviews from a new generation of national security leaders, Shanker and Hoehn argue that the United States must create an industrial-grade, life-saving machine out of a system that, for too long, was focused only on deterring adversaries and carrying out global military operations. It is a timely and crucial call to action—a call that if heeded, could save Americans lives, money, and our very future on the global stage.
Again and again, American taxpayers are asked to open their wallets and pay for a national security machine that costs $1 trillion operate. Yet time and time again, the US government gets it wrong on critical issues. So what can be done? Enter bestselling author Thom Shanker and defense expert Andrew Hoehn. With decades of national security expertise between them and access to virtually every expert, they look at what’s going wrong in national security and how to make it go right.
Age of Danger looks at the major challenges facing America—from superpowers like Russia and China to emerging threats like pandemics, cybersecurity, climate change, and drones—and reimagines the national security apparatus into something that can truly keep Americans safe. Weaving together expert analysis with exclusive interviews from a new generation of national security leaders, Shanker and Hoehn argue that the United States must create an industrial-grade, life-saving machine out of a system that, for too long, was focused only on deterring adversaries and carrying out global military operations. It is a timely and crucial call to action—a call that if heeded, could save Americans lives, money, and our very future on the global stage.
355 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 9, 2023
14 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 28, 2023
Dense, comprehensive and insightful. Not a casual read by any means, "Age of Danger" does an excellent job of highlighting the history behind many of the new superpowers and threats facing us. Not recommended to finish in a single seating - crammed with information.
April 14, 2023
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Hachette Books for an advanced copy of this book that talks about the ways that America has adapted to threats since the Second World War, its successes and failures and what might be coming in the future.
Trillions with a capital "T" is spent on protecting America both the nation, its interests, its secrets both political and commercial, and yet there is a strong feeling that we as citizens are not safe. Political turmoil in the capital, schools looking more like battle zones than most places we have sent troops too, and threats both real and imagined on the news twenty-four/seven. Trillions spent and yet those who should know best are always being surprised. China is stealing trade secrets, the Berlin Wall is falling, Russian stealing our election, and also invading the Ukraine. Plans come to naught, or just end up scribbled lines in history, Russian resets, expanding our interests in the South Pacific, just words. COVID shows that trillions don't equal skill, ability, or brains, though that could be said about the previous administration. There are experts, banging heads and screaming in the void, and sometimes, they are listened to. However the future shows many dangers, many more than the America seems able to handle, or even to contemplate. Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats by defense expert Andrew Hoehn and journalist and best-selling author Thom Shanker is a look at the history of national security, its unprecedent growth, the wins the losses, and more importantly what is coming and if the country it prepared.
The book begins near the end of the Second World War, when America was just getting over it's long standing feelings of isolation and began to look at the world. America wasn't much for fighting the peace, nor did many people in government want that. In addition few wanted to lose the power that war had given various departments, so there was a little bit of uncertainty. This lasted until the opening days of the Korean Conflict when American troops found themselves out gunned, out maneuvered, and at a loss. Things began to roll, with different department springing up, to cover this to cover that, and to be sure that many people keep their piece of the pie, and didn't lose their status. Moving forward through history readers come to the War on Terror, which in many ways keep many from seeing the bigger pictures that were coming. The rise of China, Russia trying to restart the Cold War, the rise of Drones and bioweapons. And of course climate change, all of which are examined in the book.
A throughly researched and very depressing book. By concentrating on the Middle East and underwear bombers, a lot of the world has continued on without us, and it looks like America has a lot of catching up to do. If possible. The authors interview many experts who present a world that many people in this country have no idea about. The authors discuss the problems in a large organization like the government, the lack of going against the machine, the fact that it takes so long to get things to change. America is spending trillions more on yesterday's events than on tomorrow. While most Americans care little about climate change, the military has plans showing the trouble that weather will cause, from flooded sea bases, to air fields, to being unable to land troops where needed. This is a fascinating book with a lot to think about and discuss. I hope that people with influence and power will read it.
Very well written, very interesting and depressing. There are some hopeful notes, some ideas that seem to be gathering steam and might make a difference. A really great book for political and history students, though many might switch majors after finishing.
Trillions with a capital "T" is spent on protecting America both the nation, its interests, its secrets both political and commercial, and yet there is a strong feeling that we as citizens are not safe. Political turmoil in the capital, schools looking more like battle zones than most places we have sent troops too, and threats both real and imagined on the news twenty-four/seven. Trillions spent and yet those who should know best are always being surprised. China is stealing trade secrets, the Berlin Wall is falling, Russian stealing our election, and also invading the Ukraine. Plans come to naught, or just end up scribbled lines in history, Russian resets, expanding our interests in the South Pacific, just words. COVID shows that trillions don't equal skill, ability, or brains, though that could be said about the previous administration. There are experts, banging heads and screaming in the void, and sometimes, they are listened to. However the future shows many dangers, many more than the America seems able to handle, or even to contemplate. Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats by defense expert Andrew Hoehn and journalist and best-selling author Thom Shanker is a look at the history of national security, its unprecedent growth, the wins the losses, and more importantly what is coming and if the country it prepared.
The book begins near the end of the Second World War, when America was just getting over it's long standing feelings of isolation and began to look at the world. America wasn't much for fighting the peace, nor did many people in government want that. In addition few wanted to lose the power that war had given various departments, so there was a little bit of uncertainty. This lasted until the opening days of the Korean Conflict when American troops found themselves out gunned, out maneuvered, and at a loss. Things began to roll, with different department springing up, to cover this to cover that, and to be sure that many people keep their piece of the pie, and didn't lose their status. Moving forward through history readers come to the War on Terror, which in many ways keep many from seeing the bigger pictures that were coming. The rise of China, Russia trying to restart the Cold War, the rise of Drones and bioweapons. And of course climate change, all of which are examined in the book.
A throughly researched and very depressing book. By concentrating on the Middle East and underwear bombers, a lot of the world has continued on without us, and it looks like America has a lot of catching up to do. If possible. The authors interview many experts who present a world that many people in this country have no idea about. The authors discuss the problems in a large organization like the government, the lack of going against the machine, the fact that it takes so long to get things to change. America is spending trillions more on yesterday's events than on tomorrow. While most Americans care little about climate change, the military has plans showing the trouble that weather will cause, from flooded sea bases, to air fields, to being unable to land troops where needed. This is a fascinating book with a lot to think about and discuss. I hope that people with influence and power will read it.
Very well written, very interesting and depressing. There are some hopeful notes, some ideas that seem to be gathering steam and might make a difference. A really great book for political and history students, though many might switch majors after finishing.
July 7, 2023
If you are military, LEO, intelligence, FEMA, USAID, CT Professional et.al., I CANNOT honestly recommend this book. The history the authors provide is without proper context and can lead a reader to draw an inaccurate analysis and conclusion- at best it would be incomplete and biased. There is an over reliance on one person they refer to as a "subject matter expert." The narrative is almost condescending in tone and is most definitely glib in some areas. I am also not quite convinced that if the target audience was someone very new or a novice, that this book would gets its points across adequately.
The basic theme they promote is worthy of a serious deep dive. The concluding chapter should not have been a recap of what they had already covered in the previous 300 pages. The conclusion should have gone to the heart of the matter - what are the proposed solutions - which are and will be lost to anyone that is not familiar with Task Force, Military, Stability Ops, Humanitarian work, USAID, FEMA, Joint, CT or Counterintelligence ops and the issues those men and agencies have to work through. RAND Reporting and book sales does not seem to be at the level it was several years ago. ( I do recommend the books they sold on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency.) After reading this book, I am more inclined to trust the Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office and Inspector General reports on these issues than from RAND- and especially not this book.
The basic theme they promote is worthy of a serious deep dive. The concluding chapter should not have been a recap of what they had already covered in the previous 300 pages. The conclusion should have gone to the heart of the matter - what are the proposed solutions - which are and will be lost to anyone that is not familiar with Task Force, Military, Stability Ops, Humanitarian work, USAID, FEMA, Joint, CT or Counterintelligence ops and the issues those men and agencies have to work through. RAND Reporting and book sales does not seem to be at the level it was several years ago. ( I do recommend the books they sold on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency.) After reading this book, I am more inclined to trust the Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office and Inspector General reports on these issues than from RAND- and especially not this book.
January 22, 2023
Age of Danger is a must read! It covers the American security apparatus (intelligence and military) from after WW II up until the present. It is well written and is most informative. It was hard to put this book down. It covered almost every important point and every shift in policy by the intelligence community and our nation's armed forces. Buy it, enjoy it, and become more fully informed.
July 29, 2023
An excellent examination of the myriad of current and future threats to American and global security.
September 25, 2024
This is a good overview of the current problems facing the world.
March 30, 2025
Really to cool to hear stuff that I hear at work but in. Larger context. Not too dated, only getting 3 since it lacked new ideas but to be fair I am in this space
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews