6 Nightmares

Though we live in a time of relative peace and prosperity, serious threats to our national security lie just beyond the horizon. Threats beyond any the United States has faced before, or possibly even imagined. Should these situations become real, will our government be ready?

In Six Nightmares, former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake draws on his experience coordinating foreign policy to examine six major threats to the security and well-being of American citizens. Lake details scenarios that could arise from global terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international crime, new forms of warfare, and other serious risks to our security, and shows how it is all too plausible that these threats could become real. He analyzes what the government is doing to prepare for these potential disasters, and the alarming ways in which we aren't yet ready to face them.

At the same time, Lake looks back firsthand on key decisions made during his tenure in the Clinton administration, including flying Tomahawks over Baghdad in 1993, the anguish over Somalia, and the decision to go into Haiti. At once strategic and per