War and Decision
Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism
Chapter One
This Means War
The threat of jihadist terrorism was on the list of U.S. government concerns at the start of the Bush Administration in early 2001, but it got less attention than Russia did. As a first order of business, President George W. Bush wanted his new Administration to ensure, if possible, that Russia and the United States would never revive the nuclear tensions of the Cold War.
His Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, favored the effort. Over the years, Rumsfeld's view of the relationship between the two countries had been informed by his career as a member of Congress, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, and corporate executive. The President assigned Rumsfeld a leading role in this Russia project—and so it became my first major assignment when I returned to the government in mid-July 2001 as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the top adviser on defense strategy and national security to Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfow ... read full excerpt from War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism ebook
