Running the World

Never before in the history of mankind have so few people had so much power over so many. The people at the top of the American national security establishment, the President and his principal advisors, the core team at the helm of the National Security Council, are without question the most powerful committee in the history of the world.Yet, in many respects, they are among the least understood. A former senior official in the Clinton Administration himself, David Rothkopf served with and knows personally many of the NSC's key players of the past twenty-five years. In Running the World he pulls back the curtain on this shadowy world to explore its inner workings, its people, their relationships, their contributions and the occasions when they have gone wrong. He traces the group's evolution from the final days of the Second World War to the post-Cold War realities of global terror,exploring its triumphs, its human dramas and most recently, what many consider to be its breakdown at a time when we needed it most. Drawing on an extraordinary series of insider interviews with policy makers including Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, senior officials of the Bush Administration, and over 130 others, the book offers unprecedented insights into what must change if America is to maintain its unprecedented worldwide leadership in the decades ahead.

"Anecdotal, garrulous, even gossipy at times, it is just like school - only with higher stakes." The Economist"

David J. Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, served as deputy under secretary of commerce during the Clinton Administration, as Chairman and CEO of Intellibridge Corporation, a provider of international analysis to the national security community, and as managing director of Kissinger Associates. A well-known commentator for leading newspapers and magazines, he has taught international relations at Columbia University written, co-authored or edited five other books on international and information age themes and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the President's Advisory Council of the U.S. Institute of Peace. He lives in Washington DC.