This impressive, granular, and well written work offers a clear lens on the historical, national security and political landscape of Georgia’s path towards a liberal democracy.

Dennis Robbins

Based on classical theory of Samuel Huntington on Civil-military Relations and having the first-hand experience of years-long work with post-Soviet republic of Georgia’s security establishment, Ronald Mangum explains why the US security assistance to new democracies frequently fail. The key for understanding such failures and adjusting future American democracy promotion world-wide strategy accordingly, as seen by the author of this book, is the following: 1. Better appreciation of historical nuances of the recipient nations is needed; 2. Donors should pay more attention to the fact that reforms of the recipients' national security systems, which play a crucial role in state-building, may look nice on paper, but be hostages of partisan politics in reality. In a way, the book tells the sad story of how the US model of national security decision making was taken by Georgians but converted into something more resembling their Soviet past.

David Darchiashvili, Ilia State University

In this powerful new study Ronald Magnum combines his deep professional experience with rigorous primary research to build a comprehensive analysis of national security decision making in Georgia and to draw broader conclusions about civil military relations in post-Soviet states. This pioneering work will set the standard for future research on these topics.

Steven Metz, author of "Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy" and former faculty member at the US Army War College, United States Army War College