The nature of the threats facing America today has drastically reduced the margin for error in senior political appointments. In Only the Most Able, Stephen M. Duncan draws on a lifetime of military, public service, executive, and legal experience to critique the political appointment process, focusing on departments that deal with national security-the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. He looks at how the current methods for making appointments put people in positions for which they are not qualified and not prepared. Rather, he argues, appointments should be made on the basis of one's qualifications and merits-those who lead our military should be people with military experience, and those who must make executive decisions should be people who have served and excelled in an executive capacity. Identifying the successful traits of leaders such as Winston Churchill, General George Marshall, nationally-known business executives, and others, Duncan argues with unusual insight and candor why the quality and performance of senior political appointees who are charged even in part with the nation's security, must be improved, and offers specific recommendations on how this can be accomplished. This timely book will appeal to Americans of all political persuasions, as well as those with particular interests in political and military history.

The radically new homeland security, military, and legal strategies developed by the United States in the months following the terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon are given comprehensive treatment in this book by a former senior Pentagon official, combat veteran, and criminal prosecutor. Stephen Duncan draws on a lifetime of military and legal experience to examine the many questions relating to the role of the armed forces in homeland security, including elements of constitutional and criminal law, foreign policy, tradition and custom, federal-state and inter-agency relations, and politics, as well as military strategy and operations. Among the diverse subjects the author discusses are military tribunals and the International Criminal Court, the statue governing the use of military personnel in law enforcement, defense transformation, the constitutional power of the president, and the reorganization of the government to meet the terrorist threat. Duncan also discusses the strategy and tactics used in Afghanistan and Iraq and critically evaluates the nation's political leadership before and after the 9/11 attacks. His book gives readers access to a wealth of information essential to an understanding of the full picture and at the same time puts them in the midst of policy debates to grasp the immediacy of the situation. This important and absorbing historical narrative will attract general readers as well as those with experience in national security issues, politics, and the law. Stephen M. Duncan served as assistant secretary of defense in two administrations and as a federal criminal prosecutor in a third. A resident of Alexandria, Virginia, he is also the author of Citizen Warriors.