Insanity Defense Audiobook By Jane Harman cover art

Insanity Defense

Why Our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes Us Less Safe

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Insanity Defense

By: Jane Harman
Narrated by: Jane Harman
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.99

Buy for $14.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

This program is read by the author.

An insider's account of America's ineffectual approach to some of the hardest defense and intelligence issues in the three decades since the Cold War ended.

Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. As a nation, America has cycled through the same defense and intelligence issues since the end of the Cold War. In Insanity Defense, Congresswoman Jane Harman chronicles how four administrations have failed to confront some of the toughest national security policy issues and suggests achievable fixes that can move us toward a safer future.

The reasons for these inadequacies are varied and complex, in some cases going back generations. American leaders didn’t realize soon enough that the institutions and habits formed during the Cold War were no longer effective in an increasingly multi-power world transformed by digital technology and riven by ethno-sectarian conflict. Nations freed from the fear of the Soviets no longer deferred to America as before. Yet the United States settled into a comfortable, at times arrogant, position as the lone superpower. At the same time our governing institutions, which had stayed resilient, however imperfectly, through multiple crises, began their own unraveling.

Congresswoman Harman was there - as witness, legislator, exhorter, enabler, dissident and, eventually, outside advisor and commentator. Insanity Defense is an insider’s account of decades of American national security - of its failures and omissions - and a road map to making significant progress on solving these perennially difficult issues.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

©2021 Jane Harman (P)2021 Macmillan Audio
Freedom & Security Military National & International Security Politics & Government Public Policy Middle East American Foreign Policy
All stars
Most relevant  
I bought this book because I thought it was about the defense department and ability to fight future wars. Instead, I got a political memoir from Jane about how great she was during her career, The importance of the congress, and how her judgment alone with prescient. I suffered through the entire book, and I’m no better for it.

Not about Defense- self-aggrandizing political memoir

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.