Kathleen H Hicks Libri

When Toots Loudenberry relocated to Los Angeles from South Carolina to be near her daughter, Abby, she expected to bump into the occasional celebrity. She just never expected them to be dead. Meanwhile, Toots, Sophie, and Mavis are concerned that the prestigious Dr. Sameer's budding romance with Ida may have something to do with his ailing bank balance. And Abby's attempted makeover of the celebrity magazine The Informer into the most talked-about tabloid in town could end more than just her career.But the Godmothers wouldn't be the Godmothers if they weren't pulling a few behind-the-scenes strings, and Abby's hopes of changing the fortunes of The Informer are still alive. Yet it'll take an assist from a source no one could have predicted, let alone see, to secure a story that will shake Tinseltown to its very core..."The Godmothers series [is] pure recession-proof fun." -- Publishers Weekly

Within the United States, there is an emergent political consensus on the need to improve civilian capacity for diplomacy and development missions, including stabilization and reconstruction. In addition to such needed civilian capacity, the nation will require military civil affairs capabilities to meet defense security cooperation goals, combat requirements under international law, and a U.S. capability for reconstruction and stabilization in contested environments or sectors. Civil affairs forces are designed to provide expertise to military commanders in their interface with civil societies, including in the fields of rule of law, economic stability, governance, public health and welfare, infrastructure, and public education and information. The recommendations in this report seek to marry the Defense Department's rhetorical commitment to excellence in civil-military operations--including stability operations, counterinsurgency, and aspects of irregular warfare--with concrete improvements in military capability. Absent such progress, the military may find itself, as it has so many times in the past, ill-equipped for missions outside its conception of "traditional warfare."

"Presidential transitions often bring the promise of new opportunities and the threat of reversing key advances. With this in mind, the CSIS U.S. Defense and National Security Group and the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group conducted a study aimed at informing the next Secretary of Defense's transition decisions. The CSIS study team focused on the little understood organizational and process changes that the George W. Bush administration has implemented in an attempt to improve the Defense Department's internal operations in the categories of strategic direction, force development, force employment, force management, and corporate support. The study team found that the attempted Bush administration defense reforms ran the gamut from qualified success to qualified failure."--Synopsis, CSIS web site