Kaplan has authored several books on military strategy. His 1983 book on the individuals who created American nuclear strategy in the late 1940s and '50s, The Wizards of Armageddon, won the Washington Monthly Political Book of the Year award. He published Daydream Believers in 2008,[2] a work which analyzes the George W. Bush administration's use of Cold War tactics in post-9/11 military activities. He criticizes the administration for pursuing policies he believes to be unilateral and violate prohibitions on pre-emptive warfare. In late 2012, Kaplan published The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War,[3] which examines how General David Petraeus attempted to implement new thinking in Afghanistan and Iraq regarding the traditional clear and hold counter-insurgency strategy, and the shortcomings of this strategy, its intellectual underpinnings, and the individuals who defined it.[4] The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2014.[5]
In 2009, Kaplan published 1959: The Year Everything Changed.[6] The book argues that the course of world history was not changed by the counter-culture movements of the 1960s but rather by artistic, scientific, political, and economics events occurring in the year 1959.
Audio/video
Kaplan is an enthusiast of high-end audio and video equipment, and has reported from the Consumer Electronics Show on new technologies in this area,[7] as well as penning shopping-advice columns on which new televisions offer the best value.[8]
Kaplan, Fred (2020-01-28). The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War (First Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.). New York. ISBN978-1-9821-0729-1. OCLC1105937787.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)