Books like Battle for Syria by Christopher Phillips

Commander of the CIA and NSA Michael Hayden tells the inside story of America’s intelligence wars, detailing how his "play to the edge" philosophy shaped the nation’s response to terrorism, technology and surveillance.

"A[n] argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order throughout the world--and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention inward"--

From Goodreads (edited by me though): **One of our most important public intellectuals reveals the hidden history of our current global crisis** Modernity, secularism, development, and progress have long been viewed by the powerful few as benign ideals for the many. Today, however, botched experiments in nation-building, democracy, industrialization, and urbanization visibly scar much of the world. As once happened in Europe, the wider embrace of revolutionary politics, mass movements, technology, the pursuit of wealth, and individualism has cast billions adrift in a literally demoralized world. It was from among the ranks of the disaffected and the spiritually disorientated, that the militants of the nineteenth century arose—angry young men who became cultural nationalists in Germany, messianic revolutionaries in Russia, bellicose chauvinists in Italy, and anarchist terrorists internationally. Many more people today, unable to fulfill the promises—freedom, stability, and prosperity—of a globalized economy, are increasingly susceptible to demagogues and their simplifications. A common reaction among them is intense hatred of supposed villains, the invention of enemies, attempts to recapture a lost golden age, unfocused fury and self-empowerment through spectacular violence. In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra explores the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world—from American “shooters” and ISIS (ISIL) to Trump, Modi, and racism and misogyny on social media.

Amidst the bombings, shootings, political turmoil, and mass exodus in Syria, it's difficult to follow the trajectory of its recent troubled history. One can start in 2000, when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad came to power. David W. Lesch, author of Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad, can trace this path because he knew President Assad personally, perhaps better than anyone else in the West. Lesch's book at first highlights the humanity and promise once shown in President Assad. Later, it is filled with disappointment. He explains that Assad was never meant to rule, and it was only after the untimely death of his brother that the role was thrust upon him. Assad was an ophthalmologist, with a wife and a good family. But it did not take long for the power to corrupt him. Lesch is far from an impartial author. Having known Assad for years, through a series of meetings as a researcher and consultant, Lesch does not hide his regret at the turn of events. In this timely book, the author explores Assad's failed leadership, his transformation from bearer of hope to reactionary tyrant, and his regime's violent response to the uprising of his people in the wake of the Arab Spring. - Publisher.

E. H. Carr's classic work on international relations published in 1939 was immediately recognized by friend and foe alike as a defining work. The author was one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals of the 20th century. The issues and themes he developed continue to have relevance to modern day concerns with power and its distribution in the international system.