Books like Dell'Arte della Guerra by Niccolò Machiavelli

A seminal 16th‑century Italian treatise, The Prince offers practical guidance for rulers, arguing that ends can justify morally dubious means to secure power and glory.

Explores the international politics of threat, or, deterrence.

Warfare in the Classical World is an eminently readable, detailed exploration of the art of warfare in the Graeco-Roman world which traces the evolution of weapons, fortifications, and battle tactics from the Mycenean and Homeric ages (more than 1000 years B.C.) to the barbarian invasions of Rome in the fifth century A.D. In his analysis of armed conflict, John Warry presents the reasons behind the fighting--the social and political roots of each struggle and the long-range ambitions of the leaders--and draws a portrait of military culture and military life throughout the classical period. Julius Caesar, Demetrius the Besieger, Hannibal, and Alexander the Great are only a few of the colorful, cunning, and brilliant military commanders to be encountered here in accounts of the Trojan, Persian, and Peloponnesian wars, the decline of Sparta, the rise of the Macedonian Empire, the Punic Wars, the civil wars in Rome in the first century B.C., the wars of the Triumvirate, the Imperial Roman conquests, and the rise and ultimate success of the various barbarian forces. - Publisher.