Declining budgets and withdrawing military forces seem to spell a period of diminishing influence for U.S. business and government officials overseas. Not so! Bees and Spiders provides answers on how to develop real influence that does not come through massive military presence or big budgets. These answers promote the idea of influence through developing relationships. Such relationships can provide influence that lasts even when there is little money and few military forces. This influence is lasting because it is empathy-based. Bees and Spiders explains the critical nature of developing empathy, and provides usable and useful recommendations for turning simple understanding into the possibility of seeing the world from another perspective. Brian L. Steed is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and currently serves as an instructor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He served in the Middle East for more than eight and a half years. During...