In the past decade the Asia-Pacific region has become a focus of international politics and military strategies. Due to China's rising economic and military strength, North Korea's nuclear tests and missile launches, tense international disputes over small island groups in the seas around Asia, and the United States pivoting a majority of its military forces to the region, the islands of the western Pacific have increasingly become the center of global attention. While the Pacific is a cur- rent hotbed of geopolitical rivalry and intense militarization, the region is also something else: a homeland to the hundreds of millions of people that inhabit it.
Based on a decade of research in the region, "The Empires' Edge" examines the tremendous damage the militarization of the Pacific has wrought on its people and environments. Furthermore, Davis details how contemporary social movements in this region are affecting global geopolitics by challenging the military use of Pacific islands and by developing a demilitarized view of security based on affinity, mutual aid, and international solidarity. Through an examination of "sacrificed" is- lands from across the region--including Bikini Atoll, Okinawa, Hawai'i, and Guam--"The Empires' Edge" makes the case that the great political contest of the twenty-first century is not about which country gets hegemony in a global system but rather about the choice be- tween perpetuating a system of international relations based on domination or pursuing a more egalitarian and cooperative future.

A leading group of scholars examine the circumstances under which central states might change their shape in responding to ethnic upheavals and regionalist demands. A systematic approach is applied to a country-by-country approach examining in turn most of the key areas of state boundary disputes in the contemporary world.

Vietnam has claimed the Paracel and Spratly Island groups for hundreds of years. China's invasion and capture of the Paracels from South Vietnam in 1974, and its ongoing occupation of the Spratlys, have created increasing opposition and anger not only among Vietnamese citizens but worldwide. This book insists that China's illegal violation of Vietnamese sovereignty rights in the Paracels and Spratlys has included serious human rights violations and decelerated the process of human emancipation. Using both realist and critical theories in a comparative framework, China Moves South states that while realism may offer a reasonable approach to explaining China's behavior, critical theory is a more appropriate lens to challenge China's occupations. Employing critical theory and human rights law as methods of evaluation, this book insists that human rights and international law cannot sustain China's continuing violations as defined by the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea in 1982. Additionally, China Moves South aims to provide government officials, international scholars, students, and other interested parties with a better understanding of Chinese's illegal invasion and capture of the Paracels and Spratlys and, more importantly, to counsel urgent action to resist the Chinese occupation as China becomes more assertive in the vital waters of the South China Sea.

In the quarter century that has passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, fanciful establishment intellectuals have advanced the idea that an "end of history" has somehow arrived. The model of "democratic capitalism" is said to be the final stage in the development of political economy. It is often suggested that it is simply a matter of waiting for the rest of the world to catch up, and at that point the Western model will have achieved a final and eternal triumph. In this work, the anarchist philosopher Keith Preston expresses skepticism of these presumptions. Expounding upon the critique of modernity advanced by Friedrich Nietzsche well over a century ago, Preston argues that the historical cycle associated with the rise of modernity is winding down. The forces of globalism, liberalism, capitalism, democracy, and Americanization are closer to achieving universal hegemony than ever before. Yet Preston subjects all of these to relentless criticism, and challenges virtually every presumption of the present era's dominant ideological model. Drawing upon a wide range of ideological currents and intellectual influences, Preston observes how the hegemony of what he calls the "Anglo-American-Zionist-Wahhabist" axis is being challenged within the realm of international relations by both emerging blocks of rival states and insurgent non-state actors. Citing thinkers as diverse as Ernst Junger and Emma Goldman, Max Stirner and Alain de Benoist, Hans Hermann Hoppe and Kevin Carson, Preston offers an alternative vision of what the future of postmodern civilization might bring.

The so-called ?'spatial turn?' in the social sciences has led to an increased interest in what can be called the spatialities of power, or the ways in which power as a medium for achieving goals is related to where it takes place. This unique and intriguing Handbook argues that the spatiality of power is never singular and easily modeled according to straightforward theoretical bullet-points, but instead is best approached as plural, contextually emergent and relational. The Handbook on the Geographies of Power consists of a series of cutting edge chapters written by a diverse range of leading geographers working both within and beyond political geography. It is organized thematically into the main areas in which contemporary work on the geographies of power is concentrated: bodies, economy, environment and energy, and war. The Handbook maintains a careful connection between theory and empirics, making it a valuable read for students, researchers and scholars in the fields of political and human geography. It will also appeal to social scientists more generally who are interested in contemporary conceptions of power. Contributors include: J. Agnew, J. Allen, I. Ashutosh, J. Barkan, N. Bauch, L. Bhungalia, G. Boyce, B. Braun, M. Brown, P. Carmody, N. Clark, M. Coleman, A. Dixon, V. Gidwani, N. Gordon, M. Hird, P. Hubbard, J. Hyndman, J. Loyd, A. Moore, L. Muscara, N. Perugini, C. Rasmussen, P. Steinberg, K. Strauss, S. Wakefield, K. Yusoff

Subjugate or Exterminate! is an authoritative first-hand account of the Russo-Chechen conflict by a Chechen leader who played a central role in all the main events. Akhmed Zakayev rose rapidly from an actor of Shakespearean roles to Commander of the Western Group for the Defense of Ichkeria, and later served as Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya and, in exile, as Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI). It describes how the Kremlin set about discrediting and destroying a democratic government by interacting with criminal gangs and fomenting Islamist forces to split the Chechen independence movement in a perverse reversal of the "War on Terror." Akhmed Zakayev's memoir begins with a historical survey of the fraught relations between the Chechens and the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, up to the collapse of the USSR. The advent of Gorbachev's Perestroika raised hopes that independence might enable Chechnya to end centuries of oppression and exploitation. Russia's first war against Chechnya (1994-1996), initially conceived by the military as a way of disguising the large-scale theft and embezzlement of funds from illegal sales of Soviet armaments during the withdrawal from East Germany, ended in humiliating defeat for Russia. Thereafter, Russia set about subverting the democratically elected government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by instigating the gruesome murder of Western humanitarian aid workers and business partners, and by financing criminal gangs and anti-democratic Islamist groups that the ChRI police were unable to subdue. Interference by nationals of countries in the Middle East caused further disruption. In August 1999, Russia launched a brutal second war in Chechnya, on grounds widely believed to be fabricated and characterized by widespread war crimes. The West did not intervene. This is an eyewitness account of the dangers faced by the Chechen leaders as they tried to resist and negotiate with a treacherous opponent. It ends in the year 2000, with Vladimir Putin's election as Russia's president.

In this penetrating study, Mohd Aarif Rather tackles the problem of the Kashmir Valley, one of the most complex situations in international politics, from the perspective of human security. The Kashmir conflict involves disputed borders between two nuclear power, India and Pakistan, and a local population that has become increasingly alienated from Indian federal rule. Kashmir has also witnessed intense militarization, resulting in various security issues, problematized identities, and disputed demarcation of frontiers. Unlike previous studies of the Kashmir conflict, Mapping Human Security Challenges departs from conventional analyses of security issues. This study moves our understanding of Kashmir to a grassroots level, and assesses the challenges posed by intensive militarisation to the ability (or inability) to lead a life as one wishes. The paradigmatic militarisation prevailing in the valley of Kashmir allows for an examination of the numerous challenges demanded by human security. Unexplored security issues frequently identified in the world today are thus central to this book.

Nothing serves to remind us of the instability of the "globalized" order as much as the continuing power of territorial boundaries to spawn political and humanitarian crises. Although it might seem that in this important respect the modern world has made little progress, the work of Gerald Blake continues to prove that peaceful resolution of problems associated with international boundaries can be attained. This festschrift reflects the topics and regional preoccupations of one of the leading researchers in the field. Professor Blake returned to certain topics throughout his long career, especially the Middle East, maritime boundaries, and the relation between borders and demographics. Several of the authors extend his work in such areas as Arctic jurisdiction, environmental issues of transboundary water management, and geographic information systems (GIS). For the growing number of professionals in conflict management, international humanitarian law, the law of the sea, environmental law, and energy law, and for workers in such diverse fields as natural resource management and forced migrations - as well as for specialists in the Middle East, Africa, and South East Asia - these revealing essays should offer a wealth of valuable information and insight.