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.

The geopolitical history of the Middle East in the twentieth century, which falls into three relatively distinct phases, is best understood when approached simultaneously from the global and the regional perspectives. The imperialist phase, which began in the nineteenth century and lasted until the end of World War II, was followed by the cold war between the Soviet Union and the West that continued to the beginning of the 1990s. The last phase, which began with the demise of the Soviet Union, is still taking shape. These stages may overlap and, in some instances, unfold simultaneously, developments within the region being shaped and constrained by extra-regional forces for extra-regional purposes.

The sovereignty and independence of the states of the region has been limited in varying degrees by the wishes, needs, interests, and ambitions of the major powers. The geopolitical considerations have varied over time, being very different in the period between the world wars than in the period of intense East-West rivalry that followed, with the present post-cold war era being radically different from what preceded it. These changing geopolitical realities constitute the framework for this examination of the Middle East in the twentieth century, and the organizing principle for the selection of materials from the truly vast amount of information available. An important resource for scholars, students, and researchers involved with Middle Eastern history and international relations.

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.

The Spratly Islands have represented a potential political and military flashpoint in the South China Sea for years, involving as they do various claims by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan. This edited volume examines the issues involved in light of confidence- building measures that new high-resolution satellite imagery can offer to this, and other, regions.

Baker, Wiencek, and their contributors assess the potential role for cooperative monitoring in mitigating the risk of conflict arising from multinational disputes over the Spratly Islands. They analyze how this new generation of civilian and commercial observation satellites can be used to reduce the changes of armed conflict breaking out by providing transparency that will detect and identify politically significant activities occurring at disputed islands and reefs among the Spratlys. Of particular interest to policy makers, scholars, and other researchers involved with military issues in Asia and international security concerns.

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.

This timely 2 volume edited collection looks at the extent and nature of global jihad, focusing on the often-exoticised hinterlands of jihad beyond the traditionally viewed Middle Eastern 'centre'. As ISIS loses its footing in Syria and Iraq and al-Qaeda regroups this comprehensive account will be a key work in the on-going battle to better understand the dynamics of the jihads global reality. Critically examining the global reach of the jihad in these peripheries has the potential to tell us much about patterns of both local mobilisation, and local rejection of a grander centrally themed and administered jihad. Has the periphery been receptive to an exported jihad from the centre or does the local rooted cosmopolitanism of the jihad in the periphery suggest a more complex glocal relationship? These questions and challenges are more pertinent than ever as the likes of ISIS and many commentators, attempt to globally rebrand the jihad and as the centre reasserts its claims to the exotic periphery. Edited by Tom Smith (Portsmouth), Kirsten E. Schulze (LSE) and Hussein Solomon (UFS) the two volumes critically examine the various claims of connections between jihadist terrorism in the 'periphery', remote Islamist insurgencies of the 'periphery' and the global jihad. Each volume draws on experts in each of the geographies in question. The global nature of the jihad is too often taken for granted; yet the extent of the glocal connections deserve focused investigation. Without such inquiry we risk a reductive understanding of the global jihad, further fostering Orientalist and Eurocentric attitudes towards local conflicts and remote violence in the periphery. This book will therefore draw attention to those who overlook and undermine the distinct and rich particularities of the often-contradictory and cosmopolitan global jihad. In many of the peripheries, particularly those with intensive large-scale insurgencies, there is extensive international military alliance. The Bush doctrine to 'fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here' certainly looks to be alive and well in places like Somalia, the Philippines and Niger amongst many others. Crucially we must ask - is such reasoning sound - is the threat global and if so in what way? Furthermore - is action in the peripheries under the guise of combating the global jihad overlooking the local issues and threatening to make a wider threat where it was otherwise contained? Diagnosing nations or regions as 'breeding grounds' or 'sanctuaries' of global jihad carries the spectre of having to chose sides in a battle of civilisations, which looms over a number of developing nations reliant on good western relations.

A compilation of essays dealing with ethnic challenges to the modern nation state and to modernity itself, on philosophical, political and social levels. These issues are examined theoretically and in a number of case studies encompassing three types of states: industrialized, liberal states in Western Europe, settler states in American, Africa and the Middle East, and post colonial states in Asia and Africa. Contributors come from leading universities in Israel, Europe and North America and several academic disciplines.