This book explores the growing interests of China in the Arctic and examines the nature of its interests and motivations in maintaining its involvement and presence in the region. The new geopolitical landscape of the Arctic today is a significant departure from the great power politics that existed in the region during the Cold War era. Apart from traditional Arctic states, more and more international organizations and non-Arctic states are showing an increased interest in this region, not least China. Many have attempted to interpret China's intention in moving to the high north and this book aims to add to the existing literature from three approaches: China's participation in the international institutions, China's relationships with the Arctic stakeholders and China's sectoral engagement in the Arctic. In taking a three-dimensional approach to the analysis, the author builds a comprehensive picture of China's interests and activities in the Arctic, not only from the perspective of China but also from the viewpoint of other Arctic states (Russia, Canada, the U.S., Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland). One of the first books in English to cover the subject since the release of China's Arctic policy white paper in January 2018, this analysis will be of interest to academics, students of Arctic studies, maritime law and international law, as well as policy makers in Arctic and non-Arctic states.

All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Yes, to follow world events you need to understand people, ideas and movements - but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture.If you've ever wondered why Putin is so obsessed with Crimea, why the USA was destined to become a global superpower, or why China's power base continues to expand ever outwards, the answers are all here.In ten chapters (covering Russia; China; the USA; Latin America; the Middle East; Africa; India and Pakistan; Europe; Japan and Korea; and the Arctic), using maps, essays and occasionally the personal experiences of the widely travelled author, Prisoners of Geography looks at the past, present and future to offer an essential insight into one of the major factors that determines world history.It's time to put the 'geo' back into geopolitics.

Gibbons analyzes the ruinous three-year trade embargo imposed on Haiti in response to the September 1991 coup d'etat to President Aristide's return to office in October 1994. She dissects the multidimensional impact of sanctions on Haitian society by examining the economic devastation and social dislocation that they provoked, despite the mitigation of humanitarian exemptions consistently granted by the Security Council. Gibbons also examines the counterproductive, unpredictable effects that sanctions have had on Haiti's nascent democratic institutions and processes.

Drawing on contemporary research of noted academics and international legal experts, this analysis places Haiti's experience of sanctions in a wider context. From the Haiti case, Gibbons draws conclusions about the utility of comprehensive sanctions as an instrument for the advancement of democracy and human rights and recommends measures that policymakers may find better suited to achieving these objectives.

This book delivers an interpretive framework for making sense of today's geopolitical landscape and casts new light on the impact ideology and technology have had on American foreign policy and contemporary security practices. Edwin Daniel Jacob argues that America's security practices in the Global War on Terror have been guided by an anachronistic Cold War logic that has subordinated strategy to tactics. Jacob shows that deep-rooted prejudices and presuppositions regarding American exceptionalism have had a disastrous impact on the policies of the United States, not only in dealing with terrorism, but also in seeking to impose American hegemony in the Middle East. Ineffectual security practices of dubious moral character, from rendition and torture to preemptive strikes and nation building to drones and assassinations, privilege exigency over ethics. Yet the result of this "post-strategic" approach to security, where interchangeable tactics, like these, masquerade as strategy, only increases insecurity. Jacob offers a fresh perspective on American foreign policy that links national security with human security in regional terms. This approach highlights the need for order, predictability, and stability-the cornerstone of political realism. Making use of insights derived from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, Weber, Schmitt, and Morgenthau, this interdisciplinary work provides an overview of American foreign policy in the twenty-first century and speaks to crucial themes in the fields of history, political science, and sociology.

Renewing Destruction examines how wind energy projects impact people and their environments. Wind energy development, in Mexico and most countries, fall into a 'roll out' neoliberal strategy that is justified by climate change mitigation programs that are continuing a process of land and wind resources grabbing for profit. The result has been an exaggeration of pre-existing problems in communities around land, income-inequality, local politics and, contrary to public relations stories, is devastating traditional livelihoods and socio-ecological relationships. Exacerbating pre-existing social and material problems in surrounding towns, wind energy development is placing greater stress on semi-subsistence communities, marginalizing Indigenous traditions and indirectly resulting in the displacement and migration of people into urban centers. Based on intensive fieldwork with local groups in Oaxaca Mexico in 2015, the book provides an in-depth study, demonstrating the complications and problems that emerge with the current regime of 'sustainable development' and wind energy projects in Mexico, which has wider lessons to be drawn for other regions and countries. Put simply, the book reveals a tragic reality that calls into question the marketed hopes of the green economy and the current method of climate change mitigation. It shows the variegated impacts and issues associated with building wind energy parks, which extends to recognizing the destructive effects on Indigenous cultures and practices in the region. The book, however, highlights what to consider or, more importantly, what to avoid if one is working with industrial-scale wind energy systems.

This book explores the geopolitics of the global cyber space to analyse India's cyber security landscape. As conflicts go more online, nation-states are manipulating the cyber space to exploit each other's dependence on information, communication and digital technologies. All the major powers have dedicated cyber units to breach computer networks, harvest sensitive data and proprietary information, and disrupt critical national infrastructure operations. This volume reviews threats to Indian computer networks, analyses the country's policy responses to these threats, and suggests comprehensive measures to build resilience in the system. India constitutes the second largest internet user base in the world, and this expansion of the user base also saw an accompanying rise in cyber crimes. The book discusses how the country can protect this user base, the data-dependent critical infrastructure, build resilient digital payment systems, and answer the challenges of the dark net. It also explores India's cyber diplomacy, as an emerging economy with a large IT industry and a well-established technological base. Topical and lucid, this book as part of The Gateway House Guide to India in the 2020s series, will be of interest to scholars and researchers of cyber security, digital diplomacy, foreign policy, international relations, geopolitics, strategic affairs, defence studies, South Asian politics and international politics.

In Three Dangerous Men, defence expert Seth Jones argues that the US is woefully unprepared for the future of global competition. While America has focused on building fighter jets, missiles and conventional warfighting capabilities, its three principal rivals-Russia, China and Iran-have increasingly adopted irregular warfare: cyber-attacks, the use of proxy forces, propaganda, espionage and disinformation to undermine American power. Jones profiles three pioneers of irregular warfare in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran who adapted American techniques and made huge gains without waging traditional warfare: Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov; the deceased Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani; and vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission Zhang Youxia. Each has spent his career studying American power and devised techniques to avoid a conventional or nuclear war with the US. Gerasimov helped oversee a resurgence of Russian irregular warfare, which included attempts to undermine the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections and the SolarWinds cyber-attack. Soleimani was so effective in expanding Iranian power in the Middle East that Washington targeted him for assassination. Zhang Youxia presents the most alarming challenge because China has more power and potential at its disposal. Drawing on interviews with dozens of US military, diplomatic and intelligence officials, as well as hundreds of documents translated from Russian, Farsi and Mandarin, Jones shows how America's rivals have bloodied its reputation and seized territory worldwide. Instead of standing up to autocratic regimes, Jones demonstrates that the United States has largely abandoned the kind of information, special operations, intelligence and economic and diplomatic action that helped win the Cold War. In a powerful conclusion, Jones details the key steps the United States must take to alter how it thinks about-and engages in-competition before it is too late.

Since the opening up of China in 1979, the country had experienced phenomenal economic growth over the decades and overtook Japan as the second-largest economy in 2010. With the establishment of a conservative administration led by Shinzo Abe in December 2012 and Xi Jinping's ascendance to power as the General Secretary of China's ruling party a month earlier, the two countries intensified their commitments in aid to Sub-Saharan Africa. Surveying the Japanese and Chinese aid in Sub-Saharan Africa, this book examines the two Asian giants' policies and achievements in past decades and discusses future directions of their aid initiatives. Japan and China: A Contest in Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa is recommended for those interested in understanding East Asian international relations and contemporary aid trends and issues in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Modern trends in geopolitics have raised serious questions about the future global and regional architecture of the world system. In the case of the Eurasian Economic Union, these questions bring up important issues for debate: What is the Eurasian Economic Union? What theoretical concepts could be applied for modern Eurasian integration? Why is the Eurasian Economic Union forming? Most importantly, what prospects does this Union have in the framework of the modern geopolitical situation? This book explores the process of Eurasian integration in the modern global world. The creation of the Eurasian Economic Union has become a topical issue in modern Russian foreign policy. Neo-Eurasianist ideas can be viewed as a geopolitical basis and rationale for the Eurasian Economic Union that may constitute an integrational structure, consolidating the post-Soviet area and neighboring regions. This book argues that Eurasia is a region representing an organic integrity due to close mentality, common and centuries-long history, common language of international communication, a multitude of economic ties, and an identical level of technological development across all countries within the post-Soviet area. Yet, advancement of the Eurasian integration idea into practical implementation should have new objective suppositions as well. These are defined by the contemporary economic, political, and ethno-cultural processes in the post-Soviet space.

An analysis of the political and ecological consequences of charting the Amazon River basin in narrative fiction, Mapping the Amazon examines how widely read novels from twentieth-century South America attempted to map the region for readers. Authors such as Jose Eustasio Rivera, Romulo Gallegos, Mario Vargas Llosa, Cesar Calvo, Marcio Souza, and Mario de Andrade travelled to the Amazonian regions of their respective countries and encountered firsthand a forest divided and despoiled by the spatial logic of extractivism. Writing against that logic, they fill their novels with geographic, human, and ecological realities omitted from official accounts of the region. Though the plots unfold after the height of the Amazon rubber boom (1850-1920), the authors construct landscapes marked by that first large-scale exploitation of Amazonian biodiversity. The material practices of rubber extraction resurface in the stories told about the removal of other plants, seeds, and minerals from the forest as well as its conversion into farmland. Smith places the counter-discursive impulses of each novel in dialogue with various modernizing projects that carve Amazonia into cultural and economic spaces: border commissions, extractive infrastructure, school geography manuals, Indigenous education programs, and touristic propaganda. Even the "novel maps" studied, however, have blind spots, and Mapping the Amazon considers the legacy of such unintentional omissions today.

Geopolitical Economy traces the historical evolution of today's multi-polar world, as it emerges from the dust of the financial and economic crisis. Radhika Desai offers a radical critique of the theories of US hegemony, globalisation and empire which dominate academic international political economy and international relations, revealing their ideological origins in successive failed US attempts at dominance. Desai recovers and revitalises notions of national self-determination and popular dissent, drawing on revolutionary intellectual traditions which understand the world order as formed by 'the relations of producing nations'. At a time of global upheavals and profound shifts in the distribution of power, Geopolitical Economy forges a vivid and compelling account of the historical processes which are shaping the contemporary international order.

Palestine Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Winner 2022 'Roy is humanely and professionally committed in ways that are unmatched by any other non-Palestinian scholar' - Edward W. Said Gaza, the centre of Palestinian nationalism and resistance to the occupation, is the linchpin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the key to its resolution. Since 2005, Israel has deepened the isolation of the territory, severing it almost completely from its most vital connections to the West Bank, Israel and beyond, and has deliberately shattered its economy, transforming Palestinians from a people with political rights into a humanitarian problem. Sara Roy unpacks this process, looking at US foreign policy towards the Palestinians, as well as analysing the trajectory of Israeli policy toward Gaza, which became a series of punitive approaches meant not only to contain the Hamas regime but weaken Gazan society. Roy also reflects on Gaza's ruination from a Jewish perspective and discusses the connections between Gaza's history and her own as a child of Holocaust survivors. This book, a follow up from the renowned Failing Peace, comes from one of the world's most acclaimed writers on the region.

Intensifying geopolitical rivalries, rising defence spending and the proliferation of the latest military technology across Asia suggest that the region is set for a prolonged period of strategic contestation. None of the three competing visions for the future of Asian order - a US-led 'Free and Open Indo-Pacific', a Chinese-centred order, or the ASEAN-inspired 'Indo-Pacific Outlook' - is likely to prevail in the short to medium term. In the absence of a new framework, the risk of open conflict is heightened, and along with it the need for effective mechanisms to maintain peace and stability. As Asia's leaders seek to rebuild their economies and societies in the wake of COVID-19, they would do well to reflect upon the lessons offered by the pandemic and their applicability in the strategic realm. The societies that have navigated the crisis most effectively have been able to do so by putting in place stringent protective measures. Crisis-management and -avoidance mechanisms - and even, in the longer term, wider arms control - can be seen as the strategic equivalent of such measures, and as such they should be pursued with urgency in Asia to reduce the risks of an even greater calamity.

The autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia is little-known in the English-speaking world, even though it is a territory of high significance for the development of Serbian national identity. Vojvodina's multi-ethnic composition and historical experience has also encouraged the formation of a distinct regional identity. This book analyses the evolution of Vojvodina's identity over time and the unique pattern of ethnic relations in the province. Although approximately 25 ethnic communities live in Vojvodina, it is by no means a divided society. Intercultural cohabitation has been a living reality in the province for centuries and this largely accounts for the lack of ethnic conflict. Vassilis Petsinis explores Vojvodina's intercultural society and shows how this has facilitated the introduction of flexible and regionalized legal models for the management of ethnic relations in Serbia since the 2000s. He also discusses recent developments in the region, most notably the arrival of refugees from Syria and Iraq, and measures the impact that these changes have had on social stability and inter-group relations in the province.

This book analyses the ways in which foreign policy actors in Asia have responded to the emerging great power conflict between the US and the People's Republic of China focusing on medium and small states across the Indo-Pacific. The book offers a much-needed counterpoint to existing analyses on the Indo-Pacific and China's BRI and presents a new perspective by examining how great power politics are locally reinterpreted, conditioned, or at times even contested. It illustrates the policy-level challenges which the US-China rivalry poses for established political and economic practices and outlines how these challenges can be best addressed by smaller states and their societies. A timely assessment of the power play in the Indo-Pacific with the angle of Sino-American rivalry, this book makes an important contribution to the study of Political Science, International Relations, Asian Studies and Security Studies.

Bolivia: Geopolitics of a Landlocked State goes beyond the traditional focus on inter-American relations, territorial issues and the maritime question to provide the first comprehensive study of Bolivian foreign policy from independence to the present day. It aims to redress the balance between the often overstated importance of external determinants - actors and forces outside Bolivia which have influenced the foreign policy process - and the understated impact of internal determinants, similar actors and forces within Bolivia. Drawing on 50 years of research and study, the author focuses on the five interrelated goals of sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity, continental solidarity and economic independence, which have characterized Bolivian foreign policy from the outset. In so doing, the negative impact which poor governance, weak state capacity and a fixation on the seaport issue had on the achievement of those five goals is centre stage in the discussion. In acknowledging the geopolitical ramifications of being landlocked, the singular nature of Bolivia's approach to the problem also is detailed. An examination of foreign policy today can no longer be confined to intergovernmental relations; instead, it must consider the full range of internal and external forces which have influenced its scope and direction. In addition to bilateral relations, boundary disputes and the seaport issue, this volume explores the impact of foreign capital and multinational companies, together with the effects of domestic entrepreneurs, political parties, labour unions and social movements. It also assesses the overlap or linkage between domestic and foreign variables when the two combined to influence Bolivian foreign policy.

"The book is highly impressive in its range, integrating such issues as the impact of the Cuban missile crisis into its account of Franco-American relations and the implications for France's position in Europe. It is also impressive in its command of intricate detail in the technical, economic sphere and in high-level negotiations, as well as in behind-the-scenes maneuvers taking place in parallel to more overt diplomacy." . French Studies

"Sutton's important work has the merit of making known a whole range of French historiography that, because of not being available in English translation, is not accessible to scholars who do not read French. At the same time, he brings together, in an original manner, the main results of historical research on the role of France in Europe, a theme that is of vital importance still today." . Modern & Contemporary France

" The author] has written an excellent chronicle of the central episodes of European construction, from the invention of the ECSC to the Maastricht Treaty and beyond, keeping French initiatives, breakthroughs, and missteps clearly in view. He has also made the more recondite economic complexities of the story intelligible to general readers. As a result, Sutton has produced an important overview of European integration that highlights the influence French leaders exerted in building what by the 1990s had become the fundamental structures of the European Union we know today." . H-France

"Sutton has a feel both for the ongoing manoeuvres of the main protagonists and for the continuities of the broad picture. He keeps the context constantly in geopolitical focus, drawing upon a wide range of reliable secondary sources. His] scrupulous study will allow both protagonists and antagonists to recognize why the European show is still on the road, but now arouses fears rather than hopes." . European History Quarterly

."an excellent overall view." . Georges-Henri Soutou

In the second half of the twentieth century France played the greatest role - even greater than Germany's - in shaping what eventually became the European Union. By the early twenty-first century, however, in a hugely transformed Europe, this era had patently come to an end. This comprehensive history shows how France coupled the pursuit of power and the furtherance of European integration over a sixty-year period, from the close of the Second World War to the hesitation caused by the French electorate's referendum rejection of the European Union's constitutional treaty in 2005.

Michael Sutton is Professor Emeritus, Modern History and International Relations, at Aston University. He has written regularly on France for The Economist Intelligence Unit - part of The Economist newspaper group - since 1985, and worked in Brussels from 1973 to 1993 monitoring European Community developments. He is also a specialist in twentieth-century French political thought and philosophy."

The combination of rising Chinese power and longstanding territorial disputes has drawn increased attention and threats to the Asia-Pacific region. Five smaller powers contest Beijing's claims; Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Indonesia, with the United States viewed as the most likely counterbalance to coercive behavior towards them. However, only one of these five states - the Philippines -has maintained a guarantee of protection through alliance with the US. What factors have influenced state decisions to form security relationships with Washington, and what does the evolution of these factors portend for future security relationships in the South China Sea? Using research on U.S. policy preferences based on recently declassified material, this book produces conclusions previously inaccessible beyond classified forums. The author surveys recent alliance theory developments to examine relationships between claimant states and the US, explores historical bilateral relations and considers the future of regional security relationships. This book contributes to the fields of security studies, foreign policy and international relations and expands beyond traditional concepts of defense alliances to explore security cooperation along a spectrum from allied to aligned to non-aligned.

This book explores competing definitions of Hellenism in the making of the Greek state by drawing on critical historical and geopolitical perspectives and their intersection with difference and exclusion. It examines Greece's central role in shaping the state system, regional security, and nationalisms of the Balkans, the Black Sea, and the Eastern Mediterranean regions. Understanding the Greek State's social constitution helps learn about the past and present intentions and strategies as well as local, national, and European notions of security and identity. The book looks at the relation of subaltern communities to state power and the state's ability and willingness to negotiate difference. It also explores how the State's identity politics shaped regional geopolitics in the past two centuries. Chapters present case studies that shed light on the Hellenization of Jewish Thessaloniki, the Treaty of Lausanne's making of Western Thrace's Muslim minority, the role and modes of settlement, urbanization, and 'bordering-as-statecraft' in Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace, and the politics of erecting the Athens Mosque, the first officially-licensed mosque outside Western Thrace since Greek Independence. With examples from fieldwork in Greek cities and borderlands, this book offers a wealth of primary research from geographers and historians on the modern history of Greek statehood. It will be of key interest to scholars of political geography, international relations, and European history.

Focusing on both Polar Regions, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of political processes related to the rapidly changing Arctic and Antarctic, where the environmental impacts of human activities are extremely visible. Environmental changes in the Arctic and the Antarctic are increasingly seen as barometers of the global impact of human activities, while newly arising economic opportunities in both Polar Regions prompt predictions that they will be the site of future conflicts. This book maps and analyses the different actors involved in the politics of the Polar Regions to explain why similar patterns of interpretation of such major issues have become dominant in practical, popular and formal geopolitical discourses. Disentangling the politics, the author illustrates how the ordering principles have evolved, explains recent dynamics in political processes and provides the groundwork needed to better forecast future trends. By focusing on the Americas, the only continent that borders both Polar Regions, the author shows how geographic proximity inspires interaction and cooperation among state and non-state actors in very different ways. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, political geography, international relations, global governance and cultural studies. It will have an international appeal particularly in the Americas, and other countries with growing interests in the Polar Regions.

The Caribbean has played a crucial geopolitical role in the Western pursuit of economic dominance, yet Eurocentric research usually treats the Caribbean as a peripheral region, consequently labelling the inhabitants as beings without agency. Examining asymmetrical relations of power in the Greater Caribbean in historical and contemporary perspectives, this volume explores the region's history of resistance and subversion of oppressive structures against the backdrop of the Caribbean's central role for the accumulation of wealth of European and North American actors and the respective dialectics of modernity/coloniality, through a variety of experiences inducing migration, transnational exchange and transculturation. Contributors approach the Caribbean as an empowered space of opposition and agency and focus on perspectives of the region as a place of entanglements with a long history of political and cultural practices of resistance to colonization, inequality, heteronomy, purity, invisibilization, and exploitation. An important contribution to the literature on agency and resistance in the Caribbean, this volume offers a new perspective on the region as a geopolitically, economically and culturally crucial space, and it will interest researchers in the fields of Caribbean politics, literature and heritage, colonialism, entangled histories, global studies perspectives, ethnicity, gender, and migration.

The high voting threshold in the Council together with conflicting national preferences should frustrate effective European problem-solving. This famous prediction of the "joint-decision trap" (JDT) is at odds with Europe's dynamic environmental policy. Yet there is scarce research on the limited impact of the JDT in this realm. We know little, therefore, about the conditions of effective environmental policy-change in the EU. By comparing cases of stability and change, including CO2-limits for passenger cars and the phase-out of inscandescent lamps, the book examines the ways in and out of the JDT in environmental policy. It shows how both the highly politicized summit level and the bureaucratic "comitology" facilitate change by acting as informal bypasses to the Council. The book contributes to a better understanding of the JDT. It speaks to the recent debate about Europe's "new intergovernmentalism" and the reliance on "informal politics," especially in the wake of the Euro crisis.

This volume identifies and evaluates the relationship between outer-space geography and geographic position (astrogeography), and the evolution of current and future military space strategy. In doing so, it explores five primary propositions. First, many classical geopolitical theories of military development are fully compatible with the realm of outer space. Second, how geographical position relates to new technology. Such evolution has developed through sea, rail and air power. Space power is the logical and apparent heir. Third, the special terrain of solar space dictates specific tactics and strategies for efficient exploitation of space resources. Fourth, the concept of space as a power base in classical, geopolitical thought will easily conform to the use of outer space as an ultimate national power base. Finally, a thorough understanding of the astromechanical and physical demarcations of outer space can prove useful to planners, and will prove critical to military strategists in the future. An optimum deployment of space assets will be essential on the current terrestrial and future-based battlefield.