Ending humanitarian atrocities has become as important for the United Nations as preventing interstate war. This book examines the transformation of UN operations, analysing its changing role and structure. Ramesh Thakur asks why, when and how force may be used, and argues that the growing gulf between legality and legitimacy is evidence of an eroded sense of international community. He considers the tension between the United States, with its capacity to use force and project power, and the United Nations, as the centre of the international law enforcement system. He asserts the central importance of the rule of law and a rules-based order focused on the United Nations as the foundation of a civilised system of international relations. This book will be of interest to students of the United Nations and international organisations in politics, law and international relations departments, as well as policymakers in governmental and non-governmental international organisations.

This volume explores and develops new social-scientific tools for the analysis and understanding of contemporary military missions in theatre. Despite the advent of new types of armed conflict, the social-scientific study of militaries in action continues to focus on tools developed in the hey-day of conventional wars. These tools focus on such classic issues as cohesion and leadership, communication and unit dynamics, or discipline and motivation. While these issues continue to be important, most studies focus on organic units (up to and including brigades). By contrast, this volume suggests the utility of concepts related to mission formations - as opposed to 'units' or 'components' - to better capture the (ongoing) processual nature of the amalgamations and combinations that military involvement in conflicts necessitates. The study of these formations by the social sciences - sociology, social psychology, anthropology, political science and organization science - requires the introduction of new analytical tools to the study of militaries in theatre. As such, this volume utilizes new approaches to social life, organizational dynamics and to armed violence to understand the place of the armed forces in contemporary conflicts and the new tasks they are assigned. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, security studies and International Relations in general.

The rise of peace education both in scholarship and in practice has yielded numerous documents, websites, and publications with often divergent perspectives on what the field is, does, and means. The Encyclopedia of Peace Education provides a comprehensive overview of the scholarly developments in the field to date, so as to provide a common denominator for the various actors involved in advancing peace education internationally. Thus, this edited volume serves as an essential reference guide that traces the history and emergence of the field, highlights foundational concepts, contextualizes peace education practice across international and disciplinary borders, and suggests new directions for peace educators. From core conceptual perspectives to the moral and spiritual foundations of the field to the role of the United Nations, the Encyclopedia grounds peace education in a solid theoretical and practical framework through the writings of the field's most renowned scholars. This volume will target undergraduate and graduate students as well as scholars and practitioners working in international and non-governmental organizations in the field of peace education.

This book explores the largely neglected issue of responses to the US Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI, or the 'Star Wars' missile defence programme) across NATO. The chapters here explore the reactions of different Western allies to the announcement of the SDI in 1983 and especially the 1985 invitation to participate. While existing studies have explored the origins of the American programme and the role it may have played in ending the Cold War, this volume breaks new ground by considering the impact of the SDI on transatlantic relations in the 1980s. Based on newly available archival sources, this volume re-evaluates the responses of eight NATO member-state governments, as well as the Soviet leadership, to the SDI. In addition to looking at 'top-down' governmental reactions, the volume also explores the 'bottom-up' response to the SDI of civil society and peace activists on both sides of the Atlantic. The volume examines how the American initiative - derisively named 'Star Wars' by its detractors - provoked a crisis in relations with its allies during the final decade of the Cold War and how those tensions within NATO were ultimately resolved. This book will be of much interest to students of Cold War history, strategic studies, foreign policy and international history.

This book is a study of the key components and contradictions of the escalating global crisis and their impact on modern Australia. It elaborates the damage being done to democracy, human rights, and the fabric of society. Racism is structured in the universality of the nation-state and capitalism in the 21st century. Racism is a process that discriminates and segregates the human species, creating major conflicts and antagonisms. It generates a global struggle for equality and social justice. The global crisis is energised by the contradiction between a global capitalism that is in effect totalitarian and the imperatives of economic growth driving every nation-state of the world. Racism is embodied in the emergence of a new imperialism to maintain Western global hegemony, a growing source of instability and violence in the world system, endangering the survival of humanity. The book advocates the promotion of full democratic participation in the struggle for social, political, and economic equality.

This book presents commentaries by a leading international group of peace education scholars and practitioners concerning Reardon's peace education theory and intellectual legacy. The guiding question throughout the book is: How can her foundational work be used to advance the theory and practice of peace education? In an attempt to find answers, the contributing authors explore three general areas of inquiry: (1) Theoretical Foundations of Peace and Human Rights Education; (2) Feminism and the Gender Perspective as Pathways of Transformation Toward Peace and Justice; and (3) Peace Education Pedagogy and Practices. A contemplative commentary by Reardon herself rounds out the coverage

This volume brings together international scholars reflecting on the theory and practice of international security, human security, natural resources and environmental change. It contributes by 'centring the margins' and privileging alternative conceptions and understandings of environmental (in)security.

Conflicts between agents acting in a multi-agent environment arise for different reasons, involve different concepts, and are dealt with in different ways, depending on the kind of agents and on the domain where they are considered. Agents may have conflicting beliefs, conflicting goals, or may have to share limited resources. Consequently, conflicts may be expressed as mere differences, or as contradictions, or even as social conflicts. They may be avoided, solved, kept, or even created deliberately. Conflicting Agents studies conflicts in the context of multi-agent systems, i.e. artificial societies modeled on the basis of autonomous, interacting agents. This book addresses questions about types of conflicts, conflict definitions and the use of conflicts as trigger functions for activities in multi-agent systems. The book is also dedicated to questions of conflict management, resolution and avoidance, i.e. the question of how agents cope with conflicts and conflicting situations.

Wars often spring out of nowhere with little warning. One need only look at the recent troubles at the Lebanon-Israeli border for evidence of this claim. At other points in history, such as the run-up to the Second World War, wars seem all but foretold. How does one understand a phenomenon that, at times, seems so random, while at others so predictable? Is there an underlying "cause" of war and, if so, what is it? In this book, David Sobek argues that there is no single explanation for war: factors leading to war in one case may well lead to peace in another. Understanding the onset of war, he contends, requires a movement away from single theories towards one that embraces the multi-faceted causes of war. The characteristics of individual states, the strategic interaction of multiple states, and the broad structure of the international system all affect the risk of war. Throughout the book Sobek draws on a wide range of examples - from the rise of Japan in the 19th century to the emergence of Hamas in the 21st century - to show how both domestic and international politics push states to, or pull them from, the brink of armed conflict. While civil war and terrorism are often viewed as a from of violence distinct from interstate war, Sobek examines them as simply an extreme form of asymmetric warfare. From this perspective terrorism emerges as just another tactic used by actors engaged in armed conflict. The Causes of War will be essential reading for students of security and strategic studies as well as anyone seeking to understand the rise of violent conflict in the contemporary world.

This book explores theories of conflict and peacebuilding and applies them to case studies from the Asia Pacific region, seeking to shift attention to the inherency of conflict, the constant danger of re-emergence, and the need to establish mechanisms to resolve it. The authors argue that the central focus of peacebuilding should not be state-building per se, but rather the creation of effective mechanisms for peaceful resolution of both past and newly emerging conflicts. To do so, it is important to consider the entire process of creating peace, to contemplate the linkages between conflict, resolution, and post-conflict peacebuilding, rather than focus only on the period of institution-building.

Before military action, and even before mobilization, the decision on whether to go to war is debated by politicians, pundits, and the public. As they address the right or wrong of such action, it is also a time when, in the language of the just war tradition, the wise would deeply investigate their true claim to jus ad bellum ("the right of war"). Wars have negative consequences, not the least impinging on human life, and offer infrequent and uncertain benefits, yet war is part of the human condition. James G. Murphy's insightful analysis of the jus ad bellum criteria -- competent authority, just cause, right intention, probability of success, last resort, and proportionality -- is grounded in a variety of contemporary examples from World War I through Vietnam, the "soccer war" between Honduras and El Salvador, Afghanistan, and the Middle East conflict. Murphy argues persuasively that understanding jus ad bellum requires a primary focus on the international common good and the good of peace. Only secondarily should the argument about going to war hinge on the right of self-defense; in fact, pursuing the common good requires political action, given that peace is not simply the absence of violence. He moves on to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the jus ad bellum criteria, contending that some criteria depend logically on others -- and that competent authority, not just cause, is ultimately the most significant criterion in an analysis of going to war. This timely study will be of special interest to scholars and students in ethics, war and peace, and international affairs.

A key book for conflict and peace studies, reveals the gendered nature of peacebuilding, its consequences, and the importance of women playing a part in peace processes in Africa. Even in the best of circumstances, women are all too often excluded from formal peacemaking and peacebuilding processes and relegated to the sidelines as observers or limited to informal peacebuilding strategies. Yet there is enormous potential in these strategies as women often strive to build bridges across political, ethnic, religious, clan and other differences through alliances arising from common concerns around violence, land, access to resources, and protection of their families and communities, and address sources of conflict at both national and local levels. Drawing on cutting-edge research by scholars and women's rights activists in South Sudan, Sudan, Algeria, northern Nigeria, and Somalia, this book focuses on the consequences of the continuing exclusions of women from peace talks and from post-conflict governance structures. The case studies reveal how peacebuilding is gendered and why this matters in developing meaningful and sustainable approaches to peacebuilding. Examining how women activists have made a difference through informal peacebuilding activities, the contributors explore women's efforts to reshapethe post-conflict context by struggling for legislative and constitutional reforms and by advocating for political representation and political inclusion more generally within peacebuilding processes. They also look at how women have pushed back against the conservative Islamist forces that today dominate much armed conflict in Africa. Suggesting that women's formal participation in peace negotiations is vital in bringing about an end to conflict and preventing its resumption, as well as the one of the most effective strategies, this book will be essential reading for scholars and NGOs involved in development, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The book is the product of a research project on Women and Peacebuilding in Africa, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.

In this title, the essays examine how women actively contribute not only to conflict, but also to peace and social change in diverse contexts around the world. This collection of essays explores the role of women as they participate in both conflict and peacemaking. The essays, contributed by scholars and practitioners from around the world, do not look at women as victims or perpetrators, but instead examine their behavior in conflict zones and their involvement in conflict - how it affects them, how they are active participants, and the initiatives they take in intervention, conflict resolution, and peace building. The book thus demonstrates remarkable cases of agency, where women were the authors of change. This may happen in a violent way, as with female suicide bombers or the Black Widows of Chechnya, or women may actively help to stop conflict or participate in peacebuilding activities, as they did in Rwanda or Liberia. The thematically organized chapters cover issues of women waging war, women intervening in war, women waging peace, and women sustaining peace, all substantiated with case studies and first hand accounts. "Women Waging War and Peace" will be an essential resource to anyone researching conflict processes and women's agency.

This work explains and critically examines the main theoretical aspects of operational warfare at sea. It utilizes diverse examples from naval history, ranging from the ancient era to the present day, to offer a comprehensive description and analysis of the key components of operational warfare at sea today. Specifically, it explains the military/naval objectives, levels of war, types of major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns, and their main elements. In contrast to many works, this book focuses on the role of the naval operational commanders in command and control and decision-making. It also describes in great detail the main elements of naval operational leadership and operational thinking, which are illustrated by examples of successful warfighting admirals. This new edition has been completely revised and updated, with three new chapters, and analyses in even more detail the planning and execution of major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns. This book is intended to serve as a primer of how to plan, prepare, and execute major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns for naval operational commanders and their staffs, but will also be of great interest to students of naval power, strategic studies, and military history in general.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of peace agreements from a legal perspective. It describes and evaluates the development of contemporary peace processes and the peace agreements that emerge. The book sets out what is in essence an anatomy of peace agreement practice and interrogates its relationship to law. At its heart the book grapples with the role of law in ending violent conflict and the broader questions this raises for the relationship of law to social change. Law potentially plays two key roles with respect to peace agreements: first, to the extent that peace agreements themselves form legal documents, law plays a role in the 'enforcement' or implementation of the peace agreement; second, international law has a relationship to peace agreement negotiation and content, in its regulatory guise. International Law regulates self-determination, transitional justice, and the role of third parties. The book documants and analyses these two roles of law. In doing so, the book reveals a complex dynamic relationship between the peace agreement as a legal document and the role of international law in which international law and concepts of domestic constitutionalism are being re-shaped. The practice of negotiating peace agreements is argued to be producing a new law of the peacemaker-or lex pacificatoria that connects developments in international law with new forms of domestic constitutional law in a set of hybrid relationships. This law of the peacemaker potentially forms part of a broader 'law of peace' that moves beyond the traditional concept of law of peace as merely 'the rest of international law' once the laws of war are subtracted. The new lex pacificatoria stands as an account of the way in which international law shapes and is shaped by peace agreements. The book proposes an ambivalent response to 'this new law' which connects to contemporary debates about the force of international law and its appropriate relationship with domestic constitutonalism.

This book is the first to comprehensively explore the origins and reasons behind the Sino-Indian border dispute's intractability. Utilising an array of accurate maps, tables, archival and scholarly research, this book shows how an ambiguous frontier became a contested border and how it has become relatively pacified yet remaining unresolved. Unlike previous examinations, however, this book also provides a theoretically based explanation as to why it is so difficult for an interstate border dispute to be resolved. By examining a wide range of salient actors, from state leaders to the individual governing organisations to the State itself, it is shown that it is usually in their interest to maintain the status quo rather than seek some form of resolution, thereby ensuring that the border dispute remains intractable. With both China and India shaping up to be major powers throughout the twenty-first century, a detailed examination of the major issue of contention between them is more pertinent now than ever.

External Dimension of the European Union's Critical Infrastructure Protection Programme: From Neighboring Frameworks to Transatlantic Cooperation provides the basis, methodological framework, and first comprehensive analysis of the current state of the external dimension European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection. The challenges at the EU level are multidimension insofar as identifying, designating and protecting critical infrastructures with the ultimate goal of harmonizing different national policies of the Member States and creating the identity of the European Union in this arena. Modern society has become so reliant on various sectors of critical infrastructure-energy, telecommunications, transport, finance, ICT, and public services-that any disruption may lead to serious failures that impact individuals, society, and the economy. The importance of critical infrastructures grows with the industrial development of global and national communities; their interdependence and resiliency is increasingly important given security threats including terrorism, natural disaster, climate change and pandemic outbreak In the area of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience, the European Union is constantly committed to setting the objectives for the Member States. At the same time, the European Commission promotes the importance of a common approach to Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), and ensure cooperation beyond the borders of the Union, while also cooperating with neighboring countries, including those soon willing to join the European Union. This book has been structured and written to contribute to current critical infrastructures, resilience policy development and discussions about regional and international cooperation. It serves as a reference for those countries willing to initiate cooperation and that therefore demand deeper knowledge on the security cultures and frameworks of their potential partners. Features: Provides an unprecedented analysis of the national frameworks of 14 neighboring countries of the EU, plus the United States and Canada Overcomes the language barriers to provide an overall picture of the state of play of the countries considered Outlines the shaping of national critical infrastructure protection frameworks to understanding the importance of service stability and continuity Presents guidelines to building a comprehensive and flexible normative framework Addresses the strategic and operational importance of international co-operation on critical infrastructure including efforts in CIP education and training Provides insight to institutions and decision-makers on existing policies and ways to improve the European security agenda The book explains and advocates for establishing stronger, more resilient systems to preserve functionalities at the local, national, and international levels. Security, industry, and policy experts-both practitioners and policy decision-makers-looking for answers will find the solutions they seek within this book.

This book examines how states justify the domestic use of military force to foreign audiences. By deploying a sociological approach to legitimacy and drawing on conceptual tools which deal directly with the dynamics of justification, it offers a novel framework for understanding the politics of international legitimacy and domestic armed action. The framework is grounded in detailed qualitative analyses of civil wars in Sri Lanka (2006-2009), and Aceh, Indonesia (2003-2005). The book shows that the meaning of legitimacy in a particular context does not flow directly from a menu of relevant rules, norms and ideas. Rather, legitimacy is always politically contested. When states justify fighting at home, the success of their claims is determined by their capacity to appeal to rules and norms but also to frame their action in ways that their audiences find compelling. Therefore, the framework offered in this book draws attention to the crucial but largely neglected role of audiences in the constitution of legitimacy. This book will be of interest to students of security studies, law, human rights and international relations.

This book applies strategic culture concepts to violent non-state actors (VNSAs) in a comparative analysis. In recent years, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has become notorious for kidnapping Western hostages in north-western Africa and for its role in the short-lived Islamist takeover of Mali. The group, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, rebranded itself as an Al-Qaida franchise in 2007, leading to speculation of a change from its Algeria-centric agenda to an anti-Western one. This study compares and contrasts the ideas and behaviour of these two groups, using a strategic-cultural approach, and finds that, despite some commonalities, AQIM has a distinct strategic culture from Al-Qaida central, thereby debunking the notion of Al-Qaida as a monolithic movement. This is the first comparative analysis of violent non-state actors to employ a strategic-cultural approach and the first such study on AQIM. While strategic culture has traditionally been applied to states, this work adds to the emerging literature applying such approaches to non-state armed groups, and employs a novel conception of strategic culture consisting of narratives and practices. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic culture, political violence, Middle Eastern politics and Security Studies in general.

Northern Ireland presents a fundamental challenge for the sociology of religion - how do religious beliefs, attitudes and identities relate to practices, violence and conflict? In other words, what does religion do? These interrogations are at the core of this book. It is the first critical and comprehensive review of the ways in which the social sciences have interpreted religion's significance in Northern Ireland. In particular, it examines the shortcomings of existing interpretations and, in turn, suggests alternative lines of thinking for more robust and compelling analyses of the role(s) religion might play in Northern Irish culture and politics. Through, and beyond, the case of Northern Ireland, the second objective of this book is to outline a critical agenda for the social study of religion, which has theoretical and methodological underpinnings. Finally, this work engages with epistemological issues which never have been addressed as such in the Northern Irish context: how do conflict settings affect the research undertaken on religion, when religion is an object of political and violent contentions? By analysing the scope for objective and critical thinking in such research context, this critical essay intends to contribute to a sociology of the sociology of religion.

This textbook provides a thorough grounding in the vocabulary, concepts, issues and debates associated with modern land warfare. The second edition has been updated and revised, and includes new chapters on non-western perspectives and hybrid warfare. Drawing on a range of case studies spanning the First World War through to contemporary conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and Nagorno-Karabakh, the book explores what is unique about the land domain and how this has shaped the theory and practice of military operations conducted upon it. It also looks at land warfare across the spectrum of its conduct, including conventional campaigning, counterinsurgency, and peace support and stabilisation operations. Key themes and debates identified and analysed include: the tensions between change and continuity; the role of technology in land warfare; the relevance of culture and context; the difficulties in translating theory into effective military practice; in-depth discussions on issues of immediate contemporary significance, including hybrid warfare, emerging military technologies, and the military reform processes of the US, Russian, and Chinese land forces. This book will be essential reading for military practitioners and for students of land warfare, military history, war studies and strategic studies.

This book explores the powerful role of ordinary people's agency in times of violent conflict. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a Critical Discourse Analysis, the author draws out the motivations, drivers and strategies at individual and community levels. With a focus on people's own voices, this research highlights rich findings showing a wide range of experiences and actions that people engaged in during the violent conflict, and dimensions that are often missed in dominant explanations of violent conflict. Therefore, while looking at peace and conflict from an everyday perspective, the question of power and the meaning of peace knowledge become central. This monograph addresses the power of people's agency not only in shaping the politics and dynamics of violence, but also in redefining what 'peace' and 'change' ought to look like. Essential reading for researchers and students of Peace and Conflict Studies, and also International Relations, Security Studies, Resistance Studies, Anthropology, Politics, International Development.

This book draws together established and emerging scholars from sociology, law, history, political science and education to examine the global and local issues in the pursuit of gender justice in post-conflict settings. This examination is especially important given the disappointing progress made to date in spite of concerted efforts over the last two decades. With contributions from both academics and practitioners working at national and international levels, this work integrates theory and practice, examining both global problems and highly contextual case studies including Kenya, Somalia, Peru, Afghanistan and DRC. The contributors aim to provide a comprehensive and compelling argument for the need to fundamentally rethink global approaches to gender justice.

The book discusses the Pakistan factor in Indian foreign policy, covering the evolution of both Indian nationalism and Hindu nationalism and their impact on India's foreign policy framework. To explain the bipartisanship on Pakistan in India, it separates party-centric foreign policy views of national parties of India. Then it explains India's Pakistan policy from multiple aspects. It underscores India's pursuit of policy choices under Modi and ends with a discussion on the future of India-Pakistan relations.

This book explores the challenges of combating terrorism from a policing perspective using the example of the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC (RUC) in Northern Ireland. The RUC was in the frontline of counter-terrorism work for thirty years of conflict during which time it also provided a normal policing service to the public. However, combating a protracted and vicious terrorist campaign exacted a heaving price on the force. Importantly, the book addresses a seriously under-researched theme in terrorism studies, namely, the impact of terrorism on members of the security forces. Accordingly, the book examines how officers have been affected by the conflict as terrorists adopted a strategy which targeted them both on and off duty. This resulted in a high percentage of officers being killed whilst off duty - sometimes in the company of their wives and children. The experience of officers' wives is also documented thus highlighting the familial impact of terrorism. Generally speaking, the victims of terrorist attacks have received scant scholarly attention which has resulted in victims' experiences being little understood. This piece of work casts a specific and unique light on the nature of victimhood as it has been experienced by members of this branch of the security forces in Northern Ireland.