China's rise and stepped-up involvement in Southeast Asia have prompted a blend of anticipation and unease among its smaller neighbors. The stunning growth of China has yanked up the region's economies, but its militarization of the South China Sea and dam building on the Mekong River has nations wary about Beijing's outsized ambitions. Southeast Asians long felt relatively secure, relying on the United States as a security hedge, but that confidence began to slip after the Trump administration launched a trade war with China and questioned the usefulness of traditional alliances. This compelling book provides a snapshot of ten countries in Southeast Asia by exploring their diverse experiences with China and how this impacts their perceptions of Beijing's actions and its long-term political, economic, military, and "soft power" goals in the region.

NATO's military interventions in the Balkans have transformed the alliance. As the alliance goes East, its members are compelled to rethink NATO's, and each member nation's, military and political roles. Providing a well-rounded study of continuing change in the contemporary North Atlantic Treaty Organization, this book is constructed around eight essays by European security experts analyzing challenges confronting the Atlantic Alliance as a military alliance and as a collective security organization dealing simultaneously with deterrence, enlargement, and regional crisis intervention. It is intended for senior undergraduate and graduate students in international relations, American foreign policy, European studies, security and strategic studies.

The evidence is that NATO will undergo many more changes responding to actual and potential threats to Europe's peace. These range from a revival of the ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia to the proliferation and possible use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Also discussed is the matter of NATO's further enlargement and the question of whether this offers more or less security to the alliance membership, as are the emerging tensions between the EU and NATO security regimes.

This is a philosophical exploration of the moral issues raised by the use of private military contractors in war. The presence of contractors on today's battlefields is without question one of the most significant developments in modern warfare. While many contractors perform relatively benign tasks on behalf of the military, controversy rages around those contractors who offer services that involve the use of armed force. The rise of the private military industry raises some difficult issues. For example, Jeremy Scahill, one of the industry's most vociferous critics, questions whether the outsourcing of military force is not 'a subversion of the very existence of the nation-state and of principles of sovereignty'. These questions are at essence philosophical challenges to the existence of the private military industry. In "Just Warriors, Inc.", philosopher and ethicist Deane-Peter Baker argues that, contrary to popular assumptions, a compelling moral and philosophical case can be made in favour of the ongoing utilization of the services that these 'private warriors' offer. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in moving beyond the hyperbole and exploring in depth the real questions that should be asked about the privatisation of military force. "Think Now" is a new series of books which examines central contemporary social and political issues from a philosophical perspective. These books aim to be accessible, rather than overly technical, bringing philosophical rigour to modern questions which matter the most to us. Provocative yet engaging, the authors take a stand on political and cultural themes of interest to any intelligent reader.

The accords and protocols that underlie the Arab and Israeli peace agreements set into place economic policies and political processes so flawed that they are bound to fail. The chapters in this volume look at the diplomatic and historical precedents that have led to this situation and they debate - some cynically and some sympathetically - the reasons why the institutional structures and trade regimes the process has created are so weak. But for whatever reason, the structural flaws built into the Middle East peace process are not only biased toward the dominant players but against the people who most want peace.

For decades, studies of oil-related conflicts have focused on the effects of natural resource mismanagement, resulting in great economic booms and busts or violence as rebels fight ruling governments over their regions' hydrocarbon resources. In "Oil Sparks in the Amazon," Patricia I. Vasquez writes that while oil busts and civil wars are common, the tension over oil in the Amazon has played out differently, in a way inextricable from the region itself.
Oil disputes in the Amazon primarily involve local indigenous populations. These groups' social and cultural identities differ from the rest of the population, and the diverse disputes over land, displacement, water contamination, jobs, and wealth distribution reflect those differences. Vasquez spent fifteen years traveling to the oilproducing regions of Latin America, conducting hundreds of interviews with the stakeholders in local conflicts. She analyzes fifty-five social and environmental clashes related to oil and gas extraction in the Andean countries (Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia). She also examines what triggers local hydrocarbons disputes and offers policy recommendations to resolve or prevent them.
Vasquez argues that each case should be analyzed with attention to its specific sociopolitical and economic context. She shows how the key to preventing disputes that lead to local conflicts is to address structural flaws (such as poor governance and inadequate legal systems) and nonstructural flaws (such as stakeholders' attitudes and behavior) at the outset. Doing this will require more than strong political commitments to ensure the equitable distribution of oil and gas revenues. It will require attention to the local values and culture as well.

Preventative war has a long history in international politics, but until it became an instrumental part of the 'Bush Doctrine', it was mostly overlooked. We know that there have been preventative wars throughout history, but the motivations behind them have remained elusive. Because of the relatively little attention focused on preventative action, there are many crucial questions that remain unanswered. What exactly constitutes preventative action? What differentiates preventative action from pre-emptive action? Are there significant differences between preventative strikes and full-on preventative wars? What is the relationship of preventive action to traditional concepts of deterrence, compellence, and international law? Finally, and most important, why do states initiate preventative action? Ultimately, the best avenue for understanding decisions to initiate preventative action is through a close examination of the individual leader responsible for such decisions. The theory of preventative action presented in this book is based upon the beliefs, values, and perceptions of leaders. Israel's strike on Iraq's nuclear reactor, 1981; American preventive war planning, 1946-1954; Indian preventative war planning, 1982-2002; and America's war against Iraq, 2003. In each instance, preventative action was seriously considered, and yet it only occurred in three of the five cases. In the end, each case provides further evidence that individual leadership matters, and nowhere more so than in decisions involving preventative war.

This edited volume focuses on various forms of regionalism and neighborhoods in the Baltic-Black Sea area. In the light of current reshaping of borderlands and new geopolitical and military confrontations in Europe's eastern margins, such as the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, this book analyzes different types and modalities of regional integration and region-making from a comparative perspective. It conceptualizes cooperative and conflictual encounters as a series of networks and patchworks that differently link and relate major actors to each other and thus shape these interconnections as domains of inclusion and exclusion, bordering and debordering, securitization and desecuritization. This peculiar combination of geopolitics, ethnopolitics and biopolitics makes the Baltic-Black Sea trans-national region a source of inspiring policy practices, and, in the light of new security risks, a matter of increased concern all over Europe. The contributors from various disciplines cover topics such as cultural and civilizational spaces of belonging and identity politics, the rise of right-wing populism, region building under the condition of multiple security pressures, and the influence and regional strategies of different external powers, including the EU, Russia, and Turkey, on cross- and trans-regional relations in the area.

The book covers Islam from its inception through its global spread, terrorism, its militancy, its effect on Western society and the enabling support the Islamic world receives from the West. The book also proposes a set of countermeasures.

Religion is prevalent in world politics today, and international relation theory is at pains to understand and explain this phenomenon. This unique study aims to introduce political theology as an appropriate tool to the study of international relations. In accordance with the political theology of Carl Schmitt, which states that modern political concepts are secularized theological concepts, the work questions the "secular" foundations of contemporary international relations theory. Thus it reveals the Christian foundations of the discipline of international relations and delivers a critique of some of its most fundamental theoretical elements, such as its secular view of religion as part of the "irrational," its deification of the political form of the nation state, and its negation of theism in its understanding of responsibility in world politics.The result is a primer on how international relations and its studies have grown out of the political imagination of Christian theology. It will appeal to anyone interested in critical approaches to the field as well as in politics and religion, political theory, and political theology.

At the start of the 1960s, revolution challenged the established world order. In every corner of the underdeveloped world, discontent with the status quo fueled attempts to revoke colonialism and the strangleholds on power maintained by entrenched local oligarchies. This book examines the causes of revolution in the sixties and the various responses crafted to stop it, in particular, the Alliance for Progress, a program which represented the best products of American developmental and counterinsurgency theory. Equally important, however, is an examination of the independent policies implemented by Latin Americans themselves, often in direct opposition to those pursued by the U.S. For the United States the period represented a challenge to both its sovereignty and its leadership in the so-called "Free World." Perhaps more importantly, the disruptions blanketing the globe also pointed out the dramatic weaknesses of an American policy dominated by preparations for thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union. For Latin America, revolution challenged national stability and, in the cases of the regimes it was directed against, their very survival.

This is the first comprehensive account of Britain's relations with Switzerland during World War II. It explains why Britain remained apparently so impassive towards Switzerland's financial and economic collaboration with the Axis and why it did so little to try to liberalize Switzerland's restrictive refugee policy. The extent and importance of Britain's covert activities in Switzerland are exposed for the first time.

This text offers American and Russian perspectives on the evolution of the US Russian post- Cold War security relationship obstacles and opportunities in bilateral co-operation and critical security challenges for the two countries on the threshold of the 21st-century. American and Russian contributors discuss prospects for managing a range of issues encompassing both traditional military aspects of security, as well as in depth exploration of the broader non military dimensions of international security. The book is designed to challenge readers to think about some of the most pressing security issues of our time and the roles and responsibilities of the United States and Russia in preserving global stability and peace beyond the millennium.

The Elusive Quest for European Security provides a detailed overview of the various attempts to incorporate a security and defence role in the European integration process. Consideration is given to why these aspects of the integration process have proven so elusive and what progress has been made towards this goal. The assessment includes topics such as the enlargement of NATO, the EU's Amsterdam Treaty, and the role of the revived Western European Union, as well as the role of the main actors which includes Britain's bid for European leadership in defence, and the changing attitudes of administrations in Washington DC.

This book breaks new ground by connecting two central problems faced by the Federal Republic of Germany prior to reunification in 1990, both of them rooted in the Second World War. Domestically, the country had to integrate eight million expellees forced out of their homes in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of the lost war. Externally, it had to re-establish relations with Eastern Europe, despite the burdens of the Nazi past, the expulsions, and the ongoing East-West struggle in the Cold War. This study shows how the long-term consequences of the expellee problem significantly hindered West German efforts to develop normal ties to the East European states. In particular, it emphasizes a point largely overlooked in the existing literature: the way in which the political integration of the expellees into the Federal Republic had unanticipated negative consequences for the country's Ostpolitik.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Globalisation impacts almost all aspects of life. It is often said that change is accelerating, and that the nation state is increasingly anachronistic. This book challenges that consensus, arguing that globalisation is neither an historic nor technological inevitability; rather, globalisation and technological change are as old as capitalism itself. Jonathan Michie makes the case for a new, more realistic approach to economics. He argues that the reduced power of national governments is a result of the free-market reforms of globalisation created in the 1980s era of Thatcher and Reagan, which led to the 2008 global financial crisis and recession. The free-market 'capitalism unleashed' form of globalisation is neither inevitable nor desirable - it is possible to develop a new global green deal for economic progress, being socially and environmentally sustainable. Michie demonstrates that capital has become unproductive with increased speculation and tax evasion, and that taxing wealth is necessary to create a new era of globally sustainable development. Key features include: in-depth coverage of globalisation written in a concise and accessible style disputes the consensus that globalisation is an historic or technological inevitability focus on current issues such as unproductive capital, a result of increased speculation, tax evasion and avoidance advocates policy proposals for global regulation, taxation and corporate diversity argues the need for a new global green deal for social and environmental sustainability and makes a clear case for an improved and more realistic approach to economics. The Advanced Introduction to Globalisation will be a challenging yet engaging read for policy makers, academics and advanced students of economics, management and business, politics and environmental studies. This book sets out an alternative worldview which will interest anyone concerned with our future global prospects.

This text makes detailed analyses and comments on the MAI from the perspective of a Chinese scholar. The author believes that the "behind closed doors" process of MAI negotiations is unacceptable for developing countries, NGOs, and civil societies, and is inadvisable for any future negotiations on investment rules. The substantive contents of the MAI which include the definition of investor and investment, treatment of foreign investors and investments, treatment for investment protection, and the dispute settlement mechanism are of high standards that render them unreachable and unacceptable for developing countries. The nine chapters of the book include: an introduction; An analysis of the background of the MAI negotiations which briefly reviews the process and results of the negotiations and makes the author's comments on the negotiations; an analysis and evaluation of the main features of MAI provisions and the approaches adopted by the MAI; An exploration of the scope of application of the MAI through the analysis of the respective definition of investor and investment in the MAI, and points out that the purpose of broad definition is to broaden the MAI's scope of application; An analysis and comment on the MAI's general principles of treatment accorded to foreign investors and their investments, and points out that the MAI's provisions in this regard have negative impacts on developing countries; An introduction to the MAI's specific rules of treatment accorded to foreign investors and their investments in such new areas of international investment as performance requirements, investment incentives, key personnel, privatization, as well as monopoly, state enterprises and concessions. There is also: an analysis and commentary on the MAI's treatment provisions on investment protection, that is, the fair and equitable treatment and full and constant protection and security treatment as the general treatment, and the specific treatment with regard to expropriation and compensation, protection from strife and transfers; an introduction to and evaluation of the MAI's dispute settlement mechanism: the state-state procedure and the investor-state procedure, and; a conclusion.

This is a close study of the history of the public image of the Balkans in Britain from 1900-1945. Ever since the end of the Cold War the Balkans have preoccupied European public opinion much more than any other region of the old Eastern bloc. To a large extent this is a result of the wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia. The conflicts of the 1990s raised a series of questions about the nature of Balkan history as compared to an assumed European norm. Even more, they triggered prolonged discussions on the form and timing of foreign engagement in the region, both during the war, and ahead of the eastward expansion of the European Union. These public debates underlay the emergence of a related academic interest in intercultural contacts between the Balkans and the rest of Europe over the last three centuries. This book is a close study of the history of the Balkan images in Britain in the first half of the 20th century, and of the channels through which these were built. It proposes new interpretative models for broader research in the formation of public images of foreign lands.

The ongoing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is now in its fourth decade and shows no signs of ending. Raphael D. Marcus examines this conflict since the formation of Hezbollah during Israel's occupation of Lebanon in the early 1980s. He critically evaluates events including Israel's long counterguerrilla campaign throughout the 1990s, the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, the 2006 summer war, and concludes with an assessment of current tensions on the border between Israel and Lebanon related to the Syrian civil war. Israel's Long War with Hezbollah is both the first complete military history of this decades-long conflict and an analysis of military innovation and adaptation. The book is based on unique fieldwork in Israel and Lebanon, extensive research into Hebrew and Arabic primary sources, and dozens of interviews Marcus conducted with Israeli defense officials, high-ranking military officers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), United Nations personnel, a Hezbollah official, and Western diplomats. As an expert on organizational learning, Marcus analyzes ongoing processes of strategic and operational innovation and adaptation by both the IDF and Hezbollah throughout the long guerrilla conflict. His conclusions illuminate the dynamics of the ongoing conflict and illustrate the complexity of military adaptation under fire. With Hezbollah playing an ongoing role in the civil war in Syria and the simmering hostilities on the Israel-Lebanon border, students, scholars, diplomats, and military practitioners with an interest in Middle Eastern security issues, Israeli military history, and military innovation and adaptation can ill afford to neglect this book.

First published in 2006 The Atlantic Slave Trade (4 volume set) tells the history of the Atlantic slave trade from its origins through to the nineteenth century. Outlined in essays taken from key journals in the field from 1940 onwards, it is also the history of Atlantic power systems and economies. Each of the collections is introduced by an essay from the general editor, which comments on the contribution the essays make. The Atlantic slave trade was established as a response to economic need and was a product of the search for economic opportunity. As such, it was a system of servitude driven essentially by free enterprise. The key context was European trans-oceanic expansion focused on the Atlantic world where labour was needed and labour was available but not at the same place. This set is a re-issue originally published in 2006 and contains articles from 1940 onwards. The language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.

In the midst of ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, civil war, and political discord, courageous civilians from both sides are working together toward mutual understanding and peace. In 40 captivating chapters, experts tell intriguing personal stories, interwoven with psychosocial models and principles, describing how people living in hostile cultures can establish harmony. We come to know established programs like Seeds of Peace and Search for Common Ground, as well as lesser-heralded, yet valiant efforts by children and adults of the region. This hope-filled work will be of interest to everyone who cares about peace, as well as to professionals and students in the social sciences, psychology, international relations, public policy, human rights, and cross-cultural studies. In the midst of ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, civil war, and political discord, courageous civilians from both sides are working together toward mutual understanding and peace. Israeli Jews and Arabs, and Palestinian Muslims and Christians, young and old, men and women, are cooperating in grassroots people-to-people projects, developing educational programs and creating activities to bridge their differences. Beyond Bullets and Bombs showcases such impressive and important projects that deserve more support and world attention. In 40 captivating chapters, experts tell intriguing personal stories interwoven with psychosocial models and principles proving how people living in hostile cultures can establish peace. This collection is the perfect companion to Kuriansky's earlier book, Terror in the Holy Land: Inside the Anguish of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, an unprecedented work that presents more than 30 chapters written by Israelis, Palestinians, and psychological experts on the underpinnings and effects of the conflict. In the volume at hand, we come to know established programs like Seeds of Peace and Search for Common Ground, as well as lesser-heralded, yet valiant efforts by children and adults of the region working together for peace. Both volumes will be of interest to everyone who cares about peace, as well as to professionals and students in the social sciences, psychology, international relations, public policy, human rights, and cross-cultural studies.

Using archival materials from all three nations, this first comparative study of French and Italian relations with the United States during the early Cold War shows that French and Italian ambitions of status, or prestige, crucially affected the formation of the Western Alliance. While attention to outside appearances had a long historic tradition for both European nations, the notion was compounded by their humiliation in World War II and their consequent fear of further demotion. Only by promoting an American hegemony over Europe could France and Italy aspire respectively to attain continental leadership and equality with the other great European powers. For its part, Washington carefully calibrated concessions of mere status with the more substantial issues of international roles.

A recent trend in both U.S. and European historiography of the Cold War has emphasized the role that America's allies had in shaping the post-World War II international system. Combining diplomatic, strategic, economic, and cultural insights, and reassessing the main events from post-war reconstruction to the Middle Eastern crises of the late 1950s, Brogi reaches two major conclusions: that the United States helped the two allies to recover enough self-esteem to cope with their own decline; and that both the French and the Italian leaders, with constant pressure from Washington, progressively adapted to a notion of prestige no longer based solely on nationalism, but also on their capacity to promote, or even master, continental integration. With this focus on image, Brogi finally suggests a background to today's changing patterns of international relations, as civilizational values become increasingly important at the expense of more familiar indices of economic and military power.

An A-Z encyclopedia covering the principal battles and campaigns, key military and political figures, and the political maneuvering during the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. America's adventure into colonialism began with the destruction of the U.S. battleship Maine in 1898, presumably by a Spanish mine. The four month war against Spain that followed-the shortest declared war in U.S. history-resulted in the U.S. acquisition of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. The young giant of the Western Hemisphere was transformed into a colonial power, and the balance of power in the world was changed forever. In this chronicle of an era that has escaped the attention it deserves, military historian Jerry Keenan explores America's war with Spain and the violence that followed. He shows how the United States muddled the administration of the sprawling Philippine archipelago, guided by a policy that President McKinley called "benevolent assimilation." Within a year, the United States was fighting a war against Philippine nationalists-a three year conflict that would give American soldiers their first bitter taste of counterinsurgency warfare in an Asian jungle. Analyzes all of the campaigns and principal battles of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars, along with their political and historical context Profiles key military and political figures in the United States, Cuba, Spain, and the Philippines Charts the chronological development of the confrontations from 1868 to 1903 Generously illustrates the discussion with maps, tactical diagrams, and archival photos