This book examines Russia s external security policy under the presidencies of Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev and beyond.
The Russian Federation has developed from a neglected regional power into a self-declared resurgent superpower. Russia s background in the former Soviet Union as well as close ties with the upcoming new powers of China and India served as spring-boards towards regaining an influential status in the world. Simultaneously, Moscow developed an assertive policy towards the West and unwilling neighbours, culminating in August 2008 in an armed conflict with Georgia. Reviewing this decade of Russian international security policy, this work analyses security documents, military reforms and policy actions towards friends and foes, such as the USA and NATO, to provide an assessment of the future security stance of the Kremlin.

This book will be of much interest to students of Russian politics and foreign policy, European politics and Security Studies and IR in general.

The book interrogates the disciplinary biases and firewalls that inform mainstream international relations today, and problematises the several tropes that have come to typify the strategic histories of post-colonial societies such as India. Questioning a range of long-held cultural representations on India, the book challenges such portrayals and underscores the centrality of context and contingency in any cultural explanation of state behaviour. It argues for a historico-cultural understanding of power and critiques IR's tendency to usher in a selective 'return of history'. Taking two contrasting case studies from medieval Indian history, the book assesses the success and failure of the grand strategy pursued by the Mughal empire under Akbar. The study emphasises his grand strategy of accommodation, defined by the interplay of critical variables such as distance and the vast military labour market. The book also looks at his conscious attempt to indigenise power by projecting himself as the personification of the ideal Hindu king. This case study helps to contextualise the many critical transitions that occurred in international relations: from medieval empires to the modern state system, and from an indigenised, experiential understanding of power to its absolute, abstract manifestations in the colonial state.

Despite Timor-Leste's high expectations when it became independent from Indonesia in 2002, the country is ranked among the least developed countries in the world. It has found itself at the centre of international attention in the last decade, with one of the biggest interventions in UN history, as well as receiving amongst the highest per capita rates of bilateral assistance in the Asia-Pacific region. This book draws together the perspectives of practitioners, policy-makers and academics on the international efforts to rebuild one of the world's newest nations. The contributors consider issues of peace-building, security and justice sector reform as well as human security in Timor-Leste, locating these in the broader context of building nation, stability and development. The book includes two demographic studies that can be used to critically examine the nation's possible future. Engaging in deliberate consideration of both practical and theoretical complexities of international interventions, this book will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of Development, Security and Southeast Asian Studies.

First published in 1990, this is an authoritative account of defence spending and policy in both developing and developed countries. The book provides case-studies and comparitive materiel for policy-makers, civil servants, and military staffs throughout hte world. It will also be of great use to students of economics, politics, international relations, and policy studies.

A noted theorist of globalization offers a complete reconstruction of our national security institutions and strategies to better match today s realities. David A. Westbrook shows how deploying ourselves as statesmen and -women, as citizens can better achieve U.S. national security. Westbrook explains why today s national security establishment is outdated, entrenched in a model of defense befitting the post World War II Cold War era. Today, without military peers, the U.S. must re-create its institutions around wielding influence globally, based on the cooperation of other states and groups. Even when we deploy troops today, our goal is the construction of order, not defense. Westbrook explores radical (including Jihadist) challenges, the long war on terror, and other current topics to show how defense institutions could be reconceived in order to become both more responsible and more effective. His measures include a wholesale revision of the National Security Act of 1947 to radically reform intelligence work by reintegrating it into democratically responsible military and diplomatic bureaucracies."

This edited volume addresses one of the most significant issues in international strategic studies today: how to meet the challenge of a rising China? The contributors take a global view of the topic, offering unique and often controversial perspectives on the nature of the China challenge. The book approaches the subject from a variety of angles, including realist, offensive realist, institutional, power transition, interdependence, and constructivist perspectives. Chapters explore such issues as the US response to the China challenge, Japan's shifting strategy toward a rising China, EU-China relations, China's strategic partnership with Russia and India, and the implications of "unipolarity" for China, the US and the world. In doing so, the volume offers insights into some of the key questions surrounding China's grand strategy and its potential effects on to the existing international order.

This book explores civil-military relations in Asia. With chapters on individual countries in the region, it provides a comprehensive account of the range of contemporary Asian practices under conditions of abridged democracy, soft authoritarianism or complete totalitarianism. Through its analysis, the book argues that civil-military relations in Asia ought to be examined under the concept of 'Asian military evolutions.' It demonstrates that while Asian militaries have tried to incorporate standard, western-derived frameworks of civil-military relations, it has been necessary to adapt such frameworks to suit local circumstances. The book reveals how this has in turn led to creative fusions and novel changes in making civil-military relations an asset to furthering national security objectives.

Religion and security play an important role in traditional societies. In South and Central Asia, traditional and moderate Islamic beliefs and practices with strong indigenous and Sufi content are diametrically opposed to radical Wahabi and Taliban brands of Islam intolerant of other cultures and groups. The emergence of radical extremist and violent Islamist movements poses serious challenges to the secular and democratic polity, inter-religious harmony, security and territorial integrity of states in the region. As such, religious extremism, terrorism, drug trafficking and arms smuggling are viewed by various countries in South and Central Asia and also in the West as the main threats to their security. Against this backdrop, this book provides local perspectives on religion, security, history and geopolitics in South Asia and Central Asia in an integrated manner. Presenting a holistic and updated view of the developments inside and across South and Central Asia, it offers concise analyses by experts on the region. Contributors discuss topics such as the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the politics and practice of Islamist terrorism in India, and the security challenges posed by religious radicalism in Bangladesh. The book makes a significant contribution to South and Central Asian Studies, as well as studies on Regional Security.

This title presents complementary analyses of the current features, issues and trends of multilateral security and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) peace operations. The analyses offers the reader a sound interpretation of the attributes of ESDP operations in the context of the diffusion of peace operations practice in the present time. Founded on the detailed examination of different peace operations and the analysis of relevant data, the book chapters give to the reader the chance of assessing the near-term future of peace operations.

This book of contributed chapters by subject matter expertly provides an overview and analysis of salient contemporary and historical military subjects from the military geographera (TM)s perspective. Factors of geography have had a compelling influence on battles and campaigns throughout history; however, geography and military affairs have gained heightened attention during the past two decades, and military geography is the discipline best situated to explain them.a Hence, the premise of this book and its contents are founded on the principle that geographical knowledge of space, place, people, and scale provide essential insights into contemporary security issues and promotes the idea that such insight is critical to understanding and managing significant military problems at local, regional, and global scales.a

This book assesses the evolution of the Soviet approach toward European security policy since the mid-1980s, as seen from the prism of assessments of and policy toward the Federal Republic of Germany, examining basic Soviet analyses of West Germany in the period prior to unification.

This book assesses the use of 'mercenaries' by states, and their integration into the national armed forces as part of a new hybridisation trend of contemporary armies. Governments, especially in the West, are undertaking an unprecedented wave of demilitarisation and military budget cuts. Simultaneously, these same governments are increasingly opening their armies up to foreign nationals and outsourcing military operations to private companies. This book explores the impact of this hybridisation on the values, cohesion and effectiveness of the armed forces by comparing and contrasting the experiences of the French Foreign Legion, private military companies in Angola, and the merging of private contractors and American troops in Iraq. Examining the employment of foreign citizens and private security companies as military forces and tools of foreign policy, and their subsequent impact on the national armed forces, the book investigates whether the difficulties of coordinating soldiers of various nationalities and allegiances within public-private joint military operations undermines the legitimacy of the state. Furthermore, the author questions whether this trend for outsourcing security can realistically provide a long term and positive contribution to national security. This book will be of much interest to students of private military companies, strategic studies, international security and IR in general.

A comprehensive exploration of how national and state security policy is effected by the production, storage, transportation, safeguarding, export and use of enriched uranium - and, by extension, plutonium. A wide range of geopolitical, security and technical issues are examined, as are the challenges presented to national and global governance. This book contributes to a new understanding of one of the most serious security implications inherent in the current rapid growth in nuclear power generation. It assesses attempts made to deal with the latent dangers to Homeland Security posed by potential misuse of enriched uranium and plutonium, considering both the chances for success, and the costs of failure.

This book examines Russia's external security policy under the presidencies of Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev and beyond.
The Russian Federation has developed from a neglected regional power into a self-declared resurgent superpower. Russia's background in the former Soviet Union as well as close ties with the upcoming new powers of China and India served as spring-boards towards regaining an influential status in the world. Simultaneously, Moscow developed an assertive policy towards the West and unwilling neighbours, culminating in August 2008 in an armed conflict with Georgia. Reviewing this decade of Russian international security policy, this work analyses security documents, military reforms and policy actions towards friends and foes, such as the USA and NATO, to provide an assessment of the future security stance of the Kremlin.

This book will be of much interest to students of Russian politics and foreign policy, European politics and Security Studies and IR in general.

This is the first academic study of India's emerging maritime strategy, and offers a systematic analysis of the interplay between Western military thought and Indian maritime traditions. By a quirk of historical fate, Europe embarked on its Age of Discovery just as the main Asian powers were renouncing the sea, ushering in centuries of Western dominance. In the 21st century, however, Asian states are once again resuming a naval focus, with both China and India dedicating some of their new-found wealth to building powerful navies and coast guards, and drawing up maritime strategies to govern the use of these forces. The United States, like the British Empire before it, is attempting to manage these rising sea powers while preserving its maritime primacy. This book probes how India looks at the sea, what kind of strategy and seagoing forces New Delhi may craft in the coming years, and how Indian leaders may use these forces. It examines the material dimension, but its major premise is that navies represent a physical expression of a society's history, philosophical traditions, and culture. This book, then, ventures a comprehensive appraisal of Indian maritime strategy. This book will be of interest to students of sea power, strategic studies, Indian politics and Asian Studies in general. James R. Holmes is an Associate Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College and a former U.S. Navy surface warfare officer. Toshi Yoshihara is an Associate Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College. Andrew C. Winner is Professor in the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College.

Making the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party 's nuclear tests in 1998 its starting point, this book examines how opinion amongst India 's attentive public shifted from supporting nuclear abstinence to accepting and even feeling a need for a more assertive policy, by examining the complexities of the debate in India on nuclear policy in the 1990s.

The study seeks to account for the shift in opinion by looking at the parallel processes of how nuclear policy became an important part of the public discourse in India, and what it came to symbolise for the country 's intelligentsia during this decade. It argues that the pressure on New Delhi in the early 1990s to fall in line with the non-proliferation regime, magnified by India 's declining global influence at the time, caused the issue to cease being one of defence, making it a focus of nationalist pride instead. The country 's nuclear programme thus emerged as a test of its ability to withstand external compulsions, guaranteeing not so much the sanctity of its borders as a certain political idea of it that of a modern, scientific and, most importantly, sovereign state able to defend its policies and set its goals.

The Putin era saw a striking 'securitization' of politics, something that he has bequeathed to his chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev. The omens from the early days of the Medvedev presidency have been mixed, marked both by less confrontational rhetoric towards the West and by war with Georgia and continued re-armament. Has the Medvedev generation learned the lessons not just from the Soviet era but also from the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies, or will security remain the foundation of Russian foreign and domestic policy? Fully up-to-date to reflect the evolving Medvedev presidency, the 2008 Georgian war and the impact of the economic downturn, this volume is a much needed objective and balanced examination of the ways in which security has played and continues to play a central role in contemporary Russian politics. The combination of original scholarship with extensive empirical research makes this volume an invaluable resource for all students and researchers of Russian politics and security affairs.

This book examines US hegemony and international legitimacy in the post-Cold War era, focusing on its leadership in the two wars on Iraq.

The preference for unilateral action in foreign policy under the Bush Administration, culminating in the use of force against Iraq in 2003, has unquestionably created a crisis in the legitimacy of US global leadership. Of central concern is the ability of the United States to act without regard for the values and interests of its allies or for international law on the use of force, raising the question: does international legitimacy truly matter in an international system dominated by a lone superpower?

US Hegemony and International Legitimacy explores the relationship between international legitimacy and hegemonic power through an in depth examination of two case studies - the Gulf Crisis of 1990-91 and the Iraq Crisis of 2002-03 - and examines the extent to which normative beliefs about legitimate behaviour influenced the decisions of states to follow or reject US leadership. The findings of the book demonstrate that subordinate states play a crucial role in consenting to US leadership and endorsing it as legitimate and have a significant impact on the ability of a hegemonic state to maintain order with least cost. Understanding of the importance of legitimacy will be vital to any attempt to rehabilitate the global leadership credentials of the United States under the Obama Administration.

This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, IR theory and security studies.

Lavina Rajendram Lee is a lecturer in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, Australia, and has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Sydney.

This new volume explores what the acquisition of nuclear weapons means for the life of a protracted conflict.

The book argues that the significance of the possession of nuclear weapons in conflict resolution has been previously overlooked. Saira Khan argues that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by states keeps conflicts alive indefinitely, as they are maintained by frequent crises and low-to-medium intensity violence, rather than escalating to full-scale wars. This theory therefore emphasises the importance of nuclear weapons in both war-avoidance and peace-avoidance. The book opens with a section explaining its theory of conflict transformation with nuclear weapons, before testing this against the case study of the India--Pakistan protracted conflict in South Asia.

This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, IR and Asian politics and security.

The US decision not to work through NATO after 9/11 left many European members of the alliance feeling deflated. This decision reflected not only the unilateralism of the Bush Administration, but also the belief that US operational freedom and flexibility had been hampered during NATO's two Balkans interventions.

This book examines US attitudes to, and perspectives on, the transatlantic alliance, with a particular focus on US-NATO relations since 9/11. It demonstrates that, following the decision to bypass NATO after 9/11, the Bush Administration's perceptions of the alliance shifted due to a belated recognition that NATO did indeed have much to offer the US. Hallams explores NATO's contributions to post-combat reconstruction and stabilisation operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and argues that the events of 9/11 galvanised NATO into undertaking an accelerated program of transformation that has done much to reinvigorate the alliance.

This book offers an optimistic assessment of the transatlantic alliance, counter-balanced by realistic reflections on the problems it faces. Drawing on interviews with US and NATO officials, it argues that NATO is far from irrelevant and that prospects for the alliance remain fundamentally positive; it will be of interest to students and scholars of US Foreign Policy, American politics, international relations, security studies and transatlantic studies.

China s emergence as a great power is a global concern that can potentially alter the structure of world politics. Its rise is multidimensional, affecting the political, security, and economic affairs of all states that comprise the world s fastest developing region of the Asia-Pacific.

Most of the recently published studies on China s rise have focused on its relations with its immediate neighbours in Northeast Asia: Japan, the Koreas, Taiwan, and Russia. Less attention has been given to Southeast Asia s relations with China. To address these issues, this volume, with its wide range of perspectives, will make a valuable contribution to the ongoing policy and academic dialogue on a rising China. It examines a range of perspectives on the nature of China s rise and its implications for Southeast Asian states as well as US interests in the region.

China, the United States and South-East Asia will be of great interest to students of Chinese politics, South-East Asian politics, regional security and international relations in general.

To measure the performance of its global distribution pipeline, the Department of Defense (DOD) has established three metrics: (1) logistics response time -- number of days between the time a customer submits an order and receives it, (2) customer wait time -- number of days between the time a maintenance unit, a subset of customers, submits an order and receives it, and (3) time-definite delivery -- a measure of the probability that a customer will receive an order within an established logistics response time. However, these metrics do not provide decision makers with a complete representation of performance across the entire global distribution pipeline. This book assesses the extent to which DOD has established metrics for its distribution performance; is able to accurately measure its performance against distribution standards; and has taken actions to identify causes and develop solutions for any gaps in distribution. Furthermore, the book reviews the extent to which DOD has developed and implemented corrective action plans that address challenges in the three focus areas; an effective program for monitoring and validating the effectiveness and sustainability of supply chain management corrective actions; and an ability to demonstrate supply chain management progress.

This book aims to engage with contemporary security discourses from a critical perspective. It argues that rather than being a radical, analytical outlook, much critical security theory fails to fulfil its promise to pose a challenge to contemporary power relations.

In general, 'critical security' theories and dialogues are understood to be progressive theoretical frameworks that offer a trenchant evaluation and analysis of contemporary international and national security policy. Tara McCormack investigates the limitations of contemporary critical and emancipatory theorising and its relationship with contemporary power structures. Beginning with a theoretical critique and moving into a case study of the critical approaches to the break up of the former Yugoslavia, this book assesses the policies adopted by the international community at the time to show that much contemporary critical security theory and discourse in fact mirrors shifts in post-Cold War international and national security policy. Far from challenging international power inequalities and offering an emancipatory framework, contemporary critical security theory inadvertently ends up serving as a theoretical justification for an unequal international order.

This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, international relations and security studies.

Tara McCormack is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester and has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Westminster.

Setting out the problem of security and placing it in an historical framework, the author of this work picks his way through the complexities of political theory and the tangled political history of southern Africa. He argues that the present formation of states has been shaped by the struggle of the African peoples for emancipation and the resistance of the European settler communities; and that South Africa has attempted to maintain regional order based on principles of domination, exploitation and inequality, founded on a colonial past and apartheid. The result has been a security system which is inherently militaristic, nation-focused and state-centred, and has led to confrontation within states and in the region. Zacarius therefore explores the concept of "people-centred" security and the "legitimate state", and regards these as essential building blocks in ensuring state and regional stability and security.