This book explores the mythology woven around the Soviet secret police and the Russian cult of state security that has emerged from it. Tracing the history of this mythology from the Soviet period through to its revival in contemporary post-Soviet Russia, the volume argues that successive Russian regimes have sponsored a cult' of state security, whereby security organs are held up as something to be worshipped. The book approaches the history of this cult as an ongoing struggle to legitimise and sacralise the Russian state security apparatus, and to negotiate its violent and dramatic past. It explores the ways in which, during the Soviet period, this mythology sought to make the existence of the most radically intrusive and powerful secret police in history appear natural'. It also documents the contemporary post-Soviet re-emergence of the cult of state security, examining the ways in which elements of the old Soviet mythology have been revised and reclaimed as the cornerstone of a new state ideology. The Russian cult of state security is of ongoing contemporary relevance, and is crucial for understanding not only the tragedies of Russia's twentieth-century history, but also the ambiguities of Russia's post-Soviet transition, and the current struggle to define Russia's national identity and future development. The book examines the ways in which contemporary Russian life continues to be shaped by the legacy of Soviet attitudes to state-society relations, as expressed in the reconstituted cult of state security. It investigates the shadow which the figure of the secret policeman continues to cast over Russia today. The book will be of great interest to students of modern Russian history and politics, intelligence studies and security studies, as well as readers with an interest in the KGB and its successors.

This book offers a systematic examination, analysis and evaluation of Israeli national security statecraft in terms of challenges and responses. Providing an in-depth analysis of Israeli statecraft challenges and responses, this interdisciplinary book integrates social science and security studies with public policy approaches within a long-term historical perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict. These scholarly approaches are synthesized with extensive personal knowledge of the author based on involvement in Israeli political-security policy making. This book makes use of conceptualizations of statecraft such as 'fuzzy gambling' and interventions with critical mass in ultra-dynamic historical processes to help clarify Israel's main statecraft successes and failures, alongside the wider theoretical apparatuses these concepts represent. While focused on Israel, these theoretical frameworks have important implications for the academic study of statecraft and statecraft praxis worldwide. This book will be of much interest to both statecraft practitioners and to students of Israeli politics and security, the Middle Eastern conflict, strategic studies and IR/security studies in general.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

The Indian Army was one of the most important colonial institutions that the British created. From its humble origins as a mercantile police force to a modern contemporary army in the Second World War, this institution underwent many transitions. This book examines the Indian Army during the later colonial era from the First Afghan War in 1839 to Indian independence in 1947. During this period, the Indian Army developed from an internal policing force, to a frontier army, and then to a conventional western style fighting force capable of deployment to overseas' theaters. These transitions resulted in significant structural and doctrinal changes in the army. The doctrines, and tactics honed during this period would have a dramatic impact upon the post-colonial armies of India and Pakistan. From civil-military relations to fighting and structural doctrines, the Indian and Pakistani armies closely reflect the deep-seated impact of decades of evolution during the late colonial era.

Men, ideas and tanks reviews the development of British military ideas on armoured forces from 1903 to 1939. Great Britain was the nation which first developed the tank, first used it in action and first gained dramatic results by employment. The British continued to be world leaders in the field of mechanised warfare until the early 1930s. J. P. Harris offers strikingly new interpretations of the early history of British armoured forces and explains why Great Britain had lost the lead by the outbreak of the Second World War. Available in paperback once more, this work will be of interest to all those concerned with British military history in the first half of the twentieth century, with the history of mechanised warfare and with the history of military thought. -- .

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 book rethinks security theory from a feminist perspective -- uniquely, it engages feminism, security, and strategic studies to provide a distinct feminist approach to Security Studies. The volume explicitly works toward an opening up of security studies that would allow for feminist (and other) narratives to be recognized and taken seriously as security narratives. To make this possible, it presents a feminist reading of security studies that aims to invigorate the debate and radicalize critical security studies. Since feminism is a political project, and security studies are, at their base, about particular visions of the political and their attendant institutions, this is of necessity a political intervention. The book works through and beyond security studies to explore possible spaces where an opening of security, necessary to make way for feminist insights, can take place. While it develops and illustrates a feminist narrative approach to security, it is also intended as an intervention that challenges the politics of security and the meanings for security legitimized in existing practices. This book provides develops a comprehensive framework for the emerging field of feminist security studies and will be of great interest to students and scholars of feminist IR, critical security studies, gender studies and IR and security studies in general.

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.

Though the medium of wireless communication was in relative infancy during World War I, the technology could have made a profound impact on tactical operations and on the entire strategic conduct of the war. Providing details on how and why the technology did not fulfill its promise as a great military tool until years later, the book points primarily to the British Army's institutional bias against wireless communication as the technology's downfall, reinforced by the crude, unreliable wireless sets with which the army began the war. It also demonstrates how improved wireless communications between infantry, command, artillery and air observation could have improved the flexibility, accuracy and effectiveness of the British military strategy in the German Spring Offensive, the Hundred Days Counteroffensive and the battles of the Somme, Passchendaele, and Cambrai.

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.

The Manchurian "Incident" of 1931 led to a Japanese occupation, the birth of Manchoukuo and the withdrawal of Japan from the League of Nations. At the time it seemed as if the army and navy were exerting a supreme influence. This volume points out that this influence is not new and that there are strong reasons for its existence and continuance. It shows how it is fostered by the peculiar political structure of the country, and how, though often unintelligible to Europeans, it may be understood and accounted for in the light of the historical and political background of Japan.

This book is about Europe's apparent inability to cope with the complex international environment. Why does the Union fail to create a workable (sound) Common Foreign and Security Policy? Five distinct explanations for Euro-paralysis are considered, focusing on power politics, the assertion of national interests, misguided institutional designs, a crisis of modern democracy, and the post-Cold War conceptual confusion.

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

Strategic Survey 2021: The Annual Assessment of Geopolitics provides objective, in-depth analysis by leading experts of the events, actors and forces driving international relations. It is the indispensable guide for policymakers, business leaders, analysts and academics who need to understand the geopolitical and geo-economic trends shaping the global agenda in 2022 and beyond. Key features * Comprehensive annual review of world affairs from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the leading international research institute that provides objective analysis of military, geopolitical and geo-economic developments that could lead to conflict. * Covers developments in all regions as well as emerging issues and trends not yet on most radars, and analyses the major themes and forces shaping each continent. * Essays on a comprehensive range of global issues including vaccine diplomacy, digital conflict, Europe's emerging Asia-Pacific strategies, the rise of carbon neutrality, the prospects for Iran's nuclear programme, and the future of political Islam. * Drivers of Strategic Change for major states: Verified, comparable data on state power that provides a rich and vivid guide to forces underlying geopolitical change. * Data-rich graphics and maps that provide fresh insights into geopolitical change, and a timeline of the key events of 2020-21.

Yugoslav military cooperation with West emerged after the country's split with the U.S.S.R. and its allies in 1948. It came as a surprise for many, since Yugoslavia used to be one of the staunchest followers of Soviet politics. However, faced with possible military escalation of the ideological, political, and economic worsening of relations with the East, the Yugoslav leadership quickly turned to their former "class enemies." For the United States, it presented an opportunity to acquire many unexpected political benefits. Yugoslav alienation from the Kremlin provided territorial consolidation of the southern flank of NATO, denial of direct approach to the Adriatic Sea and Northern Italy to Soviet troops, and dealt a strong political blow to the homogeneity of the Eastern bloc. While not insisting on changing the ideological nature of Yugoslav state, the United States provided much needed material and financial aid, developing the base for entering into sphere of military cooperation. It had two main categories-direct support for Yugoslav forces through shipments of military equipment, as well as Yugoslavia entering into defensive, military alliance (the Balkan Pact) with Greece and Turkey, already full members of NATO. Such trends, aiming towards closer Yugoslav bonding with Western military and political structures, ended in the mid-1950s with Stalin's death, the outbreak of the Trieste crisis, and Tito's reconciliation with Soviet leadership. Developing the new policy of non-alignment with either of the confronting blocs, Yugoslavia stepped out from the program of Western military aid, while the Balkan Pact slowly faded in growing animosity between Greece and Turkey.

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.

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.

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.

This book describes and illustrates French fortifications from 1715 (the death of Louis XIV) to 1815 (the fall of Napoleon), focusing particularly on the Napoleonic era. After an historical background, it covers the heritage of the Ancien Regime with the important contributions of Vauban (the bastioned defense), Gribeauval's reforms in artillery, and Montalembert's innovations. Chapters explore the style of Napoleonic fortifications, siege warfare, artillery and engineering corps, as well as the Napoleonic achievements in France, Italy, German and the Netherlands, including projects that were planned but never completed. Included are nearly 250 line drawings of historic fortifications.