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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations
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
The book is a case study of Putin's use of the tactics of divide and rule in relation to, particularly, the hard-line elements among his supporters. It illustrates Putin's methods of staying in power vis-a-vis groups that might put too much pressure on him, or who might even try to oust him. The project also suggests that Putin's survival tactics have brought Russia to a deeply corrupt, state-dominated form of authoritarianism, which lacks deep institutional roots and will probably lead in due course to some form of state collapse. This work will appeal to a wide audience including political scientists, academics, graduate students, and everyone who is interested in contemporary Russian politics.
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.
War crimes have devastating effects on victims and perpetrators and endanger broader political and military goals. The protection of civilians, one of the most fundamental norms in the laws of war, appears to have weakened despite almost universal international agreement. Using insights from organizational theory, this book seeks to understand the process between military socialization and unit participation in war crimes. How do militaries train their soldiers in the laws of war? How do they enforce compliance with these laws? Drawing on evidence from the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency, and the Canadian peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the author discovers that military efforts to train soldiers about the laws of war are poor and leadership often sent mixed signals about the importance of compliance. However, units that developed subcultures that embraced these laws and had strong leadership were more likely to comply than those with weak discipline or countercultural norms.
The end of World War II resulted in the realization that any war leaves devastating effects in its wake, which may take years to resolve. Mungazi argues that the key to avoiding armed conflict is education on a global scale. Only an increasing awareness of cultural diversity can improve relationships between nations. Beginning with Woodrow Wilson's famous Fourteen Points, Mungazi traces efforts to improve international relations through global forums, as well as the obstacles to such vehicles for intercultural cooperation. Modern issues such as population explosion, declining resources, international terrorism, and disease have become so serious that no nation can afford to act alone. To ensure the security of their populations, national leaders must, according to Mungazi, avoid conflict with other nations. A respect for democracy and support for open and public international agreements are key factors in peaceful dispute resolution. Mungazi details how nations can best cooperate to build their societies for the benefit of all. He discusses how individuals can shape the future of the world community by their constructive belief systems, promotion of effective leadership, and participation in defining future goals.
It has been well-established that many of the injustices that people around the world experience every day, from food insecurity to unsafe labor conditions and natural disasters, are the result of wide-scale structural problems of politics and economics. These are not merely random personal problems or consequences of bad luck or bad planning. Confronted by this fact, it is natural to ask what should or can we do to mitigate everyday injustices? In one sense, we answer this question when we buy the local homeless street newspaper, decide where to buy our clothes, remember our reusable bags when we shop, donate to disaster relief, or send letters to corporations about labor rights. But given the global scale of injustices related to poverty, environmental change, gender, and labor, can these individual acts really impact the seemingly intractable global social, political, and economic structures that perpetuate and exacerbate them? Moreover, can we respond to injustices in the world in ways that do more than just address their consequences? In this book, Brooke A. Ackerly both answers the question of what should we do, and shows that it's the wrong question to ask. To ask the right question, we need to ground our normative theory of global justice in the lived experience of injustice. Using a feminist critical methodology, she argues that what to do about injustice is not just an ethical or moral question, but a political question about assuming responsibility for injustice, regardless of our causal responsibility and extent of our knowledge of the injustice. Furthermore, it is a matter that needs to be guided by principles of human rights. As she argues, while many understand human rights as political goals or entitlements, they can also guide political strategy. Her aims are twofold: to present a theory of what it means to take responsibility for injustice and for ensuring human rights, as well as to develop a guide for how to take responsibility in ways that support local and global movements for transformative politics. In order to illustrate her theory and guide for action, Ackerly draws on fieldwork on the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, the food crisis of 2008, and strategies from 125 activist organizations working on women's and labor rights across 26 countries. Just Responsibility integrates these ways of taking political responsibility into a rich theory of political community, accountability, and leadership in which taking responsibility for injustice itself transforms the fabric of political life.
This book discusses history of mental construction of the border between India and Bangladesh. It investigates how and when a border was constructed between the people, and discusses how the mental construction preceded the physical construction. It also examines the perils faced by those forced to leave their homes as a result of the partition of India in 1947. Globally throughout history, the absence of borders made the movement of people from one place to another easier. The construction of borders and sovereign de-limitation of territory restricted or even prevented seamless migration. The situation becomes more complex near borders that were previously open to the movement of people. One such border is between India and Bangladesh, where, in August 1947, suddenly people were told that the places they used to visit on a daily basis were now a part of a different sovereign country. This book argues that borders construct the identity of an individual or a group. Those who cross to the other side of border, for whatever reason, are identified and categorized by the state and the people. Sometimes these migrants face violence from the locals because they are considered a threat to the local working class. The book also explains how, after the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, everyday encounter between people from India and Bangladesh have further embedded a feeling of us versus them. In 2015, India and Bangladesh agreed to implement the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA). This book assesses whether the implementation of this agreement will have impacts on border-related problems like mobility, migration, and tensions. It is a valuable resource for policymakers, journalists, researchers and students.
This book offers new insights and original empirical research on private military and security companies (PMSCs), including China's negotiation approach to governance, an account of Nigeria's first engagement with regulatory cooperation under the threat of Boko Haram, and a study of PMSCs in Ebola-hit Western Africa. The author engages with concepts and theories from IR, Political Economy, and African studies-like regime, forum shopping, and extraversion-to describe what shapes state choices in national and international fora. The volume clarifies and spells out the needed questions and definitions and proposes a synthesis of how regime formation is shaped by ideas, interests, and institutions, starting from the proposition that regulatory cooperation consists in facilitating the acceptance and use of a single identifier for private military and security companies.
The second volume of EtYIL brings together a number of articles and other contributions that, collectively, take EtYIL's original mission of helping rebalance the narrative of international law another step forward. Like the first volume, this book presents scholarly contributions on cutting-edge issues of international law that are of particular interest to Ethiopia and its sub-region, as well as Africa and developing countries more generally. The major issues tackled include the interplay between national and international in the promotion and regulation of foreign direct investment in Ethiopia; the regulatory framework for the exploitation and development of petroleum resources and relevant arbitral jurisprudence in the field; the role of international law in ensuring the equitable sharing of transboundary resources, such as the waters of the River Nile, or in the delimitation of the continental shelf in the region; the efforts to establish the Continental Free Trade Area in Africa and the lessons that can be learnt from prior experiments; Africa's policy towards the International Criminal Court and the feasibility of alternative means of serving justice in the case of grave crimes; and the UN's peace-keeping operations in their North-South context. The issues addressed in the various contributions are mostly at the heart of live political, diplomatic and judicial activities today, and as such promise to shape the future of international law in the region and beyond. This volume not only takes a significant step further towards EtYIL's mission, but also enriches it with fresh insights from perspectives that are not common in international law scholarship to this day.
This book analyses and assesses the Agadir Agreement's impact on economic integration, its effect on political cooperation, and its role in promoting peace between participating countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Since the 'Arab Spring' of 2011, the geo-political situation in MENA has further drifted towards instability and uncertainty. Expert analysis of the region seems to lurch from one crisis to another without moving beyond a focus on conflict. Few scholars have recognised that the MENA governments have long regarded regional economic integration as a chief policy objective to facilitate intra-regional trade and promote political cooperation and peace. Realising the shortcomings of the various integrative processes, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan signed the Agadir Agreement in 2004. To this date, it stands as one of the most significant economic agreements in the MENA region. Taking into account this variety of factors, this book offers a new assessment of the pull between unity and disunity in the Middle East and North Africa region
The relationship between Europe and Asia is of increasing importance in the 21st century. The challenges straddling the two continents include immigration, poverty, environmental degradation, terrorism, drugs, nuclear proliferation and internecine strife. Addressing these problems will demand bi-continental cooperation in the fields of politics, economy, population, security and culture. The political rationale for Europe-Asia relations has been further strengthened by Russia's promotion of a more active role in Asia and in the international community more generally. In this book Georg Wiessala explores the significance of Asia for Europe in general and the EU in particular, calling for a much more sophisticated mutual understanding. He analyses the existing Asia Policy of the European Union, tracing its development in the last 30 years of the 20th century, and up to the publication of the strategy document "Europe and Asia: A Strategic Framework for Enhanced Partnership" in 2001. He also looks in detail at the importance of ASEM and at how to encourage broader participation, and he examines the relationship between the EU and the various regional bodies, especially ASEAN which the EU maintains is the cornerstone of its developing dialogue with Asia.
This edited volume provides scholars and practitioners with an in-depth examination of the role of civil-military cooperation in addressing hybrid threats. As they combine the simultaneous employment of conventional and non-conventional tools and target not only military objectives but governments and societies at large, hybrid threats cannot be countered solely by military means, but require an equally inclusive response encompassing a wide range of military and civilian actors. This book, which combines the perspectives of academics, military officers, and officials from international and non-governmental organisations, resorts to different case studies to illustrate the importance of civil-military cooperation in enhancing the resilience of NATO members and partners against a wide range of societal destabilization strategies, thereby contributing to the formulation of a civil-military response to hybrid threats.
Six tells the complete story of the service's birth and early years, including the tragic, untold tale of what happened to Britain's extensive networks in Soviet Russia between the wars. It reveals for the first time how the playwright and MI6 agent Harley Granville Barker bribed the Daily News to keep Arthur Ransome in Russia, and the real reason Paul Dukes returned there. It shows development of tradecraftA" and the great personal risk officers and their agents took, far from home and unprotected. In Salonika, for example, Lieutenant Norman Dewhurst realised it was time to leave when he opened his door to find one of his agents hanging dismembered in a sack. This first part of Six takes us up to the eve of the conflict, using hundreds of previously unreleased files and interviews with key players to show how one of the world's most secretive of secret agencies originated and developed into something like the MI6 we know today. The second part, published in Spring 2012, will tell the story from the outbreak of World War Two to the present.
This book provides an introduction to, and analysis of, the English School's views on International Relations as they developed from the somewhat vague state/society distinction to the present focus on foundation institutions, regional organisation and the globalization of international society. It focuses on key thinkers and texts and turning points and moves our understanding of the English School beyond the past work of the British Committee to the more recent work of Barry Buzan et. al. to offer a comprehensive overview and interrogation from the leading lights of this arm of International Relations thought. This volume is one of the cornerstones of the EISA sponsored Trends in European IR Theory series complementing the volumes on International Political Theory, Liberalism, Realism, International Political Economy, the post-positivist tradition, and Feminism published for the centenary of IR as a discipline.
Created in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency plays an important part in the nation's intelligence activities, and is currently playing a vital role in the "war on terrorism." While the agency is often in the news and portrayed in television shows and films, it remains one of the most secretive and misunderstood organizations in the United States. This work provides an in-depth look into the Central Intelligence Agency and how its responsibilities affect American life. After a brief history of the agency, chapters describe its organization, intelligence/counterintelligence, covert operations, controversies, key events, and notable people.
This book examines the contention that current US-Russia relations have descended into a 'New Cold War'. It examines four key dimensions of the original Cold War, the structural, the ideological, the psychological, and the technological, and argues that the current US-Russia relationship bears little resemblance to the Cold War. Presently, the international system is transitioning towards multipolarity, with Russia a declining power, while current ideological differences and threat perceptions are neither as rigid nor as bleak as they once were. Ultimately, when the four dimensions of analysis are weighed in unison, this work argues that the claim of a New Cold War is a hyperbolic assessment of US-Russia relations.
This book analyzes the elimination of intermediate- range nuclear force missiles through vivid, fresh impressions by those who conducted the INF negotiations. The Reagan-Gorbachev Arms Control Breakthrough brings this period to life through the writing of key participants in the seminal negotiations leading to the completion of the INF Treaty and the ensuing epic struggle to secure its ratification by the U.S. Senate. The book provides an astute balance between the assessments of senior negotiators; "nuts and bolts" observations on specific elements of the Treaty by in-the-trenches negotiators; the tangles that challenged the keenest of legal minds; and the political maneuvers required to bring it through the pits and deadfalls of the Senate. Additionally, The Reagan-Gorbachev Arms Control Breakthrough provides an often-forgotten perspective of the moment, offering the opportunity for retrospective judgment. Is there a test that time demands? Are there "lessons learned," conceived at the time, that still pass that test? The INF Treaty was a pivotal moment in history, which was seized and resulted in a precedent-setting agreement and coincidental lessons from which much of arms control of the past quarter century has advantageously built.
This book describes six years of conflict management, involving much confrontation and selective diplomacy, during which Cuba was put progressively on the defensive by political (surrogate radio broadcasting and human rights), economic (strengthening the embargo) and military (Grenada) actions. After an overview to mid-1982, the book covers the Reagan-Shultz era chronologically, discussing major bilateral issues and focusing on migration and radio broadcasting, two issues that Cuba linked in 1985. As Coordinator of Cuban Affairs for the U.S. Department of State from 1982-88, Skoug brings considerable experience to his discussion of this fascinating era of U.S. diplomatic relations.
One of the "inventors" of the nuclear bomb, Sir Joseph Rotblat very
soon turned away from weapons research to make a prolonged and
principled stand against the dangers of nuclear proliferation. A
physicist of great brilliance, he metamorphosed into a campaigner
of admired moral conviction and leadership. This series of
dialogues between two leading ethical thinkers brings together the
courage and humanity of Rotblat with the spiritual wisdom and
global visionary outlook of Daisaku Ikeda, the leader of the
world's largest and most influential lay Buddhist organization.
Together they reflect on fundamental issues of war and peace, the
ethics of nuclear deterrence and the trajectory of Joseph Rotblat's
career, from the Manhattan Project to the Pugwash Conference and
his Nobel Prize. Rotblat's life-long mantra was that scientists
have a moral responsibility to save lives, not destroy them. The
integrity of both writers emerges powerfully and inspiringly from
their wide-ranging discussions, which serve as a stark warning
against the dangers of a resurgent atomic weapons race.
The present volume comes out of a conference held by the IFPS in collaboration with CPWAS at Calcutta University in March 2012. The volume comprises of eight essays highlighting on various approaches to the question of instability in India's western neighbourhood, and what it could mean for India. The issues covered include the domestic dynamics of Pakistan, Afghanistan, the extent to which these have a bearing on the foreign policy of the Government of India, and the economic and social cost extracted by the aura of instability that has come to characterise the neighbourhood.
This book takes a new approach to answering the question of how NATO survived after the Cold War by examining its complex relationship with the United States. A closer look at major NATO engagements in the post-Cold War era, including in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, reveals how the US helped comprehensively reshape the alliance. In every conflict, there was tension between the United States and its allies over mission leadership, political support, legal precedents, military capabilities, and financial contributions. The author explores why allied actions resulted in both praise and criticism of NATO's contributions from American policymakers, and why despite all of this and the growing concern over the alliance's perceived shortcomings the United States continued to support the alliance. In addition to demonstrating the American influence on the alliance, this works demonstrates why NATO's survival is beneficial to US interests.
This book discusses the many legal aspects arising in relation to the maintenance of peace in Africa. Over the past twenty years, the majority of peace operations have been deployed on this continent, most of them established by the UN Security Council, sometimes in cooperation with the African Union and other African regional organizations, with contributions from the European Union and NATO. In some cases, the African Union has invoked its 'primary responsibility for promoting peace, security and stability in Africa', thus questioning the legal partnership between UN and regional organizations provided for in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. The peace operations deployed in Africa have sometimes received a very robust mandate, which also includes the use of force and the protection of civilians' human rights. The implementation of this broad mandate, which goes well beyond the traditional 'peacekeeping approach', requires considerable human and economic resources. Moreover, it raises several issues of concern with regard to the impact on the economic and political systems of the states in which the operations are deployed and, more generally, on the exercise of sovereignty over their territorial communities by these states. Offering an update for lawyers in practice and in academia interested in the field of international law, the book also contributes to the theoretical studies concerning the activities of international organizations, focusing on one of the most challenging issues to emerge in recent times.
This volume examines contemporary political relations between Turkey and the Middle East. In the light of the Arab Uprisings of 2011, the Syria Crisis, the escalation of regional terrorism and the military coup attempt in Turkey, it illustrates the dramatic fluctuations in Turkish foreign policy towards key Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The contributors analyze Turkey's deepening involvement in Middle Eastern regional affairs, also addressing issues such as terrorism, social and political movements and minority rights struggles. While these problems have traditionally been regarded as domestic matters, this book highlights their increasingly regional dimension and the implications for the foreign affairs of Turkey and countries in the Middle East.
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