After more than seventy years, the Palestinian refugee problem remains unsolved. But if a deal could have been reached involving the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, it was in the early years of the Arab-Israeli conflict. So why didn't this happen? This book is the first comprehensive study of the international community's earliest efforts to solve the Palestinian refugee problem. Based on a wide range of international primary sources from Israeli, US, UK and UN archives, the book investigates the major proposals between 1948 and 1968 and explains why these failed. It shows that the main actors involved - the Arab states, Israel, the US and the UN - agreed on very little when it came to the Palestinian refugees and therefore never got seriously engaged in finding a solution. This new analysis highlights how the international community gradually moved from viewing the Palestinian refugee problem as a political issue to looking at it as a humanitarian one. It examines the impact of this development and the changes that took place in this formative period of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as the limited influence US policy makers had over Israel.

In the eyes of Rony Brauman of Medecins Sans Frontieres, wars are always triggered in the name of morality. Today's 'humanitarian' interventions are little more than new moral crusades-and their justifications are based on lies. There are plenty of examples of hawkish propaganda in recent years: Saddam Hussein's mythical weapons of mass destruction; dubious predictions of genocide in Kosovo; doctored figures of famine in Somalia; and a fake massacre of protesters in Libya. Without being militantly non-interventionist, Brauman is extremely suspicious of the thirst for war displayed by many of today's world leaders, the consequences of which are devastating. He is critical of international peacekeeping bodies and tribunals: for him, the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court represent the interests of the powerful above all else. Basing his argument on the criteria for a 'just war', Brauman criticises the Western obsession with imposing democratic values by force. In this sober and convincing book, he thoroughly dismantles the notion of the justness of 'humanitarian wars'.

The United States spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined, and Western nations in general spend far more than developing nations around the globe. Yet when Western nations have found themselves in conflicts in recent decades, their military performance has been mixed at best. In this fully updated new edition of "The Art of Military Coercion," Rob de Wijk explains this discrepancy through a theory on the use of force. He argues that the key is a failure to use force decisively and to understand properly the dynamics of conflict and balance, means and ends. Without that ability, even a superiority of dollars, numbers, and weaponry will not necessarily translate to victory.

Gershon Baskin's memoir of thirty-eight years of intensive pursuit of peace begins with a childhood on Long Island and a bar mitzvah trip to Israel with his family. Baskin joined Young Judaea back in the States, then later lived on a kibbutz in Israel, where he announced to his parents that he had decided to make aliya, immigrate to Israel. They persuaded him to return to study at NYU, after which he finally immigrated under the auspices of Interns for Peace. In Israel he spent a pivotal two years living with Arabs in the village of Kufr Qara. Despite the atmosphere of fear, Baskin found that he could talk with both Jews and Palestinians, and that very few others were engaged in efforts at mutual understanding. At his initiative, the Ministry of Education and the office of right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin created the Institute for Education for Jewish-Arab Coexistence with Baskin himself as director. Eight years later he founded and codirected the only joint Israeli-Palestinian public policy think-and-do tank in the world, the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. For decades he continued to cross borders, often with a kaffiyeh (Arab headdress) on his dashboard to protect his car in Palestinian neighborhoods. Airport passport control became Kafkaesque as Israeli agents routinely identified him as a security threat. During the many cycles of peace negotiations, Baskin has served both as an outside agitator for peace and as an advisor on the inside of secret talks-for example, during the prime ministership of Yitzhak Rabin and during the initiative led by Secretary of State John Kerry. Baskin ends the book with his own proposal, which includes establishing a peace education program and cabinet-level Ministries of Peace in both countries, in order to foster a culture of peace.

In 1915, United States Marines arrived in Haiti to safeguard lives and property from the political instability of the time. While there, the Marine Corps controlled everything from finance to education, from health care to public works and built an army, "La Garde d'Haiti," to maintain the changes it implemented. Ultimately, the decisions made by the United States about and for Haiti have indelibly shaped the development of what is generally considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Contrary Destinies presents the story of the one hundred year relationship between the two countries. Leon Pamphile chronicles the internal, external, and natural forces that have shaped Haiti as it is today, striking a balance between the realities faced by the people on the island and the global and transnational contexts that affect their lives. He examines how American policies towards the Caribbean nation-during the Cold War and later as the United States became the sole world superpower-and the legacies of the occupation contributed to the gradual erosion of Haitian independence, culminating in a second occupation and the current United Nations peacekeeping mission.

In contemporary times of transnational changes, the dynamics of national security has become more complex and complicated, particularly with the emergence of transnational threats of terrorism, global warming and globalisation. In this context, the book concentrates on various aspects of national security challenges, particularly with reference to India. The highlights of the book include: specific attention on Islamalisation, strategic partnerships and defence cooperation. It is an interesting study covering India's relationship with its immediate and extended neighbours.

There is a long history of state governments providing support to nonstate armed groups fighting battles in other countries. Examples include Syria's aid to Hamas, Ecuador's support for FARC, and Libya's donation of arms to the IRA. What motivates states to do this? And why would rebel groups align themselves with these states? In States in Disguise, Belgin San-Akca builds a rigorous theoretical framework within which to study the complex and fluid network of relationships between states and rebel groups, including ethnic and religious insurgents, revolutionary groups, and terrorists. She proves that patterns of alliances between armed rebels and modern states are hardly coincidental, but the result of systematic and strategic choices made by both states and rebel groups. San-Akca demonstrates that these alliances are the result of shared conflictual, material and ideational interests, and her theory shows how to understand these ties via the domestic and international environment. Drawing from an original data set of 455 groups, their target states, and supporters over a span of more than sixty years, she explains that states are most likely to support rebel groups when they are confronted with internal and external threats simultaneously, while rebels select strong states and democracies when seeking outside support. She also shows that states and rebels look to align with one another when they share ethnic, religious and ideological ties. Through its broad chronological sweep, States in Disguise reveals how and why the phenomenon of state and rebel group alliances has evolved over time.

How to respond effectively to humanitarian crises is one of the most pressing and seemingly intractable problems facing the United Nations. Martin Barber, for many years a senior UN official and with decades of humanitarian experience, here argues that the explanation for UN 'failures' or only partial successes lies not with any lack of idealism or good intentions but with the constraints placed on aid workers by ill-considered policies and poor practical application - officials are 'blinded by humanity'.Barber presents an inside story based on personal/hands-on/practical experience in Laos, Thailand, Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and, finally, in Abu Dhabi where he advised the UAE government on its aid programme. He tells of internal struggles at head office and the challenges of working in the field. All the major UN activities - and headaches - are here, including refugee work, coordinating humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, the huge problem of 'de-mining', and the complex internal workings of the UN Secretariat.A personal narrative and lessons drawn from direct experience provide the frame for an examination of major questions concerning the future of humanitarian response - how effectively have international institutions discharged their responsibilities towards people affected by conflict? Specifically, how did the UN perform? And how might the UN better help such people in the 21st century? Barber analyses recent policy developments intended to improve the quality and effectiveness of the UN's work in humanitarian fields, and assesses the extent to which recent reforms are likely to make the UN a more effective partner for countries emerging from conflict. In the final chapter he highlights seven 'blind spots' whose significance has been consistently ignored or overlooked, and in each case suggests a radical new approach.

Creating Canada's Peacekeeping Past illuminates how Canada's participation in the United Nations' peacekeeping efforts from 1956 to 1997 was used as a symbol of national identity - in Quebec and the rest of the country. Delving into four decades' worth of documentaries, newspaper coverage, textbooks, political rhetoric, and more, Colin McCullough outlines continuity and change in the production and reception of messages about peacekeeping. Engaging in debates about Canada's international standing, as well as its broader national character, this book is welcome addition to the history of Canada's changing national identity.

The Women in Blue Helmets tells the story of the first all-female police unit deployed by India to the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia in January 2007. Lesley J. Pruitt investigates how the unit was originated, developed, and implemented, offering an important historical record of this unique initiative. Examining precedents in policing in the troop-contributing country and recent developments in policing in the host country, the book offers contextually rich examination of all-female units, explores the potential benefits of and challenges to women's participation in peacekeeping, and illuminates broader questions about the relationship between gender, peace, and security.

As Oliver Richmond explains, there is a level to peacemaking that operates in the realm of dialogue, declarations, symbols and rituals. But after all this pomp and circumstance is where the reality of security, development, politics, economics, identity, and culture figure in; conflict, cooperation, and reconciliation are at their most vivid at the local scale. Thus local peace operations are crucial to maintaining order on the ground even in the most violent contexts. However, as Richmond argues, such local capacity to build peace from the inside is generally left unrecognized, and it has been largely ignored in the policy and scholarly literature on peacebuilding. In Peace and Political Order, Richmond looks at peace processes as they scale up from local to transnational efforts to consider how to build a lasting and productive peace. He takes a comparative and expansive look at peace efforts in conflict situations in countries around the world to consider what local voices might suggest about the inadequacy of peace processes engineered at the international level. As well, he explores how local workers act to modify or resist peace processes headed by international NGOs, and to what degree local actors have enjoyed success in the peace process (and how they have affected the international peace process).

The future of public education and democracy is at risk. Powerful forces are eroding commitment to public schools and weakening democratic resolve. Yet even in deeply troubling times, it is possible to broaden social imagination and empower effective advocacy for systemic progressive reform. Re-envisioning Education and Democracy explores challenges and opportunities for restructuring public education to establish and sustain more broadly inclusive, deeply democratic, and effectively transforming approaches to social inquiry and civic participation. Re-envisioning Education and Democracy adopts a non-traditional format to extend social awareness and imagination. Within each chapter, one episode of an evolving strategic narrative traces the life cycle of a systemic reform initiative. This is followed by an exploratory essay that draws from theory, research, criticism, and practice to prompt consideration of focal issues. Woven through each chapter is a poetically framed meditative stream informed by varied historical and cultural conceptions of oracles. A developmental sequence of social learning strategies (exploratory democratic practices), accompanied by thematic bibliographic references, are included to model democratic teaching and learning applicable in classroom and community settings.

This book is a guide for college students exploring career options who are interested in working to promote peacebuilding and the resolution of conflict. High school students, particularly those starting to consider college and careers, can also benefited from this book. A major feature of the book is 30 stories from young professionals, most recently graduated from college, who are working in the field. These profiles provide readers with insight as to strategies they might use to advance their peacebuilding careers. The book speaks directly to the Millennial generation, recognizing that launching a career is a major focus, and that careers in the peace field have not always been easy to identify. As such, the book takes the approach that most any career can be a peacebuilding career provided one is willing to apply creativity and passion to their work.

Fighting for Peace in Somalia provides the first comprehensive analysis of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), an operation deployed in 2007 to stabilize the country and defend its fledgling government from one of the world's deadliest militant organizations, Harakat al-Shabaab. The book's two parts provide a history of the mission from its genesis in an earlier, failed regional initiative in 2005 up to mid-2017, as well as an analysis of the mission's six most challenges, namely, logistics, security sector reform, civilian protection, strategic communications, stabilization, and developing a successful exit strategy. These issues are all central to the broader debates about how to design effective peace operations in Africa and beyond. AMISOM was remarkable in several respects: it would become the African Union's (AU) largest peace operation by a considerable margin deploying over 22,000 soldiers; it became the longest running mission under AU command and control, outlasting the nearest contender by over seven years; it also became the AU's most expensive operation, at its peak costing approximately US$1 billion per year; and, sadly, AMISOM became the AU's deadliest mission. Although often referred to as a peacekeeping operation, AMISOM's troops were given a range of daunting tasks that went well beyond the realm of peacekeeping, including VIP protection, war-fighting, counterinsurgency, stabilization, and state-building as well as supporting electoral processes and facilitating humanitarian assistance. Tana Forum Annual Book Launch 2019 Winner.

Battle for Cassinga is the first-hand account by a South African paratrooper who was involved in the 1978 assault on the Angolan headquarters of PLAN, SWAPO's armed wing. The battle, although a resounding success, suffered setbacks which could have proved disastrous to the South Africans had they not maintained the initiative. The improvisations made by Colonel Jan Breytenbach ensured that a flawed jump and inadequate intelligence did not adversely affect the outcome. The unforeseen Soviet-supplied SWAPO anti-aircraft guns used devastatingly in a ground role also threatened to derail the attack. A late appearance by a large Cuban/FAPLA (Angolan regulars) armoured column, from the nearby town of Techamutete, threatened to engulf the lightly armed paratrooper force still on the ground. A fierce rearguard action, together with the almost suicidal actions of the South African Air Force pilots, ultimately saved the day. McWilliams examines why the South African government took the political risk in attacking 'Fortress Cassinga' in a cross-border operation that would clearly attract the ire of the world. He studies SWAPO claims that Cassinga was a refugee camp guarded by only a few PLAN soldiers, explaining why Sam Nujoma, the SWAPO leader, had no option but to perpetuate this falsehood. He looks dispassionately at all the players involved: SWAPO/PLAN and their commander Dimo Amaambo who fled the field of battle; the Cuban and FAPLA intervention; and the South African paratroopers, led by Breytenbach, who not only had to combat a determined enemy but also senior South African staff officers. Above all, it is a soldier's tale which pays homage in equal parts to the bravery of the paratroopers and the determination of the PLAN fighters who stood to their guns until annihilated.

In November 2007 Adam Moore was conducting fieldwork in Mostar when the southern Bosnian city was rocked by two days of violent clashes between Croat and Bosniak youth. It was not the city's only experience of ethnic conflict in recent years. Indeed, Mostar s problems are often cited as emblematic of the failure of international efforts to overcome deep divisions that continue to stymie the postwar peace process in Bosnia. Yet not all of Bosnia has been plagued by such troubles. Mostar remains mired in distrust and division, but the Brcko District in the northeast corner of the country has become a model of what Bosnia could be. Its multiethnic institutions operate well compared to other municipalities, and are broadly supported by those who live there; it also boasts the only fully integrated school system in the country. What accounts for the striking divergence in postwar peacebuilding in these two towns?

Moore argues that a conjunction of four factors explains the contrast in outcomes in Mostar and Brcko: The design of political institutions, the sequencing of political and economic reforms, local and regional legacies from the war, and the practice and organization of international peacebuilding efforts in the two towns. Differences in the latter, in particular, have profoundly shaped relations between local political elites and international officials. Through a grounded analysis of localized peacebuilding dynamics in these two cities Moore generates a powerful argument concerning the need to rethink how peacebuilding is done that is, a shift in the habitus or culture that governs international peacebuilding activities and priorities today."

Many theorists and practitioners of International Relations believed that with the end of the Cold War decisive peace would descend etching a new global order of enhanced cooperation and conciliation and a world system devoid of conflicts and contestation. However, in less than a decade since the dawn of the 21st century the world has again plunged dramatically and new forms of insecurity, clashes of civilization, military armament and power, terrorists triggered violence have become endemic. Not surprisingly, peace building studies has become an expanding field of study and practice all over the world with a host of researchers, scholars and policy makers engaged in analyzing the causes and consequences of conflicts and in finding ways and means of resolving them peacefully. Towards this objective, efforts are also being made to revisit the ideas and strategies bequeathed by great thinkers like Mahatma Gandhi. This edited volume entitled World Peace and Global Order: Gandhian Perspectives, first of its kind, is a rich collection of research based studies on a variety of themes of relevance to contemporary International Relations by a galaxy of social scientists, specialists and scholars. The range of issues focused in the volume is not only comprehensive but also pertinent to present socio political and economic situation in the world. Contributions in the volume not only offer new insights on specific issues of critical importance to India but also shed enough light to capture graphically the contours of the evolving global order. Admittedly, World Peace and Global Order: Gandhian Perspectives Published by Indira Gandhi National Open University's newly established Centre for Gandhi and Peace Studies is a very welcome and valuable addition to the existing literature on frontier disciplines such as Peace Studies and International Relations. The book no doubt will appeal to the general reader seeking fresh perspectives on the Gandhian philosophy and of its vital importance to the study and research in International Relations.

Spring 2008 witnessed the first positive signs of a thaw in relations between the two sides of the divided island of Cyprus since the dramatic failure of the Annan Plan in 2004.  The historic meeting of the two Presidents of Cyprus and the symbolic opening of the Ledra Street border crossing in the heart of Nicosia may herald a bright new future for this Mediterranean island.  Yet Cyprus has been in this situation before.  What makes this new initiative different and why should it succeed where so many others have failed?

"Reunifying Cyprus" is the first book to analyze fully the reasons for the continuing failure to re-unite the two states of Cyprus after over forty years of division.  It focuses especially on the Annan Plan--the popular name for the UN initiative to find a "Comprehensive Solution to the Cyprus Problem" in anticipation of Cyprus’ accession to the EU--and the reasons for its ultimate failure.  How did Cypriots receive the Annan Plan?  What were the real or imagined flaws?  Was this a missed opportunity?  And what place does the Annan Plan have in future blueprints to reunify the island?

"Reunifying Cyprus" will be invaluable for anyone interested in conflict resolution and international politics as well as students of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Bringing armed conflicts to an end is difficult; restoring a lasting peace can be considerably harder. Reclaiming Everyday Peace addresses the effectiveness and impact of local level interventions on communities affected by war. Using an innovative methodology to generate participatory numbers, Pamina Firchow finds that communities saturated with external interventions after war do not have substantive higher levels of peacefulness according to community-defined indicators of peace than those with lower levels of interventions. These findings suggest that current international peacebuilding efforts are not very effective at achieving peace by local standards because disproportionate attention is paid to reconstruction, governance and development assistance with little attention paid to community ties and healing. Firchow argues that a more bottom up approach to measuring the effectiveness of peacebuilding is required. By finding ways to effectively communicate local community needs and priorities to the international community, efforts to create an atmosphere for an enduring peace are possible.

In light of the present deployments of international troops to Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, there is an urgency to respectfully address the findings in this book and to understand how to provide the best treatment approaches for soldiers upon their return home. This book is a philosophical interpretative inquiry into the experience of contemporary peacekeepers suffering from trauma. The question, "what is the experience of contemporary peacekeepers healing from trauma?" reflected a commitment to understanding the nature of healing from the trauma of contemporary peacekeeping deployments. Throughout this book, an interpretative phenomenological approach was appropriated from various texts to uncover the experience of contemporary peacekeepers who have sought treatment for trauma resulting from recent deployments to Somalia, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia.

Is the current international legal regime capable of deterring and stopping mass atrocities? Recent events in Darfur again raise this familiar question of whether international law facilitates the kind of early, decisive, and coherent action --especially with respect to military force --needed to combat genocide effectively.

In this report, Matthew C. Waxman argues that an international legal regime that puts decisions about international intervention solely in the hands of the UN Security Council risks undermining the threat or use of intervention when it may be most potent in stopping mass atrocities. The features of the UN Charter that help resolve security crises peacefully make it difficult to generate the rapid action needed to deter or roll them back. Waxman urges the United States and other Security Council members to take steps to improve the responsiveness of the existing Security Council. He insists that they signal the willingness, if the UN fails to act in future mass atrocity crises, to take the necessary action to address them.