Although much has been written about the Arab-Israeli conflict and about general theories of negotiation, this analysis and history is unique in linking major issues and peace plans to negotiation theory and strategy. Feste studies the basic structures of conflict and negotiation, offering no suggestions for radical solution but arguing for changes in approach that may bring about steps forward. This overview of all major peace efforts since 1947 and of negotiating strategies is intended for undergraduate and graduate courses in conflict resolution, Middle Eastern politics, and international relations; and for the use of political scientists, sociologists, students, and teachers concerned with ethnoconflict. The text analyzes the framework of the Arab-Israeli conflict, how it has built up, and how it has been maintained. The structure of the negotiation process is then viewed in the same way. Key elements in the Arab-Israeli conflict are considered historically and related directly to the process of negotiation and to theories about positional and principled bargaining and tactics needed in a pre-negotiation period and during negotiation to produce more successful results.

Intervention is a key concept for understanding global dynamics because of its presumed connection to international security. As the lone superpower, the United States, through military, economics, political, or diplomatic means, is largely responsible for structuring intervention choices—issues, debates, actions, and means—in the world community. Feste explores the implications of U.S. intervention in the unipolar framework by examining intervention policies, success, and failure in recent cases (the Gulf War, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan), and learning experience outlined in alternative foreign policy doctrines. The U.S. intervention record during this period shows great variety in outcomes, not a patterned design nor a grand strategy. Most recent crises, she asserts, did not threaten world peace. Post-Cold War U.S. intervention experience is compared with historical American involvement to understand when, where, why, and how often military contingents were sent abroad throughout the 20th century, alongside a timeline of intervention opportunities—defined as domestic and civil uprising in countries throughout the world—since the end of World War II. Among her conclusions: The United States has intervened for a variety of reasons—oil, terrorism, humanitarian assistance—but one factor, bad leadership in the target state, stands out. The United States increasingly, though not always, has turned to a multilateral strategy for intervention—seeking UN support, participating in multinational peacekeeping operations. The variety of intrastate crises and intervention responses coupled with superpower global obligations and the unipolar world structure means intervention will continue as a signficant, defining feature of international politics in the future.

Karen A. Feste examines the history of superpower intervention in domestic conflicts around the world during the Cold War era. The historical significance of the role that superpower intervention has played in shaping issues and strategies for many independent nations is thoroughly explored by Feste. Her unique analysis goes beyond a reexamination of dramatic instances of American and Soviet intervention to present a combination of aggregate event data methodology and historical case studies; general patterns in the nature of superpower intervention throughout four decades are highlighted; and U.S.-Soviet behavior is carefully and consistently compared across the entire period of the Cold War.

This work will be of great interest to scholars and historians in political science, international relations, military studies, and geopolitics.

Although much has been written about the Arab-Israeli conflict and about general theories of negotiation, this analysis and history is unique in linking major issues and peace plans to negotiation theory and strategy. Feste studies the basic structures of conflict and negotiation, offering no suggestions for radical solution but arguing for changes in approach that may bring about steps forward. This overview of all major peace efforts since 1947 and of negotiating strategies is intended for undergraduate and graduate courses in conflict resolution, Middle Eastern politics, and international relations; and for the use of political scientists, sociologists, students, and teachers concerned with ethnoconflict.

The text analyzes the framework of the Arab-Israeli conflict, how it has built up, and how it has been maintained. The structure of the negotiation process is then viewed in the same way. Key elements in the Arab-Israeli conflict are considered historically and related directly to the process of negotiation and to theories about positional and principled bargaining and tactics needed in a pre-negotiation period and during negotiation to produce more successful results.