In the last century, competition among the global powers has relied heavily upon the concept of war threat assessment. However, the ways in which these powers define security have differed among them, leading in some instances to miscommunication, conflict, and even war. In Without Warning , accomplished scholar Mikhail Alexseev compares the intelligence priorities of principal decision makers in such various parts of the world as the Mongol Empire and Sung China (1206-1220), Great Britain and France (1783-1800), and the USA and the Soviet Union (1975-1991). In his analysis Alexseev reveals that while the leading powers see security primarily in military and economic terms, their challengers focus primarily on political vulnerabilities. As a result, Alexseev asserts, the world powers have consistently failed to detect or deter aggressive challenges. A sharp, deciphering look at the interactions among the major global players, Without Warning makes a crucial contribution to the study of international relations.

Immigration phobia is a paradoxical global phenomenon: neither theories that link conflict to symbolic and realistic threats, nor the 'contact hypothesis' can systematically explain intense anti-migrant alarmism and exclusionism toward marginally small migrant minorities. Through a careful comparative study of immigration attitudes in the Russian Far East, the EU, and the United States, this book is the first to demonstrate that concerns about national identity and economic interests associated with migration are themselves ignited by a unique perceptual logic of the security dilemma. Regression analysis and case studies trace support for expulsion of migrants to human yearning for pre-emptive self-defense under uncertainty. Alarmism and hostility arise from ambiguities about immigration consequences and migrants' motivations. Framing migration as a national security problem is therefore logical, but counterproductive. The book instead recommends managing migration through economic incentives and new institutions at the global, national, and local level.

The early 1980s brought dramatic changes in East-West relations. The decade began with the death of Yugoslavia's Tito, the birth of Poland's Solidarity trade union, and the U.S. election of Ronald Reagan as president. These key developments, together with the growing financial insolvency of the Soviet bloc and shifts in power in the Kremlin culminating in the election of Mikhail Gorbachev as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985 signalled the end of an era. Since then, U.S. relations with Europe have charted a new course, influenced especially by the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the expansion of NATO, and the growing strength of the European Union. This volume analyzes U.S. relations with Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, and examines the new role for NATO in the post-Cold War world and the evolving dynamics in the U.S.-EU partnership. Through their assessment of mutual perceptions, evolving interests, and clashing agendas, the contributors offer a fresh and thoughtful exploration of the relationship between the United States and the major European states.