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181. Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces

Author:
Steven R. Ward
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Georgetown University Press
Abstract:
In 1978 Iran And Its Armed Forces seemed to stand at the peak of their power and prestige in the modern era. Bountiful oil revenues and a strategic position overlooking the vital Persian Gulf oil export routes boosted Iran's standing in the world. Cold War competition made Iran a recipient of Western and Soviet arms and attention. Iran had just passed Egypt, a far more populous country, in having the largest armed forces in the Middle East. In fact, the Iranian military was outpacing some large European countries in the quantity and sophistication of its equipment. Iran was the only country other than the United States to possess the state- of- the- art F- 14 Tomcat fighter. Iran's military also was funding the development of the advanced British Challenger tank with its then revolutionary Chobham composite armor. These programs rep- resented only the middle stages of an extravagant rearmament process, with numerous sophisticated ground, air, and naval systems on order. In addition, the Iranian armed forces, the Artesh, had polished their reputation by gaining combat experience battling rebels in neighboring Oman and by participating in a UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

182. Beyond Market Forces: Regulating the Global Security Industry

Author:
James Cockayne (ed.)
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
In late 2008, seventeen states, including the US, UK, China, Iraq, Afghanistan, and others, endorsed the Montreux Document on Pertinent International Legal Obligations and Good Practices for States related to Operations of Private Military and Security Companies during Armed Conflict (2008). This provides important guidance to states in regulating private military and security companies (PMSCs). However, there is a need to do more, to provide increased guidance to the industry and ensure standards are enforced.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, and Markets
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, China, and Iraq

183. China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia

Author:
David C. Kang
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Throughout the past three decades East Asia has seen more peace and stability than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839-1841. During this period China has rapidly emerged as a major regional power, averaging over nine percent economic growth per year since the introduction of its market reforms in 1978. Foreign businesses have flocked to invest in China, and Chinese exports have begun to flood the world. China is modernizing its military, has joined numerous regional and international institutions, and plays an increasingly visible role in international politics. In response to this growth, other states in East Asia have moved to strengthen their military, economic, and diplomatic relations with China. But why have these countries accommodated rather than balanced China's rise? David C. Kang believes certain preferences and beliefs are responsible for maintaining stability in East Asia. Kang's research shows how East Asian states have grown closer to China, with little evidence that the region is rupturing. Rising powers present opportunities as well as threats, and the economic benefits and military threat China poses for its regional neighbors are both potentially huge; however, East Asian states see substantially more advantage than danger in China's rise, making the region more stable, not less. Furthermore, although East Asian states do not unequivocally welcome China in all areas, they are willing to defer judgment regarding what China wants and what its role in East Asia will become. They believe that a strong China stabilizes East Asia, while a weak China tempts other states to try to control the region. Many scholars downplay the role of ideas and suggest that a rising China will be a destabilizing force in the region, but Kang's provocative argument reveals the flaws in contemporary views of China and the international relations of East Asia and offers a new understanding of the importance of sound U.S. policy in the region.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Trade and Finance, Political Economy, and Power Politics
Political Geography:
China and East Asia
Publication Identifier:
9780231141888
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

184. Abraham Lincoln: Leadership and Democratic Statesmanship in Wartime

Author:
Mackubin Thomas Owens
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:
No president in American history has faced a greater crisis than Abraham Lincoln confronted in 1861. Although sections of the country had threatened disunion many times in the past, the emergency had always passed as some compromise was found. But in 1861, Lincoln, who had won the election of 1860 because of a split in the Democratic Party, faced a rebellion “too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” By the time of his inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had declared their separation from the Union and had set up a separate provisional government called the Confederate States of America. A little over five weeks later, at 4:30 am on April 12, 1861, rebel gunners opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. In response, Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to serve ninety days. Denouncing the president’s policy of “coercion,” four more states left the Union. The ensuing war, the most costly in American history, would last for four agonizing years. When it was over, some 600,000 Americans had died and the states of the South had suffered economic losses in the billions of dollars when measured in terms of today’s currency
Topic:
Civil War, Politics, History, and Elections
Political Geography:
United States

185. After the "Socialist Spring': Collectivisation and Economic Transformation in the GDR

Author:
George Last
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
Historical analysis of the German Democratic Republic has tended to adopt a top-down model of the transmission of authority. However, developments were more complicated than the standard state/society dichotomy that has dominated the debate among GDR historians. Drawing on a broad range of archival material from state and SED party sources as well as Stasi files and individual farm records along with some oral history interviews, this book provides a thorough investigation of the transformation of the rural sector from a range of perspectives. Focusing on the region of Bezirk Erfurt, the author examines on the one hand how East Germans responded to the end of private farming by resisting, manipulating but also participating in the new system of rural organization. However, he also shows how the regime sought via its representatives to implement its aims with a combination of compromise and material incentive as well as administrative pressure and other more draconian measures. The reader thus gains valuable insight into the processes by which the SED regime attained stability in the 1970s and yet was increasingly vulnerable to growing popular dissatisfaction and economic stagnation and decline in the 1980s, leading to its eventual collapse.
Topic:
Cold War, Economics, Socialism/Marxism, Authoritarianism, and Rural
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Soviet Union, West Germany, and East Germany

186. The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism

Author:
Ami Pedahsur
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
While Mossad is known as one of the world's most successful terrorist-fighting organizations, the state of Israel has, more than once and on many levels, risked the lives of its agents and soldiers through unwise intelligence-based intervention. An expert on terror and political extremism, Ami Pedahzur argues that Israel's strict reliance on the elite units of its intelligence community is fundamentally flawed. A unique synthesis of memoir, academic research, and information gathered from print and online sources, Pedahzur's complex study explores this issue through Israel's past encounters with terrorists, specifically, hostage rescue missions, the first and second wars in Lebanon, the challenges of the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian terrorist groups, and Hezbollah. He brings a rare transparency to Israel's counterterrorist activities, highlighting their successes and failures and the factors that have contributed to these results. From the foundations of this analysis, Pedahzur ultimately builds a strategy for future confrontation that has relevance not only for Israel but also for other countries that have adopted Israel's intelligence-based model.
Topic:
Intelligence, Military Affairs, and Counter-terrorism
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel
Publication Identifier:
9780231511612
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

187. Jewish Terrorism in Israel

Author:
Ami Pedahsur and Arie Perlinger
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Two world experts on the study of terror and security propose a theory of violence that contextualizes not only recent acts of terror but also instances of terrorism that stretch back centuries. Beginning with ancient Palestine and its encounters with Jewish terrorism, the authors analyze the social, political, and cultural factors sponsoring extreme violence, proving that religious terrorism is not the fault of one faith, but flourishes within any counterculture adhering to a totalistic ideology. Conducting interviews with former Jewish terrorists, political and spiritual leaders, and law-enforcement officials, and culling information from rare documents and surveys of terrorist networks, Pedahzur and Perliger construct an extensive portrait of terrorist aggression while also describing the conditions behind the modern rise of zealotry.
Topic:
Terrorism, Military Affairs, and Counter-terrorism
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel
Publication Identifier:
9780231520751
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

188. The Shape of the World to Come

Author:
Laurent Cohen-Tanugi
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Contrary to an optimistic vision of a world "flattened" by the virtues of globalization, the sustainability and positive outcomes of economic and political homogenization are far from guaranteed. For better and for worse, globalization has become the most powerful force shaping the world's geopolitical landscape, whether it has meant integration or fragmentation, peace or war. The future partly depends on how new economic giants such as China, India, and others make use of their power. It also depends on how well Western democracies can preserve their tenuous hold on leadership, cohesion, and the pursuit of the common good. Offering the most comprehensive analysis of world politics to date, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi takes on globalization's cheerleaders and detractors, who, in their narrow focus, have failed to recognize the full extent to which globalization has become a geopolitical phenomenon. Offering an interpretative framework for thought and action, Cohen-Tanugi suggests how we should approach our new "multipolar" world—a world that is anything but the balanced and harmonious system many welcomed as a desirable alternative to the "American Empire."
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

189. Refugee Rights: Ethics, Advocacy, and Africa

Author:
David Hollenbach (ed)
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Georgetown University Press
Abstract:
There are over thirty- three million refugees and internally displaced people in the world today. A disproportionate percentage of these displaced people are in Africa. Most have been driven from their homes by the armed strife of both interstate and intrastate confl icts. Such coerced migration violates people's freedom, and most have been displaced into settings where conditions fall far short of what is required to live with basic human dignity. Such displacement, therefore, violates people's most basic human rights in multiple ways.
Topic:
Human Rights and Refugee Issues
Political Geography:
Africa

190. New Rights Advocacy: Changing Strategies of Development and Human Rights NGOs

Author:
Paul J. Nelson and Ellen Dorsey
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Georgetown University Press
Abstract:
Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, and Non-Governmental Organization