International Relations

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  Inside China's Grand Strategy: The Perspective from the People's Republic

  China's enormous size, vast population, abundant natural resources, robust economy, and modern military suggest that it will emerge as a great world power. This book offers unique insights about the country's geopolitical ambitions and strategic thinking. The book examines China's interactions with current world powers as well as its policies toward neighboring countries. Despite claims that repressive domestic policies and an economic slowdown are evidence that the country's efforts toward modernization will fail, the book points to China's inclusion in the G-20 as an indicator of success. It compares China's global ascension, particularly its emphasis on peace, to the historical ...Read More

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  The Future of China-Russia Relations

  Relations between China and Russia have evolved dramatically since their first diplomatic contact, particularly during the twentieth century. During the past decade China and Russia have made efforts to strengthen bilateral ties and improve cooperation on a number of diplomatic fronts. The People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation maintain exceptionally close and friendly relations, strong geopolitical and regional cooperation, and significant levels of trade. This book explores the current state of the relationship between the two powers and assesses the prospects for future cooperation and possible tensions in the new century. The chapters examine Russian and Chinese perspectives ...Read More

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  Hollywood's War with Poland, 1939-1945

  During World War II, Hollywood studios supported the war effort by making patriotic movies designed to raise the nation's morale. These movies often portrayed the combatants in very simple terms: Americans and their allies were heroes, and everyone else was a villain. Norway, France, Czechoslovakia, and England were all good because they had been invaded or victimized by Nazi Germany. Poland, however, was represented in a negative light in numerous movies. This book draws on a close study of prewar and wartime films such as To Be or Not to Be (1942), In Our Time (1944), and None Shall Escape ...Read More

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  Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing America's National Interest

  Elected officials, and especially presidential candidates, are increasingly asked to define their relationships to special interest groups. Such special, or private, interests play a disproportionate role in politics and legislation, whether in the form of large commercial or ethnic lobbies or in the shadowy realm of backroom dealmaking. This book argues that widespread public disinterest in global affairs, a prevailing characteristic of American political culture, has given private interest groups a paramount influence over the formulation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. These well-organized, well-funded groups affect all levels of government, disguising their own interests as vital national interests. The ...Read More

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  Challenges to Chinese Foreign Policy: Diplomacy, Globalization, and the Next World Power

  When Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, China symbolically asserted its role as an emerging world power—a position it is not likely to relinquish anytime soon. China’s growing economy, military reforms, and staggering productivity have contributed to its ascendancy as a major player in international affairs. Western scholars have attempted to explain Chinese foreign policy using historical or theoretical evidence, but until this volume, few studies from a Chinese perspective have been published in English.

  In Challenges to Chinese Foreign Policy: Diplomacy, Globalization, and the Next World Power, editors Yufan Hao, C. X. George Wei, and Lowell Dittmer reveal how ...Read More

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  From Berlin to Baghdad: America's Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World

  On November 9, 1989, a mob of jubilant Berliners dismantled the wall that had divided their city for nearly forty years; this act of destruction anticipated the momentous demolition of the European communist system. Within two years, the nations of the former Eastern Bloc toppled their authoritarian regimes, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist, fading quietly into the shadows of twentieth century history and memory. By the end of 1991, the United States and other Western nations celebrated the demise of their most feared enemy and reveled in the ideological vindication of capitalism and liberal democracy.

  As author Hal ...Read More

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  Urban Guerrilla Warfare

  Guerrilla insurgencies continue to rage across the globe, fueled by ethnic and religious conflict and the easy availability of weapons. At the same time, urban population centers in both industrialized and developing nations attract ever-increasing numbers of people, outstripping rural growth rates worldwide. As a consequence of this population shift from the countryside to the cities, guerrilla conflict in urban areas, similar to the violent response to U.S. occupation in Iraq, will become more frequent. This book traces the diverse origins of urban conflicts and identifies similarities and differences in the methods of counterinsurgent forces. In this wide-ranging and richly ...Read More

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  No End in Sight: The Continuing Menace of Nuclear Proliferation

  The global threat of nuclear weapons is one of today’s key policy issues. Using a wide variety of sources, including recently declassified information, Nathan E. Busch offers detailed examinations of the nuclear programs in the United States, Russia, China, Iraq, India, and Pakistan, as well as the emerging programs in Iran and North Korea. He also assesses the current debates in international relations over the risks associated with the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the post–Cold War world.

  Busch explores how our understanding of nuclear proliferation centers on theoretical disagreements about how best to explain and predict the behavior of ...Read More

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  The Sheriff: America's Defense of the New World Order

  Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since September 11, 2001, few issues have been more hotly debated than the United States’ role in the world. In this hard-nosed but sophisticated examination, Colin S. Gray argues that America is the indispensable guardian of the world order. Gray’s constructive critique of recent trends in national security is comprehensive, rooting defense issues and prospective answers in both U.S. national security policy and in the emerging international security environment.

  Colin S. Gray, professor of international politics and strategic studies at the University of Reading, England, and senior fellow at the National ...Read More

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  The Obligation of Empire: United States' Grand Strategy for a New Century

  Some of the nation's most respected scholars of international affairs examine the debates over U.S. grand strategy in light of U.S. security policies and interests in tactical regions around the world. The contributors begin by describing the four grand strategies currently competing for dominance of U.S. foreign policy: neo-isolationism argues that the United States should not become involved in conflicts outside specifically defined national interests selective engagement proposes that the United States, despite its position as the world's only remaining superpower, should limit its involvement in foreign affairs cooperative security advocates that the United States is not and should not ...Read More