Now in its millennial edition, this popular text outlines an emerging international system that is both distinguishable from the past and stable enough to prevail into the new century. Sure to provoke classroom discussion, The Shape of the Future is an ideal supplementary text for a range of college courses on the contemporary world.

Now in its millennial edition, this popular text outlines an emerging international system that is both distinguishable from the past and stable enough to prevail into the new century. Sure to provoke classroom discussion, The Shape of the Future is an ideal supplementary text for a range of college courses on the contemporary world.

The main locu of instability, conflict and violence in the post-Cold War world is the periphery - particularly the poorest regions of what used to be called the Third World. Internal wars of secession, struggles for power and chaos in failed or failing states are the dominant forms, expressed in intercommunal or ethnic violence, domestic and international acts of terrorism, and, increasingly, essentially criminal insurgencies with no political objective. This completely revised edition of "Distant Thunder" brings the problem of Third-World conflict into the post-Cold War era. Now that the...

The main locu of instability, conflict and violence in the post-Cold War world is the periphery - particularly the poorest regions of what used to be called the Third World. Internal wars of secession, struggles for power and chaos in failed or failing states are the dominant forms, expressed in intercommunal or ethnic violence, domestic and international acts of terrorism, and, increasingly, essentially criminal insurgencies with no political objective. This completely revised edition of "Distant Thunder" brings the problem of Third-World conflict into the post-Cold War era. Now that the...

Decisions about when, where, and why to commit the United States to the use of force, and how to conduct warfare and ultimately end it, are hotly debated not only contemporaneously but also for decades afterward. We are engaged in such a debate today, quite often without a solid grounding in the country's experience of war, both political and military. This book, by a political scientist and a career military officer and historian, is premised on the view that we cannot afford that kind of innocence. Updated and revised with new chapters on the Afghan and Iraq wars, the book systematically...

This book is about national security strategy: what it is, what its objectives are, what problems it seeks to solve or at least manage, and what kinds of influences constrain and create opportunities for the development and implementation of strategies. The heart of the problem with which national security strategy deals is the series of threats-normally military, but increasingly semi- or nonmilitary in character-that the country must confront and somehow overcome or contain. When the original version of this book1 was published in 1988, the set of threats facing the United States was...

Three interrelated subject areas are at the heart of the current foreign and national security dilemma. One is the Middle East, which has been the epicenter of most U.S. policy activity for over a third of a century. The second is energy policy, particularly as it is affected by the development and exploitation of shale oil and gas reserves in the United States. This is linked to the Middle East because it has been American dependence on Middle East petroleum that has created the interest the U.S. has in this region. The third area is military manpower policy and two simultaneous wars in the...