The United States continues to proclaim its support for democracy and its opposition to tyranny, but American presidents often have supported dictators who have allied themselves with the United States. This book illustrates the chronic dilemmas inherent in US dealings with dictators under conditions of uncertainty and moral ambiguity.
Is medical ethics in times of armed conflict identical to medical ethics in times of peace, as the World Medical Association declares? In Bioethics and Armed Conflict, the first comprehensive study of medical ethics in conventional, unconventional, and low-intensity war, Michael Gross examines the dilemmas that arise when bioethical principles clash with military necessity—when physicians try to save lives during an endeavor dedicated to taking them—and describes both the conflicts and congruencies of military and medical ethics.
Offense-defense theory argues that the relative ease of offense and defense varies in international politics. When the offense has the advantage, military conquest becomes easier and war is more likely; the opposite is true when the defense has the advantage. The balance between offense and defense depends on geography, technology, and other factors. This theory, and the body of related theories, has generated much debate and research over the past twenty-five years.
Russian military capacity remains a major consideration for global security even in the post-Soviet era. This book assesses today's Russian military and analyzes its possible future direction. The contributors—experts on the subject from both Russia and the West—consider not only how Russia has built its military capacity but also the policies and doctrines that have shaped Russia's defense posture.
Despite growing concerns after September 11, 2001, over the global terrorist threat and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, international security no longer hinges only on arms control and the prevention of war. Nonmilitary concerns, including emerging infectious diseases, environmental degradation, demographic trends, and humanitarian catastrophes, also represent significant threats to global stability. In this book, leading analysts offer an overview of critical security dangers facing the world today.
In January 2002, President George W. Bush declared Iran, Iraq, and North Korea constituents of an "axis of evil." US strategy toward each of these countries has clearly varied since, yet similar issues and policy options have emerged for US relations with all three. Reshaping Rogue States seeks to improve our understanding of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as well as of current and future policy options to combat the threats these nations pose.
The war in Iraq and the problematic military occupation of that country have called into question the adequacy of America's all-volunteer force. Politicians and others have expressed doubts about its equity and capability; some have called for the reinstatement of the draft. Yet over the past twenty years the all-volunteer military has become a technologically advanced force that has contributed to America's overall military advantage.
Prospects for Peacemaking provides a genuinely fresh look at embedded assumptions about national security. It clears the way for a security policy based less on outmoded premises and more on a purposeful strategy for peace in a nuclear world. And it demonstrates one model of a creative interaction between citizens and specialists, one that can be replicated in any community.
"In this book," wrote the late Quincy Wright, "Richard Barringer has made a contribution to the study of international conflict by devising a new method of classifying empirical data to characterize conflict and its stages of development, with results of considerable predictive value."
A number of original techniques with broad application in the social sciences are developed in War: Patterns of Conflict. This companion volume contains the supporting material and computer programs for those techniques and the instruction for their use. It includes simple and compound agreement analysis, a logarithmic scaling technique for compound data, and a revised edition of the conflict data codebook.
