Download or read book Failing the Crystal Ball Test written by Ofira Seliktar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2000-08-30 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the Iranian revolution as her focal point, Seliktar offers a systematic analysis of predictive failure in foreign policy at the paradigmatic, policy, and intelligence levels. Seliktar first examines how social science paradigms determine conceptualizations of political change, and then applies that analysis to understanding New Internationalism, the Carter administration's foreign policy philosophy at the time of the Shah's fall from power. Based in part on classified documents seized during the takeover of the American embassy, Failing the Crystal Ball Test is a valuable addition to Middle Eastern studies, international relations, and comparative politics collections. Seliktar engages in a general discussion of the problems entailed in correctly assessing the political legitimacy of foreign regimes, and describes the origins of New Internationalism as influenced by the New Left dependency theories. Examining President Carter's application of New Internationalism to Iran, Seliktar presents an account first of political influences on the predictive process during the early stages of revolution, and then of the administration's misreading of the likelihood of a fundamentalist regime in Teheran.
Download or read book Politics of Confrontation written by Babak Ganji and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2006-04-28 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did the United States know more than it acknowledges about growing unrest under the Shah in mid-1970s Iran? Have historians of American-Iranian relations focused too narrowly on prevailing historical theory and personal recollection? In a period of escalating tension between the United States and Iran, what can the two nations' history of conflict tell us about their diplomatic future? Covering Carter's policy from the end of the Shah's reign to the revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini, Babak Ganji explores the nature of their perpetually antagonistic relations and the mistrust and misunderstanding that fuels it. Politics of Confrontation is a penetrating critique of international relations theory within the historical framework of US-Iranian relations, as well as a thorough examination of American policy towards Iran. It is the first in-depth look at documents seized by revolutionary students from the American Embassy during the infamous hostage crisis, and debunks the myth that US officials were unaware of the nature of opposition to the Shah or of Soviet influence on senior clerics. These findings are an essential addition to the discourse of foreign policy theorists and invaluable for historians of the US, Iran and the Cold War.
Download or read book Navigating Iran written by O. Seliktar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-04-23 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the first full account of America's relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran from Jimmy Carter's presidency to Barack Obama's. It discusses all major facets of Iranian policy of interest to the United States: nuclear proliferation, revolutionary export and support for international terrorism, efforts to undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and violations of human rights. It compares developments in Iran to their perception in Washington, providing the clearest picture available yet of the discrepancies between the complex and elusive Iranian reality and its understanding in the United States.
Download or read book Practical Schedule Risk Analysis written by Dr David Hulett and published by Gower Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2012-09-28 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Project scheduling is required for good project management, and the schedule represents the project plan under a specific set of assumptions, often that it will avoid new risks or even those that have occurred on previous occasions. The typical Critical Path Method (CPM) schedule assumes that the project team knows how long the scheduled activities will take. Yet, the experienced project manager knows that duration values so precisely stated are actually only estimates based on assumptions that could be wrong. A schedule risk analysis explores the implications for the project's schedule of risk to the activity durations and also identifies the most important schedule risks. This analysis, building on and extending CPM scheduling, will result in a more accurate estimate of completion and provide an early opportunity for planning effective risk mitigation actions. Practical Schedule Risk Analysis contains a complete treatment of schedule risk analysis from basic to advanced concepts. The methods are introduced at the simplest level: ∗ Why is the duration uncertain? ∗ And how do we represent this uncertainty with a probability distribution? These are then progressively elaborated: ∗ How does uncertainty of activities along a path lead to more uncertainty of the path's completion date? ∗ How can a schedule with parallel paths be riskier than each of the paths individually? ∗ How can we represent risks about activities that are not in the schedule at all? Culminating in a discussion of the most powerful and advanced capabilities available in current commercial software. Schedule risk analysis is a process that is industry-independent, and the methods explained in this volume have been used by the author with positive effect in such industries as construction, oil and gas, information systems, environmental restoration and aerospace/defense. The result is a book that is not only highly practical; something that people within all types of projects and in all industries can apply themselves; but that is an extraordinarily complete guide to creating and managing a rigorous project schedule.
Download or read book US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution written by C. Emery and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a fresh perspective on the origins of the confrontation between the US and Iran. It demonstrates that, contrary to the claims of Iran's leaders, there was no instinctive American hostility towards the Revolution, and explains why many assumptions guiding US policy were inappropriate for dealing with the new reality in Iran.
Download or read book Integrated Cost Schedule Risk Analysis written by David Hulett and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Project managers tend to believe their cost estimates - whether they have exceeded budgets in the past or not. It is dangerous to accept the engineering cost estimates, which are often optimistic or unrealistic. Though cost estimates incorporate contingency reserves below-the-line, these estimates of reserves often do not benefit from a rigorous assessment of risk to project costs. Risks to cost come from multiple sources including uncertain project duration, which is often ignored in cost risk analyses. In short, experience shows that cost estimating on projects is rarely successful - cost overruns routinely occur. There are effective ways to estimate the impact on the cost of complex projects from project risks of all types, including traditional cost-type risks and the indirect but often substantial impact from risks usually thought of as affecting project schedules. Integrated cost-schedule risk anlaysis helps us determine how likely the project will go over budget with the current plan, how much contingency reserve is required to achieve a desired level of certainty, and which risks are most important so the project manager can mitigate them and achieve a better result. Integrated Cost-Schedule Risk Analysis provides solutions for these and other challenges. This book follows on from David Hulett's highly-praised Practical Schedule Risk Analysis. It focuses on the way that schedule risk can generate cost risk, and how to handle this relationship. It also applies the Risk Driver Method to the analysis so that you can clearly and transparently identify the key risks, rather than just the most risky cost line items. With detailed worked examples and over 70 illustrations, Integrated Cost-Schedule Risk Analysis offers the definitive guide to this critically important aspect of project management from surely the world's leading commentator.
Download or read book Constructing Cassandra written by Milo Jones and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-21 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constructing Cassandra analyzes the intelligence failures at the CIA that resulted in four key strategic surprises experienced by the US: the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Iranian revolution of 1978, the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks—surprises still play out today in U.S. policy. Although there has been no shortage of studies exploring how intelligence failures can happen, none of them have been able to provide a unified understanding of the phenomenon. To correct that omission, this book brings culture and identity to the foreground to present a unified model of strategic surprise; one that focuses on the internal make-up the CIA, and takes seriously those Cassandras who offered warnings, but were ignored. This systematic exploration of the sources of the CIA's intelligence failures points to ways to prevent future strategic surprises.
Download or read book The Rise of Nuclear Iran written by Dore Gold and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-08-24 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the West, liberal politicians and pundits are calling for renewed diplomatic engagement with Iran, convinced that Tehran will respond to reason and halt its nuclear weapons program. Yet countries have repeatedly tried diplomatic tactics, all of which have utterly failed. In The Rise of Nuclear Iran, Gold examines these past failures and shows how Iran employed strategic deception and delay tactics to hide its intentions from the West.
Download or read book written by 胡莹著 and published by BEIJING BOOK CO. INC.. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 本书通过布热津斯基参与的美国对外重大决策事件还有推动中美战略关系的确立、促成阿以和平、伊朗人质事件等重大事件，剖析他的思想如何最终影响美国对外战略的形成。
Download or read book Doomed to Failure written by Ofira Seliktar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-08-27 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking book examines how and why the much-vaunted Oslo Peace Accords between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed. The author analyzes the players on both sides of the accords, pointing out the attitudes and actions that serve to undermine peace and promote conflict. On the one hand, she criticizes the Islamist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad for not tolerating the idea of any true long-term peace with Israel. On the other hand, she scrutinizes the factions for and against Oslo that developed within Israeli government circles, and she calls into question the ability of Israeli intelligence to correctly assess the Palestinian negotiators. By means of such examination, this book poses a fundamental question: Can Islamic fundamentalism ever accept the existence of Israel or will it short-circuit any prospect of peace between majority-Muslim states and their non-Muslim counterparts?
Download or read book Identities in Crisis in Iran written by Ronen A. Cohen and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-03-18 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identities in Crisis in Iran aims at finding answers to the questions about the puzzling character of the Iranian identity. The contributors acknowledge that identity, especially when it is faced with fundamental tensions as in the case of Iran, is a phenomenon that is constantly developing via factors involving the private self and common social components. This book addresses the tension many Iranian people face that lie between the Persian culture and the Shi’a religion, women versus men, and culture versus traditions.
Download or read book America s Special Relationships written by John Dumbrell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique volume offers an original collection of essays on the theme of America’s ‘special relationships’. It interrogates in an original and provocative manner the distinctive character of America’s interactions with an array of allies and clients, both international and domestic. The essays vary in their focus; some are primarily historical, some are more contemporary. All consider the quality of ‘specialness’ in the context of America’s relationship with particular countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Russia, Iran and Israel. The collection also concerns the relationship between the American state and key ‘special’ foreign policy interests, notably ethnic lobbies and religious groups. Bringing together a wide range of experts, this timely collection provides a valuable addition to the debates surrounding US foreign policy, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of American politics, American history and international relations.
Download or read book The Future Almost Arrived written by Itai Nartzizenfield Sneh and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2008 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study of Jimmy Carter's career, his approach to human rights, his formulation of goals, and his practices before, during, and after his presidency, with a focus on the extent to which the promotion and protection of human rights influenced his actions at home and abroad. Historians underestimate the uniqueness of the juncture in the 1970s when Carter missed an opportunity to change priorities in American diplomacy, a misreading that might be explained by the disparity between Carter's agenda and the reality created by his administration's record. This book identifies and examines how Carter's ambitious words and promising ideals did not translate into policy, though his intentions were noble. At a pivotal moment, his administration adopted human rights as a tenet for foreign policy, but Carter did not design imaginative guidelines or prescribe new practices to advance this theme. The Future Almost Arrived illuminates how, had Carter succeeded in recruiting senior staff to support and implement an innovative agenda, the result might have been an overhaul of U.S. foreign policy, with human rights at its center - which, by improving his chances for re-election, would have changed the course of history.
Download or read book Politics Paradigms and Intelligence Failures written by Ofira Seliktar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Washington's failure to foresee the collapse of its superpower rival ranks high in the pantheon of predictive failures. The question of who got what right or wrong has been intertwined with the deeper issue of "who won" the Cold War. Like the disputes over "who lost" China and Iran, this debate has been fought out along ideological and partisan lines, with conservatives claiming credit for the Evil Empire's demise and liberals arguing that the causes were internal to the Soviet Union. The intelligence community has come in for harsh criticism for overestimating Soviet strength and overlooking the symptoms of crisis; the discipline of "Sovietology" has dissolved into acrimonious irrelevance. Drawing on declassified documents, interviews, and careful analysis of contemporaneous literature, this book offers the first systematic analysis of this predictive failure at the paradigmatic, foreign policy, and intelligence levels. Although it is focused on the Soviet case, it offers lessons that are both timely and necessary.
Download or read book The Carter Years written by Burton Ira Kaufman and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An A-to-Z reference guide to the people, places, policies, and events significant during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Download or read book Sword translation written by Zhang Wei and published by Devneybooks. This book was released on with total page 2048 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thanks to your continuous support, Sword Translates the World today. Although the results are far from enough, as long as they are constantly improving, it means that the efforts of Ice Eagle have not been in vain!
Download or read book Inside the Crystal Ball written by Maury Harris and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-12-12 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical guide to understanding economic forecasts In Inside the Crystal Ball: How to Make and Use Forecasts, UBS Chief U.S. Economist Maury Harris helps readers improve their own forecasting abilities by examining the elements and processes that characterize successful and failed forecasts. The book: Provides insights from Maury Harris, named among Bloomberg's 50 Most Influential People in Global Finance. Demonstrates "best practices" in the assembly and evaluation of forecasts. Harris walks readers through the real-life steps he and other successful forecasters take in preparing their projections. These valuable procedures can help forecast users evaluate forecasts and forecasters as inputs for making their own specific business and investment decisions. Emphasizes the critical role of judgment in improving projections derived from purely statistical methodologies. Harris explores the prerequisites for sound forecasting judgment—a good sense of history and an understanding of contemporary theoretical frameworks—in readable and illuminating detail. Addresses everyday forecasting issues, including the credibility of government statistics and analyses, fickle consumers, and volatile business spirits. Harris also offers procedural guidelines for special circumstances, such as natural disasters, terrorist threats, gyrating oil and stock prices, and international economic crises. Evaluates major contemporary forecasting issues—including the now commonplace hypothesis of sustained economic sluggishness, possible inflation outcomes in an environment of falling unemployment, and projecting interest rates when central banks implement unprecedented low interest rate and quantitative easing (QE) policies. Brings to life Harris's own experiences and those of other leading economists in his almost four-decade career as a professional economist and forecaster. Dr. Harris presents his personal recipes for long-term credibility and commercial success to anyone offering advice about the future.
