Download or read book The Many Faces of National Security in the Arab World written by Rex Brynen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two Gulf wars and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict have highlighted the salience of military factors in the Middle East. This book argues, however, that many of the most serious 'security' challenges to Arab states and societies are rooted not in external military threats but in the imperatives of socio-economic development. Contributors examine the regional security environment; the social and political impact of regional militarization; and underdevelopment as a source of regional insecurity.

Download or read book Thinking International Relations Differently written by Arlene B. Tickner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A host of voices has risen to challenge Western core dominance of the field of International Relations (IR), and yet, intellectual production about world politics continues to be highly skewed. This book is the second volume in a trilogy of titles that tries to put the "international" back into IR by showing how knowledge is actually produced around the world. The book examines how concepts that are central to the analysis of international relations are conceived in diverse parts of the world, both within the disciplinary boundaries of IR and beyond them. Adopting a thematic structure, scholars from around the world issues that include security, the state, authority and sovereignty, globalization, secularism and religion, and the "international" - an idea that is central to discourses about world politics but which, in given geocultural locations, does not necessarily look the same. By mapping global variation in the concepts used by scholars to think about international relations, the work brings to light important differences in non-Western approaches and the potential implications of such differences for the IR discipline and the study of world politics in general. This is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the history, development and future of International Relations.

Download or read book The Small Gulf States written by Khalid S. Almezaini and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Small states are often believed to have been resigned to the margins of international politics. However, the recent increase in the number of small states has increased their influence and forced the international community to incorporate some of them into the global governance system. This is particularly evident in the Middle East where small Gulf states have played an important role in the changing dynamics of the region in the last decade. The Small Gulf States analyses the evolution of these states’ foreign and security policies since the Arab Spring. With particular focus on Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, it explores how these states have been successful in not only guaranteeing their survival, but also in increasing their influence in the region. It then discusses the security dilemmas small states face, and suggests a multitude of foreign and security policy options, ranging from autonomy to influence, in order to deal with this. The book also looks at the influence of regional and international actors on the policies of these countries. It concludes with a discussion of the peculiarities and contributions of the Gulf states for the study of small states’ foreign and security policies in general. Providing a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the unique foreign and security policies of the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) before and after the Arab Spring, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East studies, foreign policy and international relations.

Download or read book American National Security written by Amos A. Jordan and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fifth edition of American National Security is a timely update of a classic classroom text, providing contemporary perspectives on limited war, economic challenges to national security, and research and development. It reviews the changing security environment in key regions of the world: Russia, East Asia, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Europe. And it identifies the issues that the United States must face in the next century: peace operations, conflict and arms control, and the widening array of missions undertaken by U.S. armed forces. "We have chosen to emphasize 'power,' broadly defined, as the central dimension of international and national security. This is not to deny that various trends and forces are increasingly pressing states toward more cooperative, less confrontational behavior; rather it is to focus on the fact that on important issues many states -- including all the great powers -- apply a power calculus in dealing with other international actors." -- from the fifth edition of American National Security Praise for previous editions: "A classic text, widely used in universities... It does an exemplary job of explaining the process of defining and implementing national security objectives. Hardly any significant subject is omitted from this very rich and readable volume." -- Foreign Affairs Contents Foreword by Senator Sam Nunn Part I -- National Security Policy: What Is It, and How Have Americans Approached It? 1. National Security: The International Setting 2. Military Power and the Role of Force in the Post-Cold War Era 3. Traditional American Approaches to National Security 4. The Evolution of American National Security Policy Part II -- National Security Policy 5. Presidential Leadership and the Executive Branch in National Security 6. The Impact of Congress on National Security Policy 7. Intelligence and National Security 8. The Role of Military in the National Security Policy Process 9. Defense Planning, Budgeting, and Management 10. The National Security Decision-making Process: Putting the Pieces Together Part III -- Issues of National Strategy 11. Low-level Conflict 12. Limited War 13. Nuclear Strategy Economic Challenges to National Security 15. Research and Development Part IV -- International and Regional Security Issues 16. Russia 17. East Asia 18. The Middle East 19. Sun-Sarahan Africa 20. Latin America 21. Europe Part V: Approaches to National Security for the Early Twenty-first Century 22. Peace Operations 23. Conflict and Arms Control 24. National Security Perspectives for the Early Twenty-first Century

Download or read book The National Security Economics of the Middle East written by Anthony H. Cordesman and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The economics of national security in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have changed dramatically since 2001. Counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and internal security have emerged as having the same priority as military forces, and the rise of non-state actors, the use of proxies, and the increase use of asymmetric warfare have changed the nature of warfighting as well. Nuclear and missile threats are not new to the region, but they are a rising threat, and one that affects the cost and shape of many of the region’s military forces.Internal security has also increased in priority and in cost. The 9/11 attacks made it clear that violent Islamist extremism posed a major threat inside and outside the region, a threat reinforced by the al Qaeda attacks in side Saudi Arabia in 2011, and by the emerge of ISIS and its claims of creating a “Caliphate” in Syria and Iraq in 2011.At the same time, the major political upheavals that began in 2011 have shown that national security faces a critical threat to internal stability growing out of failures to provide effective governance and development, and that regional states need to pay far more attention to the needs of their peoples, to the impact of massive population growth, to the need to create jobs and higher levels of income, and to dealing with social change.The end result is that the economics of national security now go far beyond spending on military forces. Theyhave three critical elements:•Military security: The economics of creating military forces that can defend and deter given nations, where the size of spending is secondary to the effectiveness and the efficiency with which military budgets are spent.•Internal security: The economics of dealing with terrorism and challenges like violent Islamic extremism, ethnic and sectarian differences, tribal and regional tensions, and the rise of armed or violent non-state actors—including forces like Hezbollah.•Internal stability: The economics of providing the levels of governance, employment, services and infrastructure, education, medical services, and the other key elements of internal stability necessary to avoid mass uprisings, and trigger popular support for internal security threats.This analysis explores the resulting trends in regional and national security spending in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region using a variety of sources and metrics. It highlights trends within the region and by country, examines leading national efforts, and raises key issues regarding burden sharing.The analysis shows that virtually all of the countries in the region face serious problems in coping with the costs of ongoing conflicts and improving internal stability thatplace serious burdens on their economies. It also shows that while some regional players—like NATO Europe—may be spending too little, but that many MENA nations—including some of its wealthiest petroleum exporting states—may well be spending more than their economies can sustain.The arms race in the Gulf region is particularly expensive, and has pushed several Gulf States to extraordinary spending levels as a percent of their GDP. By some estimates, it has made Saudi Arabia increase its national security spending to levels that rank third or fourth in the world.Virtually all regional states that are not actively at war are still spending far more their GDP on military forces than the 2.0% goal set by NATO, and many pay several times that percentage. National security economics have become a critical issue for regional governments that must now pay for steadily more expensive military forces, internal security forces, and efforts to improve internal security.At the same time, this analysis warns against taking any given source of data as reliable, and focusing on a single metric like the percentage of GDP being spent on defense to estimate the national level of effort or "burden." The data given countries report on military expenditures vary sharply in reliability and inclusiveness, no one metric explains levels of effort or their effectiveness, and spending may or may not produce effective forces tailored to real world national and regional security requirements.This raises critical issues about efforts toassess the economics of "burden sharing," particularly when they use essentially meaningless and misleading metrics like military spending as a percent of GDP. The key issues at both a national and alliance level are what levels of spending buy effective forces, deterrence, and warfighting capabilities. A given percentage of GDP says nothing about the effectiveness of given levels of military spending, of the ability of a country to fund them and meet its other security needs, or how alliances and collective security efforts should best be structured to meet national and common needs.It also makes no distinction between the major regional powers—like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and potentially Iraq—that must underpin any major Arab collective security effort and the smaller and often poorer states that cannot match them in economies of scale and purchasing power; the role that small but exceptionally rich states like Qatar should play; or the ways regional and outside powers like the United States, Britain, and France can best use their resources to achieve synergistic and effective results.The analysis also warns against focusing on military spending to the exclusion of national police, counterterrorism, and other internal expenditure data, which are lacking as a separate set of data for most MENA countries. In many cases, military expenditures are combined to some undefined degree with internal security spending. In others, reporting only cover military and paramilitary forces. There are insufficient data to report—and analyze—on this critical aspect of MENA national security spending.Most previous reporting and assessment of national security spending also ignores the extent to which spending on national stability has become a key issue since the political upheavals and new cycle of conflicts that began in 2011. It is all too clear that internal stability is the key prerequisite for effective military and counterterrorism efforts, although there is no clear way to estimate the cost and comparative size of such efforts. Accordingly, the analysis includes three separate Annexes that cover every MENA state, that highlight what is known about some of the key metrics shaping internal stability, and that can be compared with the size and burden of military and other national security spending.

Download or read book Redefining security in the Middle East written by Tami Jacoby and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-30 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. For over five decades, the Cold War security agenda was distinguished by the principal strategic balance, that of a structure of bipolarity, between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR). This book seeks to draw from current developments in critical security studies in order to establish a new framework of inquiry for security in the Middle East. It addresses the need to redefine security in the Middle East. The focus is squarely on the Arab-Israeli context in general, and the Palestinian-Israeli context in particular. The character of Arab-Israeli relations are measured by the Israeli foreign policy debate from the 1950s to the 1990s. A dialogue between Islam and Islamism as a means to broaden the terrain on which conflict resolution and post-bipolar security in the Middle East is to be understood is presented. The Middle East peace process (MEPP) was an additional factor in problematizing the military-strategic concept of security in the Middle East. The shift in analysis from national security to human security reflects the transformations of the post-Cold War era by combining military with non-military concerns such as environmental damage, social unrest, economic mismanagement, cultural conflict, gender inequity and radical fundamentalism. By way of contrast to realist international relations (IR) theory, developing-world theorists have proposed a different set of variables to explain the unique challenges facing developing states. Finally, the book examines the significance of ecopolitics in security agendas in the Middle East.

Download or read book Regional Insecurity After the Arab Uprisings written by E. Monier and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-06-11 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an in-depth exploration of the impact of the Arab Uprisings on the relationship between constructions of (in)security, narratives of threat and patterns of socio-political change within the Middle East and North Africa region. It also offers insights into the study of regional security and the operation of threat perceptions.

Download or read book Global Trends 2040 written by National Intelligence Council and published by Cosimo Reports. This book was released on 2021-03 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

Download or read book Inter Arab Alliances written by Curtis R. Ryan and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2009-01-04 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a method to the apparent madness of Arab politics. In a region where friends can become enemies and enemies become friends seemingly at the drop of the hat, Curtis Ryan argues that there is logic to be found. Through fourteen years of field research and interviews with key policy makers, Ryan examines the remarkably stable Jordan as a microcosm of the region’s politics. He traces the last four decades of Jordanian foreign policy in an attempt to better understand what seems like chaos. What Ryan finds is an approach that is fundamentally different from alliances made in the West, in both how and why they are made. With governmental change and upheaval occurring on a seemingly regular basis, Arab nations approach diplomacy with much different means and potential ends. The impact of this diplomacy is arguably the most immediate in the world today, as conflict with words and conflict with weapons are sometimes separated by mere days. The topic of international relations in the Arab world is as complex as it is important. Ryan gives the reader the theoretical background, and shows its direct applicability through the foreign policy of Jordan.

Download or read book Regional Security in the Middle East written by and published by Routledge. This book was released on with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Regional Security in the Middle East written by Pinar Bilgin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-09-09 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an accessible yet critical analysis of regional security in the Middle East. Using a non-realist approach, Bilgin provides a comprehensive study of the past, present and future of security in the region. She also considers the question of identity formation, explaining how and why various regional representations came into being, and explor

Download or read book Military Politics of the Contemporary Arab World written by Philippe Droz-Vincent and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compares the crucial role of Arab armies in state building, a decade after the 2011 Arab Uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria.

Download or read book Israel s National Security written by Efraim Inbar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-12-21 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a comprehensive analysis of Israel's security challenges since the 1973 October War. Efraim Inbar takes the reader on a historical journey through Israel's relations in the Middle East that begins with an analysis of Israel's strategic thinking after 1973 and ends with an important look at the recent Second Lebanese War and the Iranian nuclear challenge. Israel's National Security delves not only into Israel's responses, but also its relationships in the international community, providing a complete picture of how Israel's strategic environment has evolved over time. Relevant to today's current political atmosphere, the volume dissects the influences of the growing appeal of Islamic extremism on the peace process, Israel strategic partnerships with India and Turkey, and Israel's relations with the Palestinians.

Download or read book The Arab Spring and the Geopolitics of the Middle East Emerging Security Threats and Revolutionary Change written by Amr Yossef and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study, which highlights a renewed emphasis in international affairs on regional studies, the co-authors provide an assessment of the revolutionary changes in the politics and security of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Download or read book The Arab Uprisings Explained written by Marc Lynch and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did Tunisian protests following the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi lead to a massive wave of uprisings across the entire Arab world? Who participated in those protests, and what did they hope to achieve? Why did some leaders fall in the face of popular mobilization while others found ways to survive? And what have been the lasting results of the contentious politics of 2011 and 2012? The Arab uprisings pose stark challenges to the political science of the Middle East, which for decades had focused upon the resilience of entrenched authoritarianism, the relative weakness of civil society, and what seemed to be the largely contained diffusion of new norms and ideas through new information technologies. In this volume, leading scholars in the field take a sharp look at the causes, dynamics, and effects of the Arab uprisings. Compiled by one of the foremost experts on Middle East politics and society, The Arab Uprisings Explained offers a fresh rethinking of established theories and presents a new framework through which scholars and general readers can better grasp the fast-developing events remaking the region. These essays not only advance the study of political science in the Middle East but also integrate the subject seamlessly into the wider political science literature. Deeply committed to the study of this region and working out the kinks of the discipline, the contributors to this volume help scholars and policymakers across the world approach this unprecedented historical period smartly and effectively.

Download or read book The State and Global Change written by Hassan Hakimian and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic liberalisation and reform are widely considered as the favourite remedies for the declining economic fortunes of the Middle Eastern and North African states in the past two decades. International economic institutions have been among the main advocates of transition to market-led economies in the region and a force contributing to its realisation. This has placed the state at the centre of the proposed transformations, acting both as an instrument of, and an obstacle to, change. With attempts at liberalisation worldwide spanning over twenty years, the time is ripe for a re-evaluation of its premises and outcome. The essays in this volume debate the political economy of transition and reforms in the Middle East and North Africa, drawing on interdisciplinary approaches and outlooks involving international, regional and national levels of analysis. The three central themes of the book are the rationale and strategies for reform, the processes and outcomes, and the nature of the state in the changing global setting.

Download or read book Building Regional Security in the Middle East written by Emily B. Landau and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-11-23 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discussions on regional security were initiated in the Middle East in 1992, as part of the Middle East peace process. The collapse of the Oslo process and other regional developments in the latter half of the 1990s have diminished hopes that the initial gains made in this direction might further develop, as violence has again become the primary mode of effecting political changes in the region. On the backdrop of this somewhat dismal current reality in the Middle East the rationale for this volume is that research into regional security structures should nevertheless be pursued. When looking at the long term process of creating regional security, setbacks are not unlikely. The articles that make up this collection focus on the problems that have been encountered, and possible directions for getting regional efforts back on track. A special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies