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Washington's failure to foresee the collapse of its superpower rival ranks high in the pantheon of predictive failures. The question of who got it 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 contemporary 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.
For as long as people have been working to bring peace to areas suffering long-standing, violent conflict, there have also been those working to spoil this peace. These "spoilers" work to disrupt the peace process, and often this disruption takes the form of violence on a catastrophic level. Galia Golan and Gilead Sher offer a broader perspective. They examine this phenomenon by analyzing groups who have spoiled or attempted to spoil peace efforts by political or other nonviolent means. By focusing in particular on the Israeli-Arab conflict, this collection of essays considers the impact of a democratic society operating within a broader context of violence. Contributors bring to light the surprising efforts of negotiators, members of the media, political leaders, and even the courts to disrupt the peace process, and they offer coping strategies for addressing this kind of disruption. Taking into account the multitude of factors that can lead to the breakdown of negotiations, Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers shows how spoilers have been a key factor in Israeli-Arab negotiations in the past and explores how they will likely shape negotiations in the future.
In recent years, not only in Spain but in the West in general, we have been witnesses to a war against phenomena broadly grouped together under the heading of "terrorism," and yet the problem not only continues, but moreover, there does not appear to be any major signal that would indicate to us that those who belong to "the other side"—the "terrorists"—may be weakening. Just as in Afghanistan, President Obama's administration appears to have settled on a policy of separating the moderates from the radicals within the ranks of the Taliban and seeing into the possibilities of negotiating with them. In Spain too, various administrations, ever since democracy returned to Spain with the death of Franco on November 20, 1975, and the promulgation of a new constitution on December 6, 1977, have tried to negotiate with Euskadi eta Askatasuna—ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom in the Basque language)—in order to end the problem of nationalist-separatist political violence in the Basque Country in northern Spain, including the provinces of Araba, Gipúzkoa, Navarre, and Bizkaia.
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?
This even-handed and thorough text explores Israeli government and politics. First tracing the history and development of the state, Mahler then examines the social, religious, economic, and cultural contexts within which Israeli politics takes place. The book explains the operation of political institutions and behavior in Israeli domestic politics, as well as Israel's foreign policy setting and apparatus, the Palestinian conflict and the question of Jerusalem, and the Middle East peace process overall. This clear and concise text provides an invaluable starting point for all readers needing a cogent introduction to Israel today.
US Foreign Policy and Iran is a study of US foreign policy decision-making in relation to Iran and its implications for Middle Eastern relations. It offers a new assessment of US-Iranian relations by exploring the rationale, effectiveness and consequences of American policy towards Iran from the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution to the present day. As a key country in a turbulent region and the recipient of some of the most inconsistent treatment meted out during or after the Cold War, Iran has been both one of America's closest allies and an 'axis of evil' or 'rogue' state, targeted by covert action and contained by sanctions, diplomatic isolation and the threat of overt action. More...
Examines the history and ideology behind the Islamic revolution, discusses Iran's role in the current violence, explains why withdrawal from Iraq would be disastrous, and calls on the church and Americans to offer prayerful support to the president.
There have been many books on the place of war, security, or military service in Israeli society. The Military, State, and Society in Israel makes contributions to the debate-theoretical, empirical, and polemical-that are related to the Israeli case and to wider debates about the place of war and the military in contemporary industrialized societies. The Israeli case is important in the development of more macro approaches to the study of "things military" as war has played a central role in Israel's history and continues to do so. The book encapsulates in a very explicit manner tensions in the relationships between the military, state, and society and stands at the core of contemporary deba...
This book offers an in depth discussion of the Israeli – Iranian conflict, and its implications for the United States and Arab states. The main topic is Israel’s approach to handling Iran and its partners, given Iran’s ambitions, including its plan to produce nuclear weapons. The author explains the complexity of the Iranian – Israeli – Arab triangle, while offering suggestions on how the United States can assist Israel in this matter. The volume also contributes a unique point of view on events and military factors.
A reexamination of the critical issues surrounding the birth of Israel.