Some more useful ebooks

[venomencer]

Hi guys, i am posting some ebooks links, hoping it may help those who like international politics, especially for those who are interested in what is happening around them.

Thanks but no thanx


(1) After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy by Timothy J. Lynch, Robert S. Singh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press | 2008 | ISBN 0521880041 | PDF | 396 pages | 1.2 MB

Towards the end of his second term, it appears George W. Bush's foreign policy has won few admirers, with pundits and politicians eagerly and opportunistically bashing the tenets of the Bush Doctrine. This provocative account dares to counter the dogma of Bush's Beltway detractors and his ideological enemies, boldly arguing that Bush's policy deservedly belongs within the mainstream of the American foreign policy tradition. Though the shifting tide of public opinion has led many to anticipate that his successor will repudiate the actions of the past eight years, authors Timothy Lynch and Robert S. Singh suggest that there will-and should-be continuity in US foreign policy from his Presidency to those who follow. Providing a positive audit of the war on terror (which they contend should be understood as a Second Cold War) they charge that the Bush Doctrine has been consistent with past foreign policies-from Republican and Democratic presidencies-and that the key elements of Bush's grand strategy will rightly continue to shape America's approach in the future. Above all, they predict that his successors will pursue the war against Islamist terror with similar dedication.



(2) Mark Grossman - Political Corruption in America: An Encyclopedia of Scandals, Power, and Greed, 2 Vol. Set
ABC-Clio | 2003 | ISBN: 1576070603 | Pages: 770 | PDF | 6.37 MB

The complete scandal-filled history of American political corruption focusing on the infamous people and cases, as well as society's electoral and judicial reactions. America loves a good scandal. Since colonial times, there has been no shortage of politicians willing to take a bribe, skirt campaign finance laws, or act in their own interests. Corruption like the Whiskey Ring, Watergate, and whitewater cases dominate American life, making political scandal a leading U.S. industry. From judges to senators, presidents to mayors, Political Corruption In America discusses the infamous people throughout history that have been accused and implicated in crooked behavior. More than 250 A-Z entries explore the people, crimes, investigations, and court cases behind 200 years of American political scandals. This unbiased volume also delves into the issues surrounding Koreagate, the Chinese money scandal, and other ethical lapses. Relevant terms and statutes, including the Independent Counsel Act and impeachment as a tool of political punishment, are examined as well. Students and scholars following American history, political science, and ethics, plus other intrigued readers, will all appreciate this survey of a wide range of corrupting influences. This title focuses on how politicians of all stripes have fallen because of their greed and hubris. And how society has used electoral and judicial means against those who tested the accepted standards of political conduct.


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(3) Michael Newton - The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories
Facts on File | 2005 | ISBN: 0816055408 | Pages: 426 | PDF | 18.63 MB

Does the CIA covertly utilize "mind control" drugs and techniques? Are satanic messages subliminally hidden in popular music? Were Freemasons behind London's Jack the Ripper murders? Does your vote really count or is the U.S. president chosen by secretive societies such as the Bilderberg Group and the Illuminati? In an objective, fact-based manner, "The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories" thoroughly documents and explores these and other provocative questions. This intriguing reference provides more than 500 detailed entries that define the major conspiracies, both proven and unproven, throughout history. From the "inheritance powder" of the Medicis to the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, this encyclopedia investigates the broad history of conspiracies and their impact on global affairs and everyday life. Entries include biographies, specific events, profiles of groups, and thumbnail histories of notorious nations.

(4) Cyprian Blamires - World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia - 2 Volume Set
ABC-CLIO | 2006 | ISBN: 1576079406 | Pages: 750 | PDF | 12.57 MB

Here is a major contribution to the scholarship of Fascism. The more than 500 separately authored entries are written by 125 experts in Fascism studies. Like the authors, the entries represent the multidisciplinary nature of Fascism studies, covering history, political science, philosophy, and religion in entries on people, political parties and movements, and key geographical areas. Entries average 1 to 2 pages, but there are some longer articles, such as the 6-page article on France. Although the majority of entries deal with the twentieth century, meaning there should be no shortage of available images, there are only a few black-and-white illustrations, mostly attached to biographical entries.

See also references appear at the end of each article, but sometimes the list of related entries is so long it can be overwhelming, and the fact that the references are all listed in capital letters makes them difficult to read. Each entry concludes with a list of references to outside sources, which will be useful for students pursuing research projects. Other content includes a list of entries at the beginning of each volume, a bibliography arranged by broad subject areas that will be especially useful to those working on research projects, and a chronology that runs from 1861 to 2004.

There is one major drawback to this encyclopedia. Students without prior knowledge will not find it to be a useful source for background information, a key role of a subject encyclopedia. Some advanced undergraduates or beginning graduate students studying political science or modern history may find it useful if they are inclined to use a subject encyclopedia. The most valuable entry for undergraduates is the one they are least likely to read, the 26-page introduction, which provides background information and an overview of Fascist studies. But because it is in the front matter and never referenced elsewhere, students are unlikely to find it. Recommended with reservations for universities with faculty and graduate students working in the area of Fascist studies.

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(5) Inderjeet Parmar, "Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of the Role and Influence of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institure of International Affairs, 1939-1945"
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan | 2004 | ISBN 1403921032 | PDF | 272 pages | 1.5 MB

What is the role of elites in shaping foreign policy? Did unaccountable foreign policy elites shape the post-1945 world order? Chatham House and the Council on Foreign Relations were vital in America's shift from isolationism to globalism, and in Britain's shift from Empire to its current pro-American orientation and were also fundamental in engineering public backing for a new world order. Inderjeet Parmar presents new evidence to show how well-organized and well-connected elite think tanks helped to change the world.



(6) Vassilis K. Fouskas, "Zones Of Conflict: US Foreign Policy in the Balkans and the Greater Middle East"
Publisher: Pluto Press | 2003 | ISBN 0745320309 | PDF | 184 pages | 1.7 MB

The US has several major interests in the Balkans, the Greater Middle East and the wide Eurasian zone, which determine its political and military strategies in the region. What are these interests, and what strategies are used to ensure that they are maintained? Examining the balance of power between the US, the EU and key EU states in the region, Vassilis Fouskas offers a critique of US foreign policy and its underlying motivations. He argues that the major US objectives include control over gas and oil producing zones; safe transportation of energy to Western markets at stable prices; and the elimination, but not destruction, of America's Eurasian competitors. He asserts that US foreign policy is therefore driven by the desire to maintain a strategic partnership with key EU states, while preventing the emergence of an alternative coalition in Eurasia capable of challenging US supremacy. Has US foreign policy undergone a dramatic U-turn after the end of the Cold War or, for that matter, after September 11th? This book tackles such questions and argues that the emergence of a social democratic administration in Eurasia is a feasible alternative to American unilateralism.




(7) Douglas Woodwell, "Nationalism in International Relations: Norms, Foreign Policy, and Enmity (Advances in Foreign Policy Analysis)"
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan | 2007 | ISBN 1403984492 | PDF | 240 pages | 1.5 MB

Nationalism in International Relations analyzes how the politics of national identity and incompletely realized nation-states influence conflict between states within the international system. While scholars have traditionally focused on political institutions and power politics in their analysis of conflict patterns around the globe, this work examines the explosive role that ethnonational demographic patterns frequently play in promoting interstate distrust, tension, and occasional bloodshed. Employing quantitative analysis and focused case studies, Nationalism in International Studies makes the case for an understanding of regional security politics in many of the world's most contentious hotspots that both transcends and supplements traditional realist and liberal scholarship.


(8) Hyde-Price, "European Security in the Twenty-First Century: The Challenge of Multipolarity (Contemporary Security Studies)"
Publisher: Routledge | ISBN: 0415392179 | edition: 2007 | PDF | 241 Pages | 1,5 Mb

Europe’s political and strategic landscape has been deeply transformed by the end of the Cold War. This book explores the implications of those changes, arguing that the contemporary European security system is facing renewed turbulence and uncertainty. Using structural realist theory, Adrian Hyde-Price analyses the new security agenda confronting Europe in the twenty-first century and explains why Europe is not ‘primed for peace’: rather, it faces new security threats and the challenge of multipolarity. For example, the Iraq War has exposed deep divisions in transatlantic relations; in the east, a resurgent and increasingly assertive Russia has emerged; and at the heart of Europe lies Germany, which has re-learnt its former role as the pivot of the European
balance of power. If the emergence of ‘balanced’ multipolarity has weakened the cohesion of both NATO and the EU, this volume analyses how it has also created new possibilities for great-power cooperation to tackle security problems.
The conclusion reflects on the inherently competitive and tragic nature of international politics, and argues that realis.



(9) Khalil Marrar, "The Arab Lobby and US Foreign Policy (Routledge Research in American Politics)"
Publisher: Routledge | 2009 | ISBN 0415776813 | PDF | 272 pages | 1.3 MB

The US foreign policy stance on Israel-Palestine has shifted considerably in recent years, from a position of 'Israel only' to one which embraces both Israel and Palestine in a call for peace. This volume assesses why the US stance has evolved in the way that it has, concluding that while international factors cannot be overlooked, developments within the United States itself are also crucial. After years of vacillating on Palestinian national aspirations, the majority of Americans, the author notes, have come to favor the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza strip.Considering what accounts for changes in US policy on Israel-Palestine, this volume: delivers a thorough assessment of the role of international and domestic factors in shaping US policy in this area; considers how US policy has evolved from the Camp David negotiations of the 1970s up to the occupation of Iraq in the mid 2000s; explores the significance of American public opinion and the pro-Israel and Arab lobbies in the evolution of US policy. "The Arab Lobby and US Foreign Policy" will be of interest to students and scholars of Foreign Policy and Political Science, Current Affairs and American Studies. Khalil M. Marrar is Professor at DePaul University, USA. He has served in editorial positions at the Arab Studies Quarterly and the Association of Arab-American University Graduates.


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(10) Zaki Laidi, "EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized World: Normative Power and Social Preferences (Routledge/Garnet Series: Europe in the World)"
Publisher: The MIT Press | 2008 | ISBN 0415433630 | PDF | 201 pages | 1.3 MB

Written by leading experts in the field, this volume identifies European collective preferences and analyzes to what extent these preferences inform and shape EU foreign policy and are shared by other actors in the international system. While studies of the EU's foreign policy are not new, this book takes a very different tack from previous research. Specifically it leaves aside the institutional and bureaucratic dimensions of the European Union's behaviour as an international actor in order to concentrate on the meanings and outcomes of its foreign policy taken in the broadest sense. Two outcomes are possible: Either Europe succeeds in imposing a norms-based international system and thus, in this case, its soft power capacity will not only have been demonstrated but will be enhanced Or, on the contrary, it does not succeed and the global system will become one where realpolitik reigns; especially once China, India and Russia attain a preponderant influence on the international scene. "EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized World" will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, foreign policy and politics and international relations in general.

[venomencer]

(11) Rogelio Alonso, "Killing for Ireland: The IRA and Armed Struggle (Cass Series on Political Violence)"
Publisher: Routledge | ISBN: 0415396107 | edition: 2007 | PDF | 228 Pages | 2 Mb

The IRA is one of the longest-established terrorist organizations in the world and conducted a ferociously violent campaign for almost 30 years. Now deeply enmeshed in the Northern Ireland peace process, this new book asks how one of the bloodiest terrorist movements of our time decided to swap weapons for the ballot box?
Killing for Ireland presents an unparalleled investigation of the motives and opinions of Irish republican activists. Based on over seventy interviews conducted with former and existing members of the IRA, the author also provides a rigorous evaluation of the personal and political consequences of the IRA's campaign of violence. The analysis of these interviews radically challenges the dominant academic analysis of Irish terrorism. This book includes a strong criticism of the armed struggle constructed around the discourse of those who waged it and answers the question faced by many armed revolutionary movements: "Was the war worth it?"
Translated from the critically acclaimed Matar por Irlanda and available in English for the first time, this volume provides a provocative and new approach to understanding the IRA. It is essential reading for readers and researchers with an interest Irish politics and history, terrorism and political violence.


(12) Jeremy Black, "Trade, Empire and British Foreign Policy, 1689-1815: Politics of a Commercial State"
Publisher: Routledge | ISBN: 0415396069 | edition: | PDF | 2007 Pages | 1,8 Mb

This new volume examines the influence of trade and empire from 1689 to 1815, a crucial period for British foreign policy and state-building.
Jeremy Black, a leading expert on British foreign policy, draws on the wide range of archival material, as well as other sources, in order to ask how far, and through what processes and to what ends, foreign policy served commercial and imperial goals during this period. The book is particularly interested in the conceptualization of these goals in terms of international competition, and how the contours and contents of this conceptualization altered during this period. Trade, Empire and British Foreign Policy, 1689-1815 also analyzes how the relationships between trade, empire and foreign policy were perceived abroad and how this contributed to an analysis of Britain as a distinctive state, and with what consequences.
This book will be of much interest to students of British imperial history, diplomatic history and international history in general.


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(13) Ray Murphy, "UN Peacekeeping in Lebanon, Somalia and Kosovo: Operational and Legal Issues in Practice"
Publisher: Cambridge University Press | ISBN: 0521843057 | edition: 2007 | PDF | 392 Pages | 2,2 Mb

The concept of UN peacekeeping has had to evolve and change to meet the challenges of contemporary sources of conflict. From a practical, operational and legal perspective, Murphy examines the problems faced by UN peacekeeping operations. Three case studies (Lebanon, Somalia and Kosovo) are used to demonstrate the problems associated with the command and control of UN forces, the use of force and rules of engagement, and the implementation of international human rights and humanitarian law by such forces.


(14) David Ryan, "Vietnam in Iraq: Lessons, Legacies and Ghosts (Contemporary Security Studies)"
Publisher: Routledge | ISBN: 0415405629 | edition: 2006 | PDF | 240 Pages | 1,5 Mb

The Vietnam War has exerted a considerable influence over US foreign policy, its method of engagement, and its sense of credibility, military tactics and overall strategic initiatives since 1969. The Bush administration's intervention in Iraq 2003 departed significantly from the accumulated lessons acquired since the 1970's. Though Vietnam has been a frequent point of reference in regional conflict, various facets of that war have returned with even more frequency and persistence both within the United States, Iraq and elsewhere. This book aims:
-To examine the impact of the Vietnam analogy on the war in Iraq
-To assess the military tactical lessons that were learned from the Vietnam War
-To examine the broader strategic lessons and the US concern with their credibility in fighting 'ground wars'.
-To examine the influence and persistence of Vietnam's legacy in US politics, culture and diplomacy and its ability to continue to exert influence on Washington's tactics.
-To examine the impact of US foreign policy on both Vietnam and Iraq.


(15) Challenges to Global Security: Geopolitics and Power in an Age of Transition (Toda Institute Book Series on Global Peace and Policy)
By Hussein Solomon
Publisher: I. B. Tauris | ISBN: 1845115279 | edition 2007 | PDF | 240 pages | 1,1 mb

Ours is an age of great upheaval where change sometimes appears to be the only constant. Three of the most important forces driving such change are globalization, regionalization and democratization. This substantial work makes a concerted attempt to understand these forces, and to show how they impact on the vitally important question of global security in the USA, Latin America, South Asia, South East Asia, Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa. Each discourse receives substantial coverage: from economics and politics to religion, religious fundamentalism and human rights.


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(16) Clarence Lusane, "Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century"
Publisher: Praeger Publishers | 2006 | ISBN 0275983099 | PDF | 288 pages | 1.5 MB

Lusane has created a groundbreaking analysis of the intersection of racial politics and American foreign policy. This insightful work critically examines the roles played by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and current Secretary of State (and former National Security Advisor) Condoleezza Rice in the construction of U.S. foreign policy, exploring the ways in which their racial identity challenges conventional notions about the role of race in international relations. Neither Powell nor Rice consciously allowed their racial identity to substantially influence or characterize their participation in the defense and projection of U.S. hegemony, Lusane argues, but both used their racial identity and experiences strategically in key circumstances to defend Bush administration policies. This is but one sense in which their race, despite their reluctance to be seen as racial figures, is significant in relation to U.S. foreign policy. Locating Powell and Rice within the genealogy of the current national security strategy, and within broader shifts under George W. Bush, this work argues that their racial location in the context of the construction of U.S. foreign policy is symbolic, and that it serves to distract from the substantive part they play in the ongoing reconfiguration of U.S. global power.



(17)
Thomas M. Franck, "The Power of Legitimacy among Nations"
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA | 1990-07-26 | ISBN 0195061780 | PDF | 320 pages | 16.48 MB

Although there is no international government, and no global police agency enforces the rules, nations obey international law. In this provocative study, Franck employs a broad range of historical, legal, sociological, anthropological, political, and philosophical modes of analysis to unravel the mystery of what makes states and people perceive rules as legitimate. Demonstrating that virtually all nations obey most rules nearly all of the time, Franck reveals that the more legitimate laws and institutions appear to be, the greater is their capacity for compliance. Distilling those factors which increase the perception of legitimacy, he shows how a community of rules can be fashioned from a system of sovereign states without creating a global leviathan.


(18)
Jabari Asim, "What Obama Means: ...for Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future"
Publisher: William Morrow | 2009 | ISBN 0061711330 | PDF | 240 pages | 6 MB

This is our moment. This is our time," Barack Obama declared in his victory speech on November 4, 2008. Such a moment is an opportunity to explore who we are, where we've been, and what the emergence of a leader like Obama can tell us about our culture, our politics, and our future. In What Obama Means, Jabari Asim, author of the acclaimed The N Word, provides the context needed to understand what the Obama presidency means to Americans of all backgrounds.


(19) Heather Lehr Wagner, "The Central Intelligence Agency (The U.S. Government: How It Works)"
Publisher: Chelsea House Publications | 2007 | ISBN 0791092828 | PDF | 112 pages | 2.7 MB

The headquarters of one of the world's most powerful and secretive intelligence services can be found in Langley, Virginia, about eight miles outside of downtown Washington, D.C. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) serves a critical role in the shaping of American policies by providing foreign intelligence related to national security issues to the U.S. president and senior U.S. policy makers. The process of gathering and analyzing intelligence involves spies and satellites, foreign agents, and researchers working at the CIA's headquarters. While the threats against the United States have changed since the CIA was founded in 1947, its mission remains the same: to provide the information that will keep Americans safe. This thrilling new title takes readers on a journey through the historical corridors of the CIA. From the days of Wild Bill Donovan and the OSS to the war against terrorism, "The Central Intelligence Agency" introduces some of the CIA's key players and reveals how intelligence has been a critical component in America's foreign policy.


(20)
The Culture of Terrorism: Noam Chomsky
South End Press | ISBN: 0896083357 | 1999-07-01 | djvu (ocr) | 269 pages | 2.84 Mb

Summary: The great universalist strikes again...
While this might not be the best book to read if you've never before met this astounding intellect in print, it still serves to succinctly elucidate the most salient hallmarks of Chomsky's approach to world affairs and, more specifically, his country's foreign policy. These hallmarks include an incisive dissection of the subservience of intellectuals to state power, the flagrant hypocrisy of the US government, in this case the Reagan administration, as their public pronouncements project an image of inviolable nobility while their actions tell quite a different story, and the concentration of private power in a few hands which underpin, thus making possible, these disturbing aspects of American intellectual and political culture.
The book began life as a "postscript" to a number of foreign editions of Chomsky's Turning the Tide, which dealt with many of the same points raised in this book, though The Culture of Terrorism deals with the Iran-Contra scandals at some length which the earlier text did not. Although the actual facts detailed in often exhausting rigorousness are well out of date, one is thoroughly exposed to the brazen dereliction of basic journalistic duty by those that Chomsky derisorily refers to throughout as representatives of the Free Press. They fall so effortlessly in line with state doctrine that the achievements, again noted by Chomsky, would make a totalitarian regime proud. That this happens in one of the freest countries in the world is nothing short of sickeningly scandalous. In case there are those that think Chomsky is a conspiracy nut or a devotee to the school of hyperbole he provides ample evidence which shows that even the so-called liberal press, namely the New York Times and the New Republic, are guilty of obscene apologetics for, and often advocates of, aggressive state terror.
The Culture of Terrorism deals predominantly with the campaign of subversion and harsh repression conducted by the Contras in Nicaragua who were armed, trained, and constantly supplied throughout this terrible period by the US government. There were flights over the countryside on an almost daily basis and the examples of their weaponry cited in the book would put most armies in other third world countries to shame, let alone the guerrilla forces who were fighting in nearby El Salvador, a country Chomsky also sketches in much socio-political detail. In 1979 the Nicaraguans overthrew the brutal dictator Somoza, a member of a dynasty stretching back to the middle of the 1920s, whose reign ended with a "paroxysm of violence claiming the lives of 40-50000 people". This tiny Central American nation elected the leftist Sandinistas regime which immediately caused the big neighbour to the North considerable consternation. The Reagan Administration proceeded to destabilise this government by employing the Contras, many of them previously employed as members of Somoza's abysmally vicious National Guard, to raid innocent villages, destroy houses, steal livestock, and even kill Americans who had come to aid this miserably poor country that was improving dramatically under the Sandinista regime. These leaps ahead in terms of health care, education and reduction of poverty were documented by such aid agencies as Oxfam at the time who compared the situation in this country with that of Guatemala and El Salvador. The picture created in the US media was quite different, however, as that charnel house Guatemala, along with El Salvador where political violence, including rapes, mutilation, tortures, and `disappearances', were endemic, were described as "fledgling democracies". Conversely, Nicaragua under the Sandinistas was portrayed by the Free Press as a totalitarian state who was one of the tentacles of the Soviet Union. How interesting that by ordering an economic embargo of Nicaragua, and forcing allies to do the same, the Sandinistas are forced to turn to Russia for help which provides a retrospectively convenient basis for the Reagan Administration to scream from the roof tops that the Evil Empire is upon them. Also very intriguing, illuminated by copious quotations from leading journals and newspapers, that a country such as Guatemala, where it is estimated that around 150000 people may have been killed during the Reagan era, and El Salvador, the site of 50000 politically motivated murders during the same period, raise no impassioned denunciations of their odious socio-political conditions, or even an acknowledgement of these figures cited by human rights organizations and specialists of the region. Ignorance is indeed strength, as Chomsky notes in a very apposite evocation of Orwell, whom he often refers to throughout the book as the noted linguist creates for the reader a truly terrifying Orwellian world, all the more horrifying because it actually exists and is not only an acutely perspicacious exercise in allegory, where "democracy" implies regimes friendly to US business interests and "moderates" are people such as El Salvadoran president José Duarte who just happens to preside over a regime that assassinates Archbishops, union leaders, students, journalists of opposition newspapers, and just about anyone who dares to question the economically polarising policies of this staunch proponent of the US "development model", another term Orwell would be proud of as the development in question applies to rich folk while the poor become demonstrably poorer, as is still much the case today in our world of ever "freer" markets.
The picture, as usual with Chomsky, is bleak, though when you have this much factual knowledge at your command, and have none of the necessary illusions required of the mendacious elites, then it is a tall task to be sanguine about world affairs, particularly those directed by the biggest terrorist state. The problem with reading a book published almost two decades ago about events that were then much publicized, is that much of the currency is unavoidably lost. At the very least the book provides an abundantly extensive historical overview of a time not all that different from our own, the primary deviation being the names of the victims and perpetrators, and at its most elevated altitudes of significant scholarship The Culture of Terrorism cogently demystifies the key characteristics, established by the voluminous historical and documentary record, of the most influential institutions in US society. This has always been Chomsky's greatest gift and this book amply, though not definitively, showcases his remarkable ability to not only render events in breathtakingly astounding detail, but always ensures that they are related to a wider context of previous incidents and current practices.
This is not a book for those individuals who still foster illusions that the United States is the most benevolent super power the world has ever known. For those willing to look beyond the purposely constrained bounds of the mainstream media, as well as the limits of their own often self-willed ignorance, the book provides ample insights into past practices and their very grave implications for future conduct by the globe's sole remaining hegemonic force. Chomsky may be less a voice in the wilderness than he was when the book was published, but still not enough people are hearing his extremely vital message.



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[venomencer]

(21) Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran
Not Avail | ISBN 158487211X | 2005-01 | PDF | 314 pages | 1.2 MB

As Iran edges closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb and its missiles extend an ever darker diplomatic shadow over the Middle East and Europe, Iran is likely to pose three threats. First, Iran could dramatically up the price of oil by interfering with the free passage of vessels in and through the Persian Gulf as it did during the l980s or by threatening to use terrorist proxies to target other states oil facilities. Second, it could diminish American influence in the Gulf and Middle East by increasing the pace and scope of terrorist activities against Iraq, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Israel, and other perceived supporters of the United States. Finally, it could become a nuclear proliferation model for the world and its neighbors (including many states that otherwise would be more dependent on the United States for their security) by continuing to insist that it has a right to make nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then withdrawing once it decides to get a bomb. To contain and deter Iran from posing such threats, the United States and its friends could take a number of steps: increasing military cooperation (particularly in the naval sphere) to deter Iranian naval interference; reducing the vulnerability of oil facilities in the Gulf outside of Iran to terrorist attacks, building and completing pipelines in the lower Gulf region that would allow most of the non-Iranian oil and gas in the Gulf to be exported without having to transit the Straits of Hormuz; diplomatically isolating Iran by calling for the demilitarization of the Straits and adjacent islands, creating country-neutral rules against Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty state members who are suspected of violating the treaty.


(22) Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs By Ray Takeyh
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA | ISBN: 0195327845 | edition 2009 | PDF | 328 pages | 1,08 mb

For over a quarter century, Iran has been one of America's chief nemeses. Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in 1979, the relationship between the two nations has been antagonistic: revolutionary guards chanting against the Great Satan, Bush fulminating against the Axis of Evil, Iranian support for Hezbollah, and President Ahmadinejad blaming the U.S. for the world's ills.
The unending war of words suggests an intractable divide between Iran and the West, one that may very well lead to a shooting war in the near future. But as Ray Takeyh shows in this accessible and authoritative history of Iran's relations with the world since the revolution, behind the famous personalities and extremist slogans is a nation that is far more pragmatic--and complex--than many in the West have been led to believe. Takeyh explodes many of our simplistic myths of Iran as an intransigently Islamist foe of the West. Tracing the course of Iranian policy since the 1979 revolution, Takeyh identifies four distinct periods: the revolutionary era of the 1980s, the tempered gradualism following the death of Khomeini and the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1989, the "reformist" period from 1997-2005 under President Khatami, and the shift toward confrontation and radicalism since the election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005.



(23) Roger Howard "Iran Oil: The New Middle East Challenge to America"
I. B. Tauris | 2007-01-09 | ISBN: 1845112490 | 272 pages | PDF | 4,3 MB

The US sees itself as being locked into a confrontation with Iran, its number one enemy since the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But, as Roger Howard argues in this compelling and provocative new book, by attempting to isolate Iran, the US may in fact be undermining its own power. Furthermore, because of US trade embargoes on Iran, it is only the US's rivals, such as China, who are able to fully exploit Iran's natural resources, thus powering a new alliance of countries which will act as a counterweight to US global power. By pursuing such a hostile agenda to a country with so much petro-clout, America is, according to Howard, writing its obituary as the world's only superpower.



(24) The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Armed Forces of Asia) By Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema
Publisher Roundhouse Publishing | ISBN: 1865081191 | edition 2003 | PDF | 240 pages | 1,66 Mb

To the north a seemingly endless civil war in Afghanistan fuelled by arms from Russia and the USA. To the west, a fundamentalist Islamic region in Iran, with links to international terrorism. To the north-east, a secessionist guerilla war in Kashmir. To the east, India, with which Pakistan has fought two wars in 40 years. In these volatile circumstances, Pakistan's armed forces continue to play an important role both internally and externally. Since their creation out of the communal violence of partition at the end of World War II, the armed forces of Pakistan have played a central role in the Pakistani state, periodically usurping the civil authority and ruling in its own right. This book describes the nature of Pakistan's defence capabilities and the forces which will shape them in the 21st century. It surveys the forces locked in conflict over the nuclear option and examines the three internal pressures Pakistan continues to face: militarization, secularization and Islamic fundamentalism. The book assesses the role of the armed forces in the context of defence policy and strategy, and its social and political role. It also provides a comprehensive description of the nature of the air, naval and ground forces, as well as an account of each of their capabilities and ambitions. An appendix provides a precise order of battle.


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(25) Pakistan: At the Crosscurrent of History (One World) By Lawrence Ziring
Publisher: Oneworld Publications 2004 | 288 Pages | ISBN: 1851683275 | PDF | 2.3 MB

In this probing book, a leading defense expert gives the inside story of Pakistan, telling of a country torn apart by catastrophic civil wars, dominated by the bullish military dictatorship of General Musarraf and struggling against the growth of extremist Islam.

Born from a vision of political idealism, caught up in turmoil from its first day of independence, this is the tale of one nation's journey from the margins of history to the center of the world stage. Forced into the spotlight by the international fight against terror, Pakistan has become a global player and an acknowledged nuclear power; today, struggling to balance Western influences with internal demands, it stands poised at the very crosscurrent of history.

Lawrence Ziring, political scientist and long-time observer of the Pakistan scene, combines all the salient facts with astute analysis to track Pakistan's history from the pre-Partition era, through Independence in 1947, to its changing role in the post-9/11 world. Guiding us through three wars, and numerous periods of political instability and martial law, he offers a penetrating analysis of the conflicts between tradition and modernity, religion and secularity, which continue both to burden this Muslim country and to shape its destiny.




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(26) J. N. Dixit, India-Pakistan in War and Peace
Routledge | Pages: 501 | 2002 | ISBN: 0415304725 | PDF | 2.45 Mb

As the Kashmir dispute brings India and Pakistan ominously close to nuclear war this book provides a compelling account of the history and politics of these two great South Asian rivals. Like the Israel-Palestine struggle, the Indian-Pakistan rivalry is a legacy of history. The two countries went to war within months of becoming independent and, over the following half-century, they have fought three other wars and clashed at the United Nations and every other global forum. It is a complex conflict, over religion and territory with two diametrically opposed views of nationhood and national imagination. J.N. Dixit, former foreign secretary of India, and one of the world's leading authorities on the region, has written a balanced and very readable account of the most tempestuous and potentially dangerous flashpoint in international politics.



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(27) Pakistan - Eye of the Storm
Publisher: Yale University Press | ISBN: 0300101473 | edition 2003 | PDF | 365 pages | 1,89 mb

Pakistan-with its political instability, vociferous Islamic community, pressing economic and social problems, access to nuclear weapons, and proximity to Afghanistan-stands at the very center of global attention. Can General Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, control the forces that helped create the Taliban in Afghanistan? In this fascinating book, journalist Owen Bennett Jones looks at Pakistan's turbulent past, recounts its recent history, and assesses its future options. A new introduction brings the account fully up to date.



(28)
Zahid Hussain, “Frontline Pakistan”
I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd | 2007 | ISBN: 1845112660 | 272 pages | PDF | 1,1 MB

As Pakistan teeters on the brink of the abyss, Zahid Hussain draws on his unparallelled access and sources amongst the intelligence services, the jiahdi networks, and those surrounding President Musharraf to find out what's going on behind the scenes in this turbulent country, on whose fate the security of the whole world hangs. Does the country's fearsome intelligence agency, the ISI know where Bin Laden is? Are they helping the Taliban? Why didn't Musharraf stamp out radicalism as he promised? Did he mean it, when he pledged his support to America? Does he have the strength to hang on to power? What is his real relationship with Benazir Bhutto? Hussain takes us on a journey from the mountain passes of Waziristan to the officers mess tables in Rawalpindi to the sectarian madrassas of the Punjab to paint an unforgettable portrait of a country in crisis.




(29) John J. Mearsheimer & Stephen M. Walt, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | ISBN: 0374177724 | 2007 | 496 pages | PDF | 13.1 MB

The Israel Lobby,” by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, was one of the most controversial articles in recent memory. Originally published in the London Review of Books in March 2006, it provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy.

Now in a work of major importance, Mearsheimer and Walt deepen and expand their argument and confront recent developments in Lebanon and Iran. They describe the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Mearsheimer and Walt provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America’s posture throughout the Middle East—in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America’s national interest nor Israel’s long-term interest. The lobby’s influence also affects America’s relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.

Writing in The New York Review of Books, Michael Massing declared, “Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington’s ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force.” The publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is certain to widen the debate and to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Expanding on their notorious 2006 article in the London Review of Books, the authors increase the megatonnage of their explosive claims about the malign influence of the pro-Israel lobby on the U.S. government. Mearsheimer and Walt, political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard, respectively, survey a wide coalition of pro-Israel groups and individuals, including American Jewish organizations and political donors, Christian fundamentalists, neo-con officials in the executive branch, media pundits who smear critics of Israel as anti-Semites and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, which they characterize as having an almost unchallenged hold on Congress.

This lobby, they contend, has pressured the U.S. government into Middle East policies that are strategically and morally unjustifiable: lavish financial subsidies for Israel despite its occupation of Palestinian territories; needless American confrontations with Israel's foes Syria and Iran; uncritical support of Israel's 2006 bombing of Lebanon, which violated the laws of war; and the Iraq war, which almost certainly would not have occurred had [the Israel lobby] been absent. The authors disavow conspiracy mongering, noting that the lobby's activities constitute legitimate, if misguided, interest-group politics, as American as apple pie. Considering the authors' academic credentials and the careful reasoning and meticulous documentation with which they support their claims, the book is bound to rekindle the controversy.

Contents


Part I: The United States, Israel, and the Lobby
1 The Great Benefactor
2 Israel: Strategic Asset or Liability?
3 A Dwindling Moral Case
4 What Is the "Israel Lobby"?
5 Guiding the Policy Process
6 Dominating Public Discourse

Part II: The Lobby in Action
Introduction to Part II
7 The Lobby Versus the Palestinians
8 Iraq and Dreams of Transforming the Middle East
9 Taking Aim at Syria
10 Iran in the Crosshairs
11 The Lobby and the Second Lebanon War
Conclusion: What Is to Be Done?




(30) Mario Liverani, "Israel's History and the History of Israel" (BibleWorld)
Equinox Publishing Ltd (2007) | English | ISBN: 1845533410 | 450 pages | PDF | 11.6 MB

One of Italy's foremost experts on antiquity addresses a new issue surrounding the birth of Israel and its historic reality. Many a tale has been told of ancient Israel, but all tales are alike in their quotation of the biblical story in its narrative scheme, despite its historic unreliability. This book completely rewrites the history of Israel through the evaluation of textual and literary critiques as well as archaeological and epigraphic findings. Conceived along the lines of modern historical methodology, it traces the textual material to the times of its creation, reconstructs the temporal evolution of political and religious ideologies, and firmly inserts the history of Israel into its ancient-oriental context.

[deepakrai]

dear the books are highly valuable discription of their heading shows