Should the United States ask its military to guarantee the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf? If the US security commitment is in fact strategically sound, what posture should the military adopt to protect Persian Gulf oil?Charles L. Glaser and Rosemary A. Kelanic present a collection of new essays from a multidisciplinary team of political scientists, historians, and economists that provide answers to these questions. Contributors delve into a range of vital economic and security ...

"A concise, comprehensive guide to America's critical policy choices at home and overseas . . . without a partisan agenda, but with a passion for solutions designed to restore our country's strength and enable us to lead." -- Madeleine K. AlbrightA rising China, climate change, terrorism, a nuclear Iran, a turbulent Middle East, and a reckless North Korea all present serious challenges to America's national security. But it depends even more on the United States ad...

Of all the countries in the world that are vital to the strategic and economic interests of the United States, Saudi Arabia is the least understood by the American people. Saudi Arabias unique place in Islam makes it indispensable to a constructive relationship between the non-Muslim West and the Muslim world. For all its wealth, the country faces daunting challenges that it lacks the tools to meet: a restless and young population, a new generation of educated women demanding opportunities in...

With the end of the Cold War came not the end of history, but the end of America's sense of its strategic purpose in the world. Then, after a decade of drift, the US was violently dragged back into international conflict. Its armed forces responded magnificently but its leaders' objectives were substantially flawed. We fought the wrong war -- twice -- for reasons that were opaque, and few American citizens understood the cause for which their sons and daughters were fighting and dying....

Many have questioned the wisdom of the international intervention in Afghanistan in light of the escalation of violence and instability in the country in the past few years. Particularly uncertain are Canadians, who have been inundated with media coverage of an increasingly dirty war in southern Afghanistan, one in which Canadians are at the frontline and suffering heavy casualties. However, the conflict is only one aspect of Afghanistan’s complicated, and incomplete, political, economic, ...

In Spoils of Truce, Reinoud Leenders documents the extensive corruption that accompanied the reconstruction of Lebanon after the end of a decade and a half of civil war. With the signing of the Ta'if peace accord in 1989, the rebuilding of the country's shattered physical infrastructure and the establishment of a functioning state apparatus became critical demands. Despite the urgent needs of its citizens, however, graft was rampant. Leenders describes the extent and natur...

Is the United States still a ""superpower""? How are the rising powers establishing themselves in international politics and security? What is the future of global stability?For over a decade, Bruce Jones has had a front-row seat as the emerging powers-principally China, India, and Brazil, but also Turkey, Indonesia, Korea, and others-thrust themselves onto the global stage. From Delhi to Doha to Beijing to Brasilia, he's met with the politicians, diplomats, business leaders, and sc...

Nemir Kirdar has lived Iraq's history. From the country of his youth - a stable and vibrant land of great promise, to the 1958 coup that plunged Iraq into a period of terror and destruction, foreign occupation, and the fall of Saddam Hussein, he's been uniquely placed to comment on events and propose solutions.Now Kirdar shares his vision for tomorrow's Iraq, providing a blueprint for political, economic and social renewal. Calling for Iraqis to rise up and unlock their nation's po...

In this 2010 edition of their book on the economic development of the Middle East and North Africa, Clement Henry and Robert Springborg reflect on what has happened to the region's economy since 2001. How have the various countries in the Middle East responded to the challenges of globalization and to the rise of political Islam, and what changes, for better or for worse, have occurred? Utilizing the country categories they applied in the previous book and further elaborating the significa...

The United States maintains important interests in Afghanistan, even as most U.S. and allied troops are withdrawn in 2014. Seth G. Jones and Keith Crane assess the political, security, and economic challenges facing U.S. policymakers in Afghanistan and evaluate a range of policy options.

As the top-ranking official at the U.S. Department of Defense in charge of economic rebuilding, Brinkley and his organization of hundreds of business volunteers struggled against bureaucratic policies to revolutionize foreign aid by leveraging America's strength—its private sector. In doing so, his team demonstrated success in the midst of failure, and created hundreds of thousands of jobs in areas long written off by the civilian bureaucracy as hopeless.Reporting directly to Secre...

This book analyzes the recent development of Gulf capitalism through to the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. Situating the Gulf within the evolution of capitalism at a global scale, it presents a novel theoretical interpretation of this important region of the Middle East political economy.