Deadly Transfers and the Global Playground

Deadly Transfers and the Global Playground PDF Author: Robert Mandel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313028117
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
Mandel's comprehensive study provides an integrated, explanatory analysis of the new global security environment, which he terms the global playground, and the consequent blossoming of ominous flows or deadly transfers. It includes an analysis of the behavior of rogue states, terrorist groups, transnational criminal organizations, and deviant individuals. Mandel begins with a discussion of the general nature of the emerging global situation and the transborder activities that occur within it, then turns to an overarching analysis of the intractable causes, pernicious consequences, and futile cures associated with these ominous transnational flows. Such activities include clandestine conventional arms, illegal human migration, illicit drugs, hazardous materials, lethal diseases, and information disruption. Both national and international organizations are fundamentally weak when it comes to dealing with such transfers. In contrast to the prevailing view that more deterrence-oriented coercion is necessary to stop these flows, this study suggests that a bottom-up approach involving changes in mass attitudes is crucial. It does not shy away from pointing directly at potential areas of security dysfunction at all levels of policy making. In taking a largely theoretical rather than case-specific approach to exploring these issues, it hopes to avoid the usual laundry list of shocking anecdotal incidents to develop a broader understanding of the new security dilemmas confronting us all. Finally, in demonstrating the futility of existing remedies and in suggesting an alternative, preliminary set of ideas to cope with these transactions, Mandel attempts to give security policy makers a wider arsenal of options from which to choose.

Deadly Transfers and the Global Playground

Deadly Transfers and the Global Playground PDF Author: Robert Mandel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313028117
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mandel's comprehensive study provides an integrated, explanatory analysis of the new global security environment, which he terms the global playground, and the consequent blossoming of ominous flows or deadly transfers. It includes an analysis of the behavior of rogue states, terrorist groups, transnational criminal organizations, and deviant individuals. Mandel begins with a discussion of the general nature of the emerging global situation and the transborder activities that occur within it, then turns to an overarching analysis of the intractable causes, pernicious consequences, and futile cures associated with these ominous transnational flows. Such activities include clandestine conventional arms, illegal human migration, illicit drugs, hazardous materials, lethal diseases, and information disruption. Both national and international organizations are fundamentally weak when it comes to dealing with such transfers. In contrast to the prevailing view that more deterrence-oriented coercion is necessary to stop these flows, this study suggests that a bottom-up approach involving changes in mass attitudes is crucial. It does not shy away from pointing directly at potential areas of security dysfunction at all levels of policy making. In taking a largely theoretical rather than case-specific approach to exploring these issues, it hopes to avoid the usual laundry list of shocking anecdotal incidents to develop a broader understanding of the new security dilemmas confronting us all. Finally, in demonstrating the futility of existing remedies and in suggesting an alternative, preliminary set of ideas to cope with these transactions, Mandel attempts to give security policy makers a wider arsenal of options from which to choose.

Global Security Upheaval

Global Security Upheaval PDF Author: Robert Mandel
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804786496
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
This book calls into question the commonly held contentions that central governments are the most important or even the sole sources of a nation's stability, and that subnational and transnational nonstate forces are a major source of global instability. By assessing recent real-world trends, Mandel reveals that areas exist where it makes little sense to rely on state governments for stability, and that attempts to bolster such governments to promote stability often prove futile. He demonstrates how armed nonstate groups can sometimes provide local stability better than states, and how power-sharing arrangements between states and armed nonstate groups may sometimes be viable. He concludes that these trends in the international setting call for major shifts in our understanding of what constitutes stable governance—proposing that we adopt a fluid "emergent actor" approach. And he calls for significant deviation from standard policy responses to the opportunities and dangers posed by nontraditional sources of national authority.

Dark Logic

Dark Logic PDF Author: Robert Mandel
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804769931
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This book constitutes the first major study showing (1) when transnational organized crime is likely to use corruption and violence tactics, (2) when transnational criminal activities most affect individual and state security, and (3) when the negative consequences of these tactics and activities can be most successfully combated.

Seeking Security in an Insecure World

Seeking Security in an Insecure World PDF Author: Dan Caldwell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742538139
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Our understanding of security has changed significantly since the end of the Cold War. No longer is war the only security threat that states face. Nor is war what it once was. Today's security agenda includes the threat posed by the spread of infectious disease. It includes global warming and oil shortages. It pits states against ethnic rebellions and transnational criminal organizations and, of course, a global network of terrorist organizations. It contemplates wars in cyber-space and on the ground against elusive individuals and shadowy organizations rather than states. The quest for security, in other words, has become far more urgent than it was during the euphoric days of the post-Cold War period and far more complicated than it was during the Cold War. Seeking Security in an Insecure World is intended to provide a brief but thorough introduction to contemporary security studies. With clear and lively prose, compelling examples, and solid scholarship, it will engage both students and general readers who wish to gain a better understanding of what security means today and how it can best be achieved.

Why Has West Africa Become a Nexus for the International Traffickers?

Why Has West Africa Become a Nexus for the International Traffickers? PDF Author: Yahya H. Affinnih
Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1685260942
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
This book is undoubtedly rich in different diverse sources and literature that are put together into a coherent whole instead of dispersed copious literature on the genesis of West African countries' integration into the world political economy and geopolitics of the drug trade. To the author's best knowledge, there is no similar book that has focused on the recent West Africa drug connection. The book is well-researched and documented. It fills the missing void in the discourse of West Africa drug trade arrangements. This book is one of its kind in the annals of West Africa's drug trade history. This thrust and the thesis of the book is to provide a plausible and sufficient explanation as to why West Africa has become international traffickers' transshipments and transits hubs and cocaine distribution and repackage centers for cocaine en route to Europe. This book is informative for a wide variety of readers such as students, social analysts from different social sciences disciplines, drug policy makers in West African countries, and elsewhere in the world. The book's subject matter is a global-wide problem that concerns all modern human societies worldwide. There are no human societies that are immune to the dynamics of the global drug trade industries that pose threat to human, national, and global security in its wake.

Emerging Transnational (In)security Governance

Emerging Transnational (In)security Governance PDF Author: Ersel Aydinli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135157278
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Bringing together leading international scholars with practicing intelligence, military, and police officers this book provides different theoretical and empirical perspectives on international security cooperation.

Regions and Powers

Regions and Powers PDF Author: Barry Buzan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521891110
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
This book develops the idea that since decolonisation, regional patterns of security have become more prominent in international politics. The authors combine an operational theory of regional security with an empirical application across the whole of the international system. Individual chapters cover Africa, the Balkans, CIS Europe, East Asia, EU Europe, the Middle East, North America, South America, and South Asia. The main focus is on the post-Cold War period, but the history of each regional security complex is traced back to its beginnings. By relating the regional dynamics of security to current debates about the global power structure, the authors unfold a distinctive interpretation of post-Cold War international security, avoiding both the extreme oversimplifications of the unipolar view, and the extreme deterritorialisations of many globalist visions of a new world disorder. Their framework brings out the radical diversity of security dynamics in different parts of the world.

Global Responses to Terrorism

Global Responses to Terrorism PDF Author: Mary Buckley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134380488
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
The terrorist attacks of September 11th and more recent atrocities in Russia, Indonesia and Kenya have demonstrated that terrorism now poses the most dangerous threat to stability, democracy and prosperity around the world. This major new book examines how the world has reacted to, and been affected by, the attacks on September 11th, ensuing war in Afghanistan and President George W. Bush's declaration of a 'war on terror' as the 'first war of the 21st century'. The contributions by distinguished specialists in the field examine the domestic implications of terrorism and counter terrorist initiatives across the world. Few books can boast the quality and range of the contributions to this volume, which locate the war on terror in a truly global and intellectual context.

The Nexus

The Nexus PDF Author: Frank Shanty
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
This timely and important work offers an in-depth analysis of the existence—or nonexistence—of a nexus between international terrorism and drug trafficking emanating from Afghanistan. The Nexus: International Terrorism and Drug Trafficking from Afghanistan addresses an issue that directly impacts the prospects for resolution of the current insurgency in that nation. Written by noted terrorism expert Frank Shanty, the book explores the nature and the extent of involvement between international criminal drug traffickers, particularly of drugs originating from Afghanistan, and international terrorist networks with global reach. Shanty dispels the myths and disinformation surrounding this vital—and controversial—question, even as he arrives at his own answers. In addition to offering a historical overview of the opium problem in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to 2010, the book looks at three distinct phenomena. It examines the existence, characteristics, and behavior of international terrorists operating from Afghanistan, specifically the evolution and ascendancy of al-Qaeda and the Taliban and the nature of their relationship. It looks at Afghanistan's opium trade relative to specific-actor involvement and, finally, it analyzes allegations of a link between terrorists in Afghanistan and international drug criminals and the implications of that connection.

Coercing Compliance

Coercing Compliance PDF Author: Robert Mandel
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804795355
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Few global security issues stimulate more fervent passion than the application of brute force. Despite the fierce debate raging about it in government, society and the Academy, inadequate strategic understanding surrounds the issue, prompting the urgent need for —the first comprehensive systematic global analysis of 21st century state-initiated internal and external applications of brute force. Based on extensive case evidence, Robert Mandel assesses the short-term and long-term, the local and global, the military, political, economic, and social, and the state and human security impacts of brute force. He explicitly isolates the conditions under which brute force works best and worst by highlighting force initiator and force target attributes linked to brute force success and common but low-impact force legitimacy concerns. Mandel comes to two major overarching conclusions. First, that the modern global application of brute force shows a pattern of futility—but one that is more a function of states' misapplication of brute force than of the inherent deficiencies of this instrument itself. Second, that the realm for successful application of state-initiated brute force is shrinking: for while state-initiated brute force can serve as a transitional short-run local military solution, he says, it cannot by itself provide a long-run global strategic solution or serve as a cure for human security problems. Taking the evidence and his conclusions together, Mandel provides policy advice for managing brute force use in the modern world.