Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation

Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation Review

With the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and a pending NATO membership bid, an old conflict between Greece and Macedonia has taken on added significance for the international community. Greece has vehemently argued, particularly in the West, that the name Macedonia was in fact Greek and that its use by this new nation in the Balkans portended Macedonia's expansionist ambitions. The Macedonians bitterly disputed this, noting that Alexander the Great was a Macedonian, and adducing many other fascinating and rational arguments. Tensions were said to have been reduced by an interim agreement between the two countries, but the attempted assassination of Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov in October 1995 has again heightened hostility in the area. The genesis of the conflict is detailed here, as well as the modern day events that have led many observers to believe that the area is a flashpoint for a major war, greater than that in Bosnia.

Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home

Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home Review

Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home Feature

• ISBN13: 9780415954402
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

The tools of American statecraft—defense, diplomacy, foreign and security assistance, homeland security and intelligence—are rarely examined together. Adams and Williams fill this gap by examining how these tools work, how they are planned for, and how they are budgeted. Seeing policy through the lens of the budget can help decision makers and ordinary citizens discern the genuine priorities of national leaders from the oftentimes illusory ones portrayed in rhetoric. Simply put, policies and strategies cannot be carried out without a corresponding allocation of resources.

Buying National Security weaves a tapestry around the institutions, organizations, tools, and processes that support planning and resource allocation across the breadth of the American national security enterprise. The authors analyze the planning and resource integration activities across agencies of the Executive branch as well as examine the structure and processes the Congress uses to carry out its national security oversight and budgetary responsibilities. Finally, they review the adequacy of the current structures and process and evaluate proposals for ways both might be reformed to fit the demands of the 21^st century security environment.

Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)

Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) Review

In the thirteenth century the Mongols created a vast transcontinental empire that transported skilled artisans from one cultural zone to another. Among those transported were Muslim textile workers, resettled in China, where they made clothes for the imperial court. In a fascinating account, the author considers the significance of cloth and color in the political and cultural life of the Mongols. Situated within the broader context of the history of the Silk Road, the book will interest not only historians of the Middle East and Asia, but also art historians and textile specialists.

Uncivil Wars: Political Campaigns in a Media Age

Uncivil Wars: Political Campaigns in a Media Age Review

Uncivil Wars: Political Campaigns in a Media Age engages and motivates students by showing how modern political campaigns work and discussing the complex issues surrounding them. Hollihan walks students through the development of campaign strategy, the creation of candidate images, how media cover and shape campaigns, the role of political advertising, and the use of strategic polling. After showing students the structure of campaigns, Uncivil Wars then encourages them to have meaningful participation in today’s political process.

Understanding, Assessing, and Responding to Terrorism: Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Personnel

Understanding, Assessing, and Responding to Terrorism: Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Personnel Review

Preparedness is the best weapon against terrorism

Understanding, Assessing, and Responding to Terrorism: Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Personnel gives a detailed explanation of how to implement preventive and/or protective measures to ensure the safety of personnel and facilities. It includes:

• Easily customized templates for the vulnerability analysis, security procedures, emergency response procedures, and training programs
• Vulnerability assessment methodologies and formulas for prioritizing targets
• Coverage of critical infrastructure sectors, hard targets, and soft targets, such as hotels, places of worship, and commercial districts
• Countermeasures for terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction with coverage of chemical, biological, radiological/nuclear, and explosive materials
• A seven-step Security Vulnerability Analysis (SVA) process to identify and categorize critical infrastructure, key resources, and key assets
• Information on the National Incident Management System (NIMS) that enables all public, private, and non-governmental organizations to work together effectively to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents
• Numerous case studies and examples

A practical, how-to book with step-by-step processes to help reduce risks from terrorist attacks, this is a must-have reference for private and public sector risk managers, safety engineers, security professionals, facility managers, emergency responders, and others charged with protecting facilities and personnel.

The Entrepreneurial Cities in Post-Socialist Countries: How Do Capital Cities Deal with the Global Market Competition? Bucharest vs. Budapest

The Entrepreneurial Cities in Post-Socialist Countries: How Do Capital Cities Deal with the Global Market Competition? Bucharest vs. Budapest Review

In order to create more opportunities, cities must be able to attract more investment, business, residents and visitors. In order to improve the country/city image, governments have lately been engaged in conventional marketing techniques used otherwise by private companies. A well designed program to attract foreign investment contains complementary elements: promotion, incentives, and policies designed to improve the investment climate. Actions like subsidizing investors, promotion of the city, branding, offering financial incentives to existing companies and to investors are only few of the strategies that are considered to be entrepreneurial. What entrepreneurial cities are, if the two analyzed cities can be considered entrepreneurial, what policies they adopted since the fall of the communist regimes and how these policies affected the local development of the respective cities are only few of the issues that will be addressed in this paper.

The Roman Predicament: How the Rules of International Order Create the Politics of Empire

The Roman Predicament: How the Rules of International Order Create the Politics of Empire Review

Modern America owes the Roman Empire for more than gladiator movies and the architecture of the nation's Capitol. It can also thank the ancient republic for some helpful lessons in globalization. So argues economic historian Harold James in this masterful work of intellectual history.

The book addresses what James terms "the Roman dilemma"--the paradoxical notion that while global society depends on a system of rules for building peace and prosperity, this system inevitably leads to domestic clashes, international rivalry, and even wars. As it did in ancient Rome, James argues, a rule-based world order eventually subverts and destroys itself, creating the need for imperial action. The result is a continuous fluctuation between pacification and the breakdown of domestic order.

James summons this argument, first put forth more than two centuries ago in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to put current events into perspective. The world now finds itself staggering between a set of internationally negotiated trading rules and exchange--rate regimes, and the enforcement practiced by a sometimes-imperial America. These two forces--liberal international order and empire--will one day feed on each other to create a shakeup in global relations, James predicts. To reinforce his point, he invokes the familiar bon mot once applied to the British Empire: "When Britain could not rule the waves, it waived the rules."

Despite the pessimistic prognostications of Smith and Gibbon, who saw no way out of this dilemma, James ends his book on a less depressing note. He includes a chapter on one possible way in which the world could resolve the Roman Predicament--by opting for a global system based on values as opposed to rules.