Oil is the world's single most important commodity and its political effects are pervasive. Jeff Colgan extends the idea of the resource curse into the realm of international relations, exploring how countries form their foreign policy preferences and intentions. Why are some but not all oil-exporting 'petrostates' aggressive? To answer this question, a theory of aggressive foreign policy preferences is developed and then tested, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Petro-Aggression shows that oil creates incentives that increase a petrostate's aggression, but also incentives for the opposite. The net effect depends critically on its domestic politics, especially the preferences of its leader. Revolutionary leaders are especially significant. Using case studies including Iraq, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, this book offers new insight into why oil politics has a central role in global peace and conflict.

Книга одной из самых известных современных французских философов Юлии Кристевой "Силы ужаса: эссе об отвращении" (1982) посвящается темам материальной семиотики, материального и любви, занимающим ключевое место в ее творчестве и оказавшим исключительное влияние на развитие феминистской теории и философии. В книге на материале творчества Ф. Селина анализируется, каким образом искоренение низменного, грязного, отвратительного выступает необходимым условием формирования человеческой субъективности и социальности, и насколько, в то же время, оказывается невозможным их окончательное устранение. Книга предназначена для специалистов - философов, филологов, культурологов, так и для широкой читательской аудитории.

Mercenaries have always had a poor press. Theirs is one of the world's oldest professions, but the very word has profoundly negative connotations of infidelity and ruthlessness. But if they were like this, were they so different from soldiers?

Ottoman Warfare is an impressive and original examination of the Ottoman military machine, detailing its success in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Focusing primarily on the evolution of the Ottoman military organization and its subsequent impact on Ottoman society in a period of change, the book redresses the historiographical imbalance in the existing literature, analyzing why the Ottomans were the focus of such intense military concern.Several books have been written on the fiscal, technological, tactical, and political dimensions of Ottoman military history; little has been attempted, however, to recreate or evoke the physical and psychological realities of war as experienced by Ottoman soldiers. Rhoads Murphey seeks to rectify this imbalance, favoring operational matters and providing a detailed study of a number of campaigns: we are offered, for example, vivid descriptions of life in the trenches with the diggers at Baghdad in 1638, who dug a total of five miles at 50 yards a day. Murphey's analysis does not focus on the Ottoman's success or failure in particular campaigns per se; he focuses on understanding the actual process of how the Ottoman military machine worked.This long-awaited work will become the definitive study of Ottoman warfare in the early modern period, and will be invaluable to those studying the Ottoman Empire and early modern European history in general.

Napalm, incendiary gel that sticks to skin and burns to the bone, came into the world on Valentine s Day 1942 at a secret Harvard war research laboratory. On March 9, 1945, it created an inferno that killed over 87,500 people in Tokyo more than died in the atomic explosions at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It went on to incinerate sixty-four of Japan s largest cities. The Bomb got the press, but napalm did the work. After World War II, the incendiary held the line against communism in Greece and Korea Napalm Day led the 1950 counter-attack from Inchon and fought elsewhere under many flags. Americans generally applauded, until the Vietnam War. Today, napalm lives on as a pariah: a symbol of American cruelty and the misguided use of power, according to anti-war protesters in the 1960s and popular culture from "Apocalypse Now" to the punk band Napalm Death and British street artist Banksy. Its use by Serbia in 1994 and by the United States in Iraq in 2003 drew condemnation. United Nations delegates judged deployment against concentrations of civilians a war crime in 1980. After thirty-one years, America joined the global consensus, in 2011. Robert Neer has written the first history of napalm, from its inaugural test on the Harvard College soccer field, to a Marine Corps plan to attack Japan with millions of bats armed with tiny napalm time bombs, to the reflections of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, a girl who knew firsthand about its power and its morality

Voices from the Korean War presents a collection of first-person accounts of those who served in the Korean War. The Korean War is often dubbed the "Forgotten War," although more than 36,000 soldiers died in this three-year conflict. In Voices from the Korean War, author Douglas Rice makes certain the men who served are not forgotten as he shares first-person accounts from seventy-nine soldiers who fought in the war from June of 1950 through July of 1953. Voices from the Korean War follows the soldiers as they trek and fly over the mountainous terrain of the Korean peninsula. Through these eyewitness accounts, hear a soldier describe what happened to a small group of North Korean villagers who refused to divulge their location. Listen in as a wounded soldier tells a flight nurse the story of how he was rescued by American soldiers as he lay wounded in a North Korean home. Learn how some prisoners of war walked their imaginary dogs to irritate their captors. This compilation of different soldiers' perspectives conveys what it must have been like to be directly involved in the conflict. It serves as a reminder of the challenges and the sacrifices the soldiers made in the name of war.

Since the end of the Cold War, conventional militaries and their political leaders have confronted a new, brutal type of warfare in which non-state armed groups use asymmetrical tactics to successfully fight larger, technologically superior forces. In order to prevent future bloodshed and political chaos, it is crucial to understand how these unconventional armed groups think and to adapt to their methods of combat. Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew investigate the history and politics of modern asymmetrical warfare. By focusing on four specific hotbeds of instability—Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq—Shultz and Dew conduct a careful analysis of tribal culture and the value of clan associations. They examine why these "traditional" or "tribal" warriors fight, how they recruit, where they find sanctuary, and what is behind their strategy. Traveling across two centuries and several continents, Shultz and Dew examine the doctrinal, tactical, and strategic advantages and consider the historical, cultural, and anthropological factors behind the motivation and success of the warriors of contemporary combat. In their provocative argument, Shultz and Dew propose that war in the post-Cold War era cannot be waged through traditional Western methods of combat, especially when friendly states and outside organizations like al-Qaeda serve as powerful allies to the enemy. Thoroughly researched and highly readable, Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias examines how non-state armies fight, identifies the patterns and trends of their combat, and recommends how conventional militaries can defeat these irregular yet highly effective organizations.

Threats of force are a common feature of international politics, advocated by some as an economical guarantee against the outbreak of war and condemned by others as a recipe for war. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter forbids states to use threats of force, yet the meaning of the prohibition is unclear. This book provides the first comprehensive appraisal of the no-threat principle: its origin, underlying rationale, theoretical implications, relevant jurisprudence, and how it has withstood the test of time from 1945 to the present. Based on a systematic evaluation of state and United Nations practices, the book identifies what constitutes a threat of force and when its use is justified under the United Nations Charter. In so doing, it relates the no-threat principle to important concepts of the twentieth century, such as deterrence, escalation, crisis management, and what has been aptly described as the 'diplomacy of violence'.