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  The Revenge of Geography - What...

  Robert D. Kaplan

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  In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world's hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands. The Russian steppe's pitiless climate and limited vegetation bred hard and cruel men bent on destruction, for example, while Nazi geopoliticians distorted geopolitics entirely, calculating that space on the globe used by the British Empire and the Soviet Union could be swallowed by a greater German homeland. 
  Kaplan then applies the lessons learned to the present crises in Europe, Russia, China, the Indian subcontinent, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Middle East. The result is a holistic interpretation of the next cycle of conflict throughout Eurasia. Remarkably, the future can be understood in the context of temperature, land allotment, and other physical certainties: China, able to feed only twenty-three percent of its people from land that is only seven percent arable, has sought energy, minerals, and metals from such brutal regimes as Burma, Iran, and Zimbabwe, putting it in moral conflict with the United States. Afghanistan's porous borders will keep it the principal invasion route into India, and a vital rear base for Pakistan, India's main enemy. Iran will exploit the advantage of being the only country that straddles both energy-producing areas of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Finally, Kaplan posits that the United States might rue engaging in far-flung conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan rather than tending to its direct neighbor Mexico, which is on the verge of becoming a semifailed state due to drug cartel carnage. 
  A brilliant rebuttal to thinkers who suggest that globalism will trump geography, this indispensable work shows how timeless truths and natural facts can help prevent this century's looming cataclysms.

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  The Pandemic Pivot - A Report...

  John Feffer

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  Transformative change can come out of the COVID-19 crisis, which has exposed everything that's wrong with decades of the world's governments betting on militarism, competition, and wealth creation. A return to sanity and humane governance is still possible. We need a pandemic pivot.In June and July of 2020, the Institute for Policy Studies invited sixty-eight of the world's leading thinkers and activists to participate in eight in-depth discussions. Their task: to assess the implications of COVID-19 for key global issues as well as the potential for transformative change coming out of this crisis. They discussed a Green recovery, the global economy, coronavirus authoritarianism, migrants and refugees, budget priorities, the global ceasefire, international civil society, and multilateral cooperation. This report by John Feffer from the frontlines of global policy stands in stark contrast to the reality in the world today. Listening to it amounts to a return to sanity and humane governance, and illuminates the way forward that is still possible if we begin soon.

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  India-Pakistan Strategic...

  Christoph Bluth, Uzma Mumtaz

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  India and Pakistan have been in a state of persistent conflict that goes back to the very creation of these states after decolonization. This conflict has resulted in several wars and continuing armed clashes. After both states became nuclear powers, one would have expected a fundamental change in the way they wage war, since it is a fundamental principle of International Relations theory that nuclear-armed states do not go to war with each other. But the situation in South Asia seems to defy this principle.  India’s conventional superiority should be neutralized by Pakistan’s nuclear capability, while Pakistan’s risk-taking behavior should be reduced. But as a matter of fact, the situation has turned out quite differently: Although large-scale conventional wars have not occurred, the nuclear status seems to have encouraged conflict and risk-taking. The number of armed clashes rose. 
  
  Bluth and Mumtaz scrutinize the atypical and seemingly paradoxical impact of nuclearization on the conflict between India and Pakistan, paying extra attention on the question of how stable this paradoxical strategic relationship is. They demonstrate that the dominant paradigm used in the International Relations literature is by far not adequate to explain the strategic relations between India and Pakistan and set to work on developing a more coherent explanation. A must-read for everyone interested in International Relations and conflict resolution research.

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  The Instrumentalisation of Mass...

  Nozima Akhrarkhodjaeva

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  Focusing on the case of Russia during Putin’s first two presidential terms, this book examines media manipulation strategies in electoral authoritarian regimes. Which instruments and approaches do incumbent elites employ to skew media coverage in favour of their preferred candidate in a presidential election? What effects do these strategies have on news content? 
  
  Based on two case studies of the presidential election campaigns in Russia in 2000 and in 2008, this investigation identifies the critical internal mechanisms according to which these regimes work. Looking at the same country, while it transformed from a competitive into a hegemonic authoritarian regime, allows one to make a diachronic comparison of these two regime types based on the Most-Similar Systems Design. The book explicates the subtle differences between competitive and hegemonic regimes, different types of media manipulation strategies, the diverging extent of media instrumentalisation, various interactions among state actors, large business owners, the media, and journalists, the respective effects that all these factors and interactions have on media content, and the peculiar types of bias prevalent in each type of regime. 
  
  This deep exploration of post-Soviet politics is based on extensive review of documents, interviews with media professionals, and quantitative as well as qualitative content analyses of news media during two Russian presidential election campaigns.

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  Reagan at Reykjavik -...

  Ken Adelman

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  A dramatic account of the Cold War’s turning point, the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Iceland, by a key player in that weekend’s world-changing events. 
   
  In October 1986, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met for a forty-eight-hour summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Planned as a short gathering to outline future talks, the meeting quickly turned to major international issues, including the Strategic Defensive Initiative (“Star Wars”) and the possibility of eliminating all nuclear weapons. Both men were at the height of their powers, and they had a rare opportunity to move toward peace. The meeting led to negotiations and concessions that neither side had predicted—and laid the groundwork for the most sweeping arms accord in history, adopted the following year, and the end of the Soviet Union a half decade later. 
   
  From his position as a participant in these historic events, Ken Adelman, Regan’s arms control director, is able to reveal the motivations, relationships, and conversations that led to the summit’s breakthroughs. His analysis as both a participant and historian provides an invaluable perspective on this uniquely significant episode. 
   
  Scrupulously researched and based on now-declassified documents, Reagan at Reykjavik tells the gripping tale of the weekend that changed the world. Adelman provides an honest, laser-etched portrait of President Reagan at one of his finest and most challenging moments—and, indisputably, one of the most significant triumphs of his presidency.

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  The Next Century

  David Halberstam

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  The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist delivers “[a] sobering account of the struggle for world economic supremacy” in this New York Times bestseller (Library Journal).  What can we learn from the events of twentieth century? With the effects of the Cold War still evident in the global economy and the lives of everyday Americans, master journalist and historian David Halberstam sets out to answer this question. Halberstam’s perceptive The Next Century looks to the future by examining the past. From the rise of the Japanese economy to the startling changes that reshaped the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Halberstam argues that the American economy’s survival depends on the rededication and continued education of the American worker. As pertinent in today’s economy as it was when first published in 1991, The Next Century is a timeless call to arms, reminding us that we must continually better ourselves in order to compete on the world stage. This ebook features an extended biography of David Halberstam.

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