Through a Glass Darkly: Looking at Conflict Prevention, Management, and Termination. By Stephen J. Cimbala. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001. 224p. $65.00.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 680-681
Author(s):  
Joseph B. Underhill-Cady

One test of a book is how well it weathers major developments in world events, and, as with the end of the Cold War, the beginning of the new war on terrorism presents recent publications in international or military affairs with the danger of untimely relegation to the trash bin of history. After September 11, as we scramble to adjust and make sense of the “hunt for Osama,” Stephen Cimbala's work, however, remains a useful compendium of lessons from several recent wars, crises, and ongoing military challenges. Although the book is not as suddenly relevant as Samuel Huntington's (1998) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order or Chalmers Johnson's (2001) Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, the wisdom distilled within it is sound enough to apply equally well to the pre- and post-September 11 worlds. It is largely rooted in frameworks developed for studying the Cold War and superpower arms races, but Cimbala's examination of the new realities of military strategy and technology still has much to say about the war being waged in Afghanistan and the campaigns that are likely to follow.

2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Fuller

This piece, completed one month after the events of 11 September, examines the sociological presuppositions of the major intellectual and journalistic frameworks used to understand the unfolding ‘war on terrorism’. The major frameworks include sociobiology, theodicy, political realism and ‘the clash of civilizations’. Mainstream sociological theorizing has been largely absent from the debate, and some of its more fashionable claims (e.g. about our ‘informatized world-order’) may even be cast into doubt. In general the discussion has resembled the old ‘Cold War’ rhetoric that was supposedly laid to rest with the fall of the Soviet Union, with ‘terrorism’ and ‘Islam’ replacing the threats previously posed by ‘totalitarianism’ and ‘Communism’. The sociology we teach our students may influence whether this tendency continues.


2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAN HOLLIDAY

The September 11 terrorist strikes prompted renewed interest in a debate about just cause that has been increasingly open since the demise of the Cold War and the shift to a more multilateral and interventionist world order. This article contributes to that debate by looking first into the just war tradition to argue for a conceptual revision that equates just cause with jus ad bellum (just recourse to war). It then seeks to specify the component parts of just cause understood in this way, holding that demonstrable injustice should take the place formerly occupied by just cause in just war theory. Towards the end it uses three real-world cases to develop a mechanism for validating just cause claims. The argument is that a cause is just only when its proponents can convince an international forum of intractable injustice, responsible intervention, and an appropriate balance of contingent factors. The article closes by considering how the current war on terrorism might be assessed in such a forum.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-79
Author(s):  
V. T. Yungblud

The Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, established by culmination of World War II, was created to maintain the security and cooperation of states in the post-war world. Leaders of the Big Three, who ensured the Victory over the fascist-militarist bloc in 1945, made decisive contribution to its creation. This system cemented the world order during the Cold War years until the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the destruction of the bipolar structure of the organization of international relations. Post-Cold War changes stimulated the search for new structures of the international order. Article purpose is to characterize circumstances of foundations formation of postwar world and to show how the historical decisions made by the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition powers in 1945 are projected onto modern political processes. Study focuses on interrelated questions: what was the post-war world order and how integral it was? How did the political decisions of 1945 affect the origins of the Cold War? Does the American-centrist international order, that prevailed at the end of the 20th century, genetically linked to the Atlantic Charter and the goals of the anti- Hitler coalition in the war, have a future?Many elements of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations in the 1990s survived and proved their viability. The end of the Cold War and globalization created conditions for widespread democracy in the world. The liberal system of international relations, which expanded in the late XX - early XXI century, is currently experiencing a crisis. It will be necessary to strengthen existing international institutions that ensure stability and security, primarily to create barriers to the spread of national egoism, radicalism and international terrorism, for have a chance to continue the liberal principles based world order (not necessarily within a unipolar system). Prerequisite for promoting idea of a liberal system of international relations is the adjustment of liberalism as such, refusal to unilaterally impose its principles on peoples with a different set of values. This will also require that all main participants in modern in-ternational life be able to develop a unilateral agenda for common problems and interstate relations, interact in a dialogue mode, delving into the arguments of opponents and taking into account their vital interests.


In this chapter, Haq outlines his optimistic outlook for global world order. For him the end of the Cold War had opened up many more choices for the global community. For the first time global military spending was seen to be declining every year. He saw potential to reallocate ODA aid funds, which were previously tilted in favour of cold war allies. For Haq the challenge is to link economic growth as the means to human development as an objective. He stresses on the need to reform institutions of global governance to translate globalization into opportunities for people.


1995 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerardo L. Munck ◽  
Chetan Kumar

As the Cold War has receded, it has left behind a world system characterized by two divergent trends. On the one hand, as the two superpowers have withdrawn their security umbrellas, a host of ethnic and territorial conflicts have sprouted around the globe. On the other hand, as former rival blocs now create alliances, international mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of contentious issues have proliferated. A central concern of our times, then, is whether, and under what circumstances, these new mechanisms will be successful in dealing with the disorderly aspects of the new world ‘order’.


Author(s):  
Beate Jahn

Since the end of the Cold War, peacebuilding operations have become an integral part of world politics—despite their continuing failures. This chapter provides an account of peacebuilding operations in practice and identifies cycles of failure and reform, namely the successful integration of peacebuilding into the fabric of the world order despite its continuing failures. It traces these dynamics back to the internal contradictions of liberalism and argues that the main function of peacebuilding operations lies in managing the tensions and contradictions inherent in a liberal world order. Peacebuilding—in one form or another—is therefore likely to persist for the duration of a liberal world order.


Federalism-E ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-76
Author(s):  
Ajnesh Prasad

“The international community is at a crossroads” (Held, 1995a: 96). Since the conclusion of the Cold War and with the elimination of the bipolar world thereafter, many scholars have attempted to theorize, if only to evaluate, the transformations that have taken place within the realm of world politics in the last decade and a half. From Francis Fukuyama’s argument, the “End of History” (1992), to Samuel Huntington’s thesisclaim, the “Clash of Civilizations” (1993), there have been categorizing, and ultimately limiting, understandings of international affairs in the postcommunist period. Consequently, discursive and explicit interstices of antagonistic tension continue to prevail and manifest into graphic demonstrations of hegemonic aggression and parochial actions of daily resistance. The international interstices of antagonistic tension continue to threaten immeasurable tragedy at the most globalized landscape. Remnants of these present tensions go so far as to predicate the aggressive and resistant temperament of events like the aircraft attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. [...]


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