"With new leaders in place in Germany, France, and Britain and with elections in Russia, Spain, Italy, and the United States in 2008, the stage is set for change and a new transatlantic beginning in 2009. The contributors to this volume offer an agenda for action - not to reinvent either NATO or the European Union but, rather, to recast these two main institutional dimensions of the transatlantic partnership in ways that can make each better suited to the other and make both more effectively prepared to help their 32 members address the issues - security, economic, political, and societal - they face in common."--BOOK JACKET.
Community development expert Ilana Preuss explains how local leaders can revitalize their downtowns or neighborhood main streets by bringing in and supporting small-scale manufacturing. Small-scale manufacturing businesses help create thriving places, with local business ownership opportunities and well-paying jobs that other business types can't fulfill.
The end of the unipolar moment completes the passing of a Western era that was prolonged for half a century when the United States took over for a defeated and exhausted group of European states after World War II. Distinguished scholar Simon Serfaty vigorously argues that while it is possible, and even desirable, to acknowledge the passing of the Western era, it is exaggerated to present it as an irreversible decline of the West relative to an irresistible rise of the Rest. Rather, he shows that the unfolding post-Western moment will be messy. In addition to the United States and the states of Europe as a Union, the new cast of significant powers will involve a dozen or more countries: emerging powers like China and India, postimperial powers such as Japan and Russia, new influentials like Brazil and Turkey, pivot states like Egypt and Pakistan, nuisance states like Iran, failed or failing states like North Korea and Sudan, and others. Echoes of a Sarajevo moment played out this time in the greater Middle East, the new global Balkans for the twenty-first century. But Serfaty convincingly contends that even during a zero-polar moment of geopolitical transition, American power remains superior, and thus indispensable though no longer decisive; Western power stands on top and thus is inescapable though no longer exclusive; and even as the Rest gains broadly in stature and reach it is unlikely to achieve preponderance any time soon. This powerful and provocative book should be read by all who share a deep concern for the future of America—and a recast world.
Practical Guide to Partnerships and LLCs (3rd Edition), by Robert Ricketts and Larry Tunnell, discusses the complex issues involving partnership taxation with utmost clarity. It uses hundreds of illustrative examples, practice observations, helpful charts and insightful explanations to make even the most difficult concepts understandable. The book reflects the authors' penchant for communicating the pertinent facts in very direct language and creating a context for understanding the multifaceted issues and applying them to practice.
"Xiaoyuan Liu has provided a most compelling study of frontier in the shaping of modern China's territorial identity. Ethnopolitics, usually confined to the domestic sphere, must now be 'recast' and brought to the forefront of any attempt to understand China's international relations, and vice versa."-Uradyn E. Bulag, University of Cambridge, UK "In this collection of well-argued essays, Professor Xiaoyuan Liu offers an extremely valuable perspective on the evolution of China's 'geo-body' in the nineteenth and twentieth centuriesùthat is, its evolution from an empire to a 'modern' nation state. This complex process involved a constant effort to reconcile the unifying impulses of the central government with the vibrant ethnic particularism that existed within China's constantly shifting borders."-Richard J. Smith, George and Nancy Rupp Professor of Humanities and Professor of History, Rice University, USA "In this illuminating set of essays, Liu Xiaoyuan, the master of China's frontier history and ethnopolitics, ranges widely across the boundaries of space and time to examine how modern China came into being. By emphasizing the seemingly paradoxical centrality of the periphery in the consolidation and legitimation of Chinese political authority, Liu explains Beijing's concern about trouble on its Inner Asian frontiers and expands our understanding of China's modern history."-Steven I. Levine, Senior Research Associate, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center, University of Montana, USA In applying the two interpretative themes of "frontier" and "ethnicity", Recast All Under Heaven examines the externalization from and internalization to China by a number of the tributary affiliates and outlying territories of the by-gone Qing Empire. This unique book blends analyses of "domestic" and "international" developments involved in China's modern reincarnation and provides an integral narrative that links historical themes pertinent to the eastern and western halves of China. This is the first study contending that "frontier China" has remained a fitting characterization of the rising Asian giant.
The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has come a long way since its inception as the European Security and Defence Identity under NATO. Yet more than a decade after emerging as an autonomous entity, with its own capacity for civilian crisis management and military action, the European Union's CSDP is still very much a work in progress. This fully revised and updated new edition provides the most comprehensive account available of the CSDP and the debates surrounding it. Written by a leading authority in the field, the second edition draws on the author's own extensive research in the area, including hundreds of interviews with key actors, and takes account of developments since the reforms of the Lisbon Treaty. A brand new chapter assesses international relations theory and European integration theory as tools to understand the CSDP, and critically engages with theoretical approaches that view security and defence policy as the exclusive domain of sovereign nation-states. The book concludes with an analysis of future hurdles for the European Union as it responds to new and often unpredictable crises across the globe.
NATO officials plan to unveil the new NATO Strategic Concept during the Alliance's summit in Portugal at the end of this year. This monograph focuses on the impact the Strategic Concept will have on the Alliance. It analyzes recent trends within NATO and their implications, and describes four possible future scenarios which would impact on NATO. The Alliance membership has grown to 28 countries and it faces problems with changing demographics, an awkward relationship with Russia, a war in Afghanistan and threats of global jihad. Muslim immigration into Europe and population aging will have a great impact on European views of the Alliance. NATO must decide how closely it wants to work and coordinate with Russia in future endeavors. The most important issue at hand is how NATO is going to fare coming out of the war in Afghanistan. It is imperative that the New Strategic Concept address NATO goals in Afghanistan and the ways and means of accomplishing those goals. Defined goals will give member nations objectives while formulating national defense plans. Getting the Strategic Concept right is the first step in maintaining the health of the Alliance.--Summary from book.
