The question is, how should small states behave under pressure? The analysis is of three cases: Czechoslavakia in 1938, Poland from 1939 to 1945, and Finland in 1940 and 41. The author is scrupulous in not drawing too many general lessons from these cases, but the imprudence of overreliance on great power protection and of ceding to justifications for surrender based on self-determination are made clear.
This book is designed to present a fully developed theory of international crisis and conflict, along with substantial evidence of these two closely related phenomena. The book begins with a discussion of these topics at a theoretical level, defining and elaborating on core concepts: international crisis, interstate conflict, severity, and impact. This is followed by a discussion of the international system, along with two significant illustrations, the Berlin Blockade crisis (1948) and the India-Pakistan crisis over Kashmir (1965-66). The book then presents a unified model of crisis, focusing on the four phases of an international crisis, which incorporate the four periods of foreign policy crises for individual states. Findings from thirteen conflicts representing six regional clusters are then analyzed, concluding with a set of hypotheses and evidence on conflict onset, persistence, and resolution.
Offering a unique account of identity formation in Ireland and Central Europe, this book explores and contextualises transfers and comparisons between Ireland and the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It reveals how Irish perceptions of borders and identities changed after the (re)birth of the small states of Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the creation of the Irish Free State. Adopting a transnational approach, the book documents the outward-looking attitude of Irish nationalists and provides original insights into the significance of personal encounters that transcended the borders of nation-states. Drawing on a wide range of official records, private papers, contemporary press accounts and journal articles, Imagining Ireland Abroad, 1904-1945 bridges the gap between historiographies of the East and West by opening up a new perspective on Irish national identity.
Today, cyber security, cyber defense, information warfare and cyber warfare issues are among the most relevant topics both at the national and international level. All the major states of the world are facing cyber threats and trying to understand how cyberspace could be used to increase power. Through an empirical, conceptual and theoretical approach, Cyber Conflict has been written by researchers and experts in the fields of cyber security, cyber defense and information warfare. It aims to analyze the processes of information warfare and cyber warfare through historical, operational and strategic perspectives of cyber attack. It is original in its delivery because of its multidisciplinary approach within an international framework, with studies dedicated to different states – Canada, Cuba, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Slovenia and South Africa – describing the state’s application of information warfare principles both in terms of global development and “local” usage and examples. Contents 1. Canada’s Cyber Security Policy: a Tortuous Path Toward a Cyber Security Strategy, Hugo Loiseau and Lina Lemay. 2. Cuba: Towards an Active Cyber-defense, Daniel Ventre. 3. French Perspectives on Cyber-conflict, Daniel Ventre. 4. Digital Sparta: Information Operations and Cyber-warfare in Greece, Joseph Fitsanakis. 5. Moving Toward an Italian Cyber Defense and Security Strategy, Stefania Ducci. 6. Cyberspace in Japan’s New Defense Strategy, Daniel Ventre. 7. Singapore’s Encounter with Information Warfare: Filtering Electronic Globalization and Military Enhancements, Alan Chong. 8. A Slovenian Perspective on Cyber Warfare, Gorazd Praprotnik, Iztok Podbregar, Igor Bernik and Bojan Ticar. 9. A South African Perspective on Information Warfare and Cyber Warfare, Brett van Niekerk and Manoj Maharaj. 10. Conclusion, Daniel Ventre
External interventions to mitigate crises or end conflicts have rarely succeeded. The EU and its member states, in particular, have repeatedly run up against their limits in the civil wars in Afghanistan, the Congo, Libya, Syria, the Sahel region and Yemen. However, the EU – if not the entire international community – have learned one lesson from their faltering peacebuilding efforts: If they are to have any chance of making a meaningful and lasting difference, they must develop and use comprehensive strategies that combine and coordinate the various tools available to diplomacy, development cooperation and security. The 29 reports presented in this book – one for each EU member state as well as one on the EU as a whole – examine how steep the learning curve has been and, accordingly, how successful these bodies have been at forming new linkages among the various actors involved in external crisis and conflict management as well as within and between their institutions and organisations. While the EU clearly still has a long way to go before it can live up to its rhetoric and become a distinct and effective actor on the foreign policy stage, small and incremental steps in reorganising institutional practise may help in narrowing the gap between words and deeds. This volume provides examples of how the EU and its member states have found new organisational structures and procedures – specifically at the headquarters level – to better organise the necessary combination and coordination of the many tools available for crisis and conflict management. These ways are then juxtaposed in a 'big picture' chapter, which also identifies best practices for successful WGA implementation.
When a devastated Belgium emerged from World War I, some of its leaders had high hopes that the upcoming negotiations would enable achievement of a long-cherished goal; annexing parts of the Netherlands lost in the final 1839 settlement which had established the country. Belgium’s strong historical and military arguments were bolstered by its courageous Great War image. Yet the Dutch proved ready and able to launch an energetic counterattack which ultimately stymied the Belgian campaign. This book explains why and how this happened, and demonstrates that small states are active participants in their own destinies, not just spectators or victims.
Genocide is not only a problem of mass death, but also of how, as a relatively new idea and law, it organizes and distorts thinking about civilian destruction. Taking the normative perspective of civilian immunity from military attack, A. Dirk Moses argues that the implicit hierarchy of international criminal law, atop which sits genocide as the 'crime of crimes', blinds us to other types of humanly caused civilian death, like bombing cities, and the 'collateral damage' of missile and drone strikes. Talk of genocide, then, can function ideologically to detract from systematic violence against civilians perpetrated by governments of all types. The Problems of Genocide contends that this violence is the consequence of 'permanent security' imperatives: the striving of states, and armed groups seeking to found states, to make themselves invulnerable to threats.
