The end of the Cold War paved the way to a substantial demilitarization and conversion, but has left many open issues. Former military installations, military training areas, and huge quantities of unserviceable ammunition and equipment pose a severe threat to the environment of both NATO and Partner countries. This volume includes the perspectives and conversion strategies of both Western and Eastern states.
Jon Barnett takes on the military-industrial interests of those in the establishment to reveal how ordinary human beings must have a safe environment in which security is subordinate to care of the planet and its delicate ecosystems.
Security has tended to be seen as based on military force, yet this illusion is crumbling, literally and figuratively, before our eyes in the conflict zones of Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa. It is now clear that real human security, defined by the Commission on Human Security as 'protecting vital freedoms', can only be achieved if the full range of issues that underpin human security - including environmental integrity - are addressed. This ground-breaking book, authored by prominent international decision makers, tackles the global human security problem across the range of core issues including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, access to water, food security, loss of biodiversity and climate change. The authors identify the causes of insecurity, articulate the linkages between the different elements of human security and outline an agenda for engaging stakeholders from across the globe in building the foundations of genuine and lasting human security for all nations and all people. This is powerful, necessary, solution-focused reading in these times of peril, global conflict, mass inequity and rampant environmental degradation.
The concept of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) has undergone dramatic changes over the last several decades since C. Ray Jeffery coined the term in the early 1970s, and Tim Crowe wrote the first CPTED applications book. The second edition of 21st Century Security and CPTED includes the latest theory, knowledge, and practice of
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.
Since the end of the Cold War, environmental matters -- especially the international implications of environmental degradation -- have figured prominently in debates about rethinking security. But do the assumptions underlying such discussions hold up under close scrutiny? In this first treatment of environmental security from a truly critical perspective, Simon Dalby shows how attempts to explain contemporary insecurity falter over unexamined notions of both environment and security. Adding environmental history, aboriginal perspectives, and geopolitics to the analysis explicitly suggests that the growing disruptions caused by a carbon-fueled and expanding modernity are at the root of contemporary difficulties. Environmental Security argues that rethinking security means revisiting the question of how we conceive identities as endangered and how we perceive threats to these identities. The book clearly demonstrates that the conceptual basis for critical security studies requires an extended engagement with political theory and with the assumptions of the modern subject as progressive political agent. Viewed thus on a global scale, the environmental security discourse raises profoundly troubling political questions as to who we are and what kind of world we are collectively making in our efforts to be secure.
Experts discuss the risks global environmental change poses for the human security, including disaster and disease, violence, and increasing inequity. In recent years, scholars in international relations and other fields have begun to conceive of security more broadly, moving away from a state-centered concept of national security toward the idea of human security, which emphasizes the individual and human well-being. Viewing global environmental change through the lens of human security connects such problems as melting ice caps and carbon emissions to poverty, vulnerability, equity, and conflict. This book examines the complex social, health, and economic consequences of environmental change across the globe. In chapters that are both academically rigorous and policy relevant, the book discusses the connections of global environmental change to urban poverty, natural disasters (with a case study of Hurricane Katrina), violent conflict (with a study of the decade-long Nepalese civil war), population, gender, and development. The book makes clear the inadequacy of traditional understandings of security and shows how global environmental change is raising new, unavoidable questions of human insecurity, conflict, cooperation, and sustainable development. Contributors W. Neil Adger, Jennifer Bailey, Jon Barnett, Victoria Basolo, Hans Georg Bohle, Mike Brklacich, May Chazan, Chris Cocklin, Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Indra de Soysa, Heather Goldsworthy, Betsy Hartmann, Robin M. Leichenko, Laura Little, Alexander López, Richard A. Matthew, Bryan McDonald, Eric Neumayer, Kwasi Nsiah-Gyabaah, Karen L. O'Brien, Marvin S. Soroos, Bishnu Raj Upreti
Climate change can reasonably be expected to increase the frequency and intensity of a variety of potentially disruptive environmental events-slowly at first, but then more quickly. It is prudent to expect to be surprised by the way in which these events may cascade, or have far-reaching effects. During the coming decade, certain climate-related events will produce consequences that exceed the capacity of the affected societies or global systems to manage; these may have global security implications. Although focused on events outside the United States, Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis recommends a range of research and policy actions to create a whole-of-government approach to increasing understanding of complex and contingent connections between climate and security, and to inform choices about adapting to and reducing vulnerability to climate change.
This volume brings together established and emerging scholars from academia and think tanks to reflect on important, conceptual, strategic and developmental issues in India’s national security. It provides a comprehensive understanding of national security through a more open approach, covering both traditional and non-traditional concerns that have a bearing on the survival and well-being of humanity. It discusses key themes such as perceptions about China, civil-military relations, gender and military, nuclear safety, arms trade and cybersecurity, human security, food and water security, soft power and the media's role in covering security issues. As a festschrift for Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar, it highlights and adds to his scholarly contributions to the national security debate in the country for the past three decades. A unique contribution, this volume will be indispensable for students and researchers of politics and international relations, national security, human security, geopolitics, non-traditional security, military and strategic studies, and South Asian studies.
Central Europe may be perceived as a homogeneous subunit: a geographic locale that shares similar cultural traits, common histories, and a linked troubled past, and one that has embarked on a joint process of European integration in the past three decades. A closer look reveals that there are significant differences hidden in the cracks and the states of Central Europe exhibit large variety in two key elements that makes regional cooperation uniquely challenging: their strategic cultures and their relations toward Russia. Two major factors determine a state’s foreign policy and international ambition – its perception of the security environment and the capabilities it possesses. Policy experts provide an overview of how these two factors, and by extension state-level foreign policies, have varied in the post-Cold War era, up until 2019. The contributing authors in this volume take a deep dive into nine Central and Eastern European states’ policies: Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. The assessments provided in this book attempt to deconstruct the monolithic regional-level approach through the methodical study of the states of the region. This approach will be particularly useful for scholars and interested individuals who want to understand why and how individual Central European states participate in NATO and EU security and defence initiatives and policies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Defense & Security Analysis.
