Why Spy?

Why Spy?

Author: Brian Stewart

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-03-26

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1787383350

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With practical experience both of field work and of the intelligence bureaucracy at home and abroad, Stewart examines successes and failures via case studies, considers the limitations and usefulness of the intelligence product, and warns against the tendency to abuse or ignore it when its conclusions do not fit with preconceived ideas.


The Terminal Spy

The Terminal Spy

Author: Alan S. Cowell

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2008-08-05

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0767930983

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“A story that is at once a real-life thriller and an immensely sinister cautionary tale about the new Russia.”—Star Tribune In this breathtaking true crime narrative, an award-winning journalist exposes the troubling truth behind the world’s first act of nuclear terrorism. On November 1, 2006, Alexander Litvinenko sipped tea in London’s Millennium Hotel. Hours later, the Russian émigré and former intelligence officer, who was sharply critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin, fell ill and within days was rushed to the hospital. Fatally poisoned by a rare radioactive isotope slipped into his drink, Litvinenko issued a dramatic deathbed statement accusing Putin himself of engineering his murder. Who was Alexander Litvinenko? What had happened in Russia since the end of the Cold War to make his life there untenable? And how did he really die? The life of Alexander Litvinenko culminated in an event that rang alarm bells among Western governments at the ease with which radioactive materials were deployed in a major Western capital to commit a unique crime. It also evoked a wide range of other issues: Russia’s lurch to authoritarianism, the return of the KGB to the Kremlin, the perils of a new Cold War driven by the oil riches of Russia and Vladimir Putin’s thirst for power. Alan S. Cowell, former London Bureau Chief of the New York Times, has written the definitive story of this assassination and the profound international implications of this first act of nuclear terrorism. A masterful work of investigative reporting, The Terminal Spy offers unprecedented insight into one of the most chilling true stories of our time.


The Failure of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab World

The Failure of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab World

Author: Nawaf Obaid

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2020-01-07

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13:

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This book is an indispensable resource for anyone looking to understand the Muslim Brotherhood; Qatar's role in promoting the group; and the ideological, social, and religious factors that have led to its ultimate failure. The book begins by looking at the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in 1928 in Egypt. It then traces its ideology and expansion via the various affiliate organizations in the Arab world as well as its international presence up to the present day. Throughout this historical analysis, evidence is presented linking the MB again and again to political violence and a lack of a coherent policy. The book weaves into this history the influence of Qatari support, a clarification of the division between true Salafism and the MB's radical ideology, an explanation of how Jamal Khashoggi was a living metaphor for this misunderstanding, and the role the MB has played in various revolutionary movements throughout the Middle East. The book concludes with a current geopolitical outlook on the MB itself and the Arab world in which it resides. The book is extensively sourced with first-hand primary source quotes from numerous exclusive personal interviews conducted by the author, with both experts on the subject and officials in the region.


Qatar's Foreign Policy

Qatar's Foreign Policy

Author: Marwan Kabalan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-11-14

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0755655214

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This study offers an analysis of Qatar's foreign policy since its independence from Britain in 1971. Locked between two vying powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and lacking the traditional elements of influence in the regional and international state system such as land, human capital, and advanced industry, Qatar nevertheless wields a disproportionately large amount of regional influence with an assertive foreign policy approach. Here, Marwan Kabalan highlights the strategies pursued by the ruling Qatari elite, especially during the last two decades, and delves into the methods Qatar has used to deal with the structural challenges to its foreign policy. These strategies include financially leveraging its access to crucial resources, such as natural gas, and its manipulation of existing regional frictions. The book also addresses Qatar's soft power influence – positioning itself as an alternative cultural and intellectual hub in the Arab world, enabling it to take a leading role, particularly as a mediator, in the region. By highlighting Qatar's foreign policy strategies and outcomes, Kabalan illustrates how the Qatari case challenges key assumptions of international relations theory which assumes that wealthy small powers tend to pursue passive foreign policies, and that structural forces minimize the role of ruling elites in foreign policymaking.


Global Crisis, Local Voices

Global Crisis, Local Voices

Author: Gabriele Piazza

Publisher: IJOPEC PUBLICATION

Published: 2019-04-01

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1912503700

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In an interconnected and globalized world, the voices of the local communities struggle to make themselves heard on the international stage. But many issues that arise within international relations have consequences for ordinary lives and are therefore closely connected. Climate change, warfare and migration are all examples of this. They are often discussed in abstract terms with relation to international diplomacy, but threaten the actual livelihoods of small communities and ordinary people. This was the setting of the conference ‘Global Crisis, Local Voices’, held in May 2018. This journal is a compilation of the papers presented at that conference, which was the second ‘DEN International Student Conference’. The conference and this publication is one of the many projects that the Democratic Education Network (DEN) is responsible for since its launch in 2016. This book is a collection of diverse works, all written by student authors from a range of different universities. From Democracy and Ideology, to Climate Change and China, it covers numerous concepts, ideas and geographical regions, that are often found in the studies of Politics and International Relations. This book is the result of passion and hard work from all students involved in its production and it is a project that we in DEN are incredibly proud of and hope to continue in the future. “I encourage you to read these publications to catalyse views in you that stimulate great debate that helps you become part of the compassionate, progressive and responsible movement of young people that will help overcome injustices in the world and make the world a better place.” Dr Peter Bonfield OBE FREng Vice-Chancellor and President University of Westminster


An Archival Journey through the Qatar Peninsula

An Archival Journey through the Qatar Peninsula

Author: Sue-Ann Harding

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-09-05

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 3031038452

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This book retrieves from the archives people, places and perspectives normally overlooked to tell an original and expansive history of the Qatar Peninsula, paying close attention to landscape and the natural world. The arc of the book moves geographically through the landscape and chronologically through selected sources, drawing on digitised maps, manuscripts, hydrographic surveys, government records, traveller accounts, early photographs, archaeological and ethnographic reports. While these are standard sources recruited by Qatar to tell its own singular, streamlined history, this book is a subversive reading of those sources. It braids together elusive and precarious stories – difficult to find, at risk of being lost, and never before brought together into a single volume – to write a more complicated story of place. Through them, we can reimagine a place that, like many in the world, works hard to control a limited set of stories about itself. Readers who know something about Qatar will be surprised by the book’s nuances and details. Readers who know little or nothing will be drawn in to discover that, even in the most out-of-the-way and inhospitable places, deserts are never empty.


Qatar and the Gulf Crisis

Qatar and the Gulf Crisis

Author: Kristian Ulrichsen

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0197525598

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A scrupulously researched analysis of the ongoing attempt by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to turn Qatar into a vassal state.


The Plot Against the President

The Plot Against the President

Author: Lee Smith

Publisher: Center Street

Published: 2019-10-29

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1546085017

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Investigative journalist Lee Smith uses his unprecedented access to Congressman Devin Nunes, former head of the House Intelligence Committee, to expose the deep state operation against the president -- and the American people. Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the Presidenttells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country. The plot officially began July 31, 2016 with the counterintelligence investigation that the FBI opened to probe Russian infiltration of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. But the bureau never followed any Russians. In fact, it was an operation to sabotage Trump, the candidate, then president-elect, and finally the presidency. The conspirators included political operatives, law enforcement and intelligence officials, and the press. The plot was uncovered by Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his investigative team. They understood that the target of the operation wasn't just Trump, but rather the institutions that sustain our republic. A country where operatives use the intelligence and security services to protect their privileges by spying on Americans, coordinating with the press, and using extra-constitutional means to undermine an election then undo a presidency is more like the third world than the republic envisioned by the founding fathers. Without Nunes and his team, the plot against the president -- and against the country -- never would have been revealed. Told from the perspective of Nunes and his crack investigators -- men and women who banded together to do the right thing at a crucial moment for our democracy -- the story of the biggest political scandal in a generation reads like a great detective novel, feels like a classic cowboy movie. The congressman from the cattle capital of California really did fight corruption in Washington. Devin Nunes took on the "deep state."


Qatar and the Arab Spring

Qatar and the Arab Spring

Author: Kristian Ulrichsen

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0190210974

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Qatar and the Arab Spring offers a frank examination of Qatar's startling rise to regional and international prominence, describing how its distinctive policy stance toward the Arab Spring emerged. In only a decade, Qatari policy-makers - led by the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and his prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani - catapulted Qatar from a sleepy backwater to a regional power with truly international reach. In addition to pursuing an aggressive state-branding strategy with its successful bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar forged a reputation for diplomatic mediation that combined intensely personalized engagement with financial backing and favorable media coverage through the Al-Jazeera. These factors converged in early 2011 with the outbreak of the Arab Spring revolts in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen, which Qatari leaders saw as an opportunity to seal their regional and international influence, rather than as a challenge to their authority, and this guided their support of the rebellions against the Gaddafi and Assad regimes in Libya and Syria. From the high watermark of Qatari influence after the toppling of Gaddafi in 2011, that rapidly gave way to policy overreach in Syria in 2012, Coates Ulrichsen analyses Qatari ambition and capabilities as the tiny emirate sought to shape the transitions in the Arab world.