Hybrid threats embody a mixture of violent, coercive and non-violent means in order to enable state and non-state actors to achieve their ends. The concept of hybrid threats has in recent years become an integral part of the security and national security policies adopted by the European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and […]
This is the first book to scrutinize the root causes of problems today with Afghan reconstruction. It begins in 1880 with the coming to power of Emir Abdur Rahman and departure of an occupying British army. On the northern border, Russian forces were also poised. Determined to preserve Afghan independence, Abdur Rahman devised a nation-building […]
First study to properly treat a key regional grouping in Asia. Explores both security and energy issues across the region. Considers geopolitical obstacles to the SCO’s long-term viability. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has developed into a key regional security group in Asia, its member states representing no less than “half of humanity”. Alarmists believe […]
The People of the North Caucasus at War The steep mountains of the Caucasus range always served as a barrier between the steppes of the north and the more fertile, agricultural areas to the south. Although jagged and bare, and with few real passes from north to south, many narrow and forested, fertile valleys cut through […]
Most academics working on the military revolution have focused their attention on Western Europe. This Eurocentric view is perhaps understandable, since many indeed seem to be more interested in the Rise of the West than in purely military affairs elsewhere. However, while the European strategists of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, being chiefly concerned with […]
Most history was always written from the perspective of great empires such as Rome, Persia, and China. For them, and their historians, the nomads of the Eurasian steppes were little more than savage troublemakers. Nomads of different tribes and lineages were also hard to distinguish from one another. Few imperial commentators went farther than merely […]
A Great Game with New Rules Central Asia is no longer the contested territory in a great geopolitical game fought among great powers. Few borders are seriously contested, unlike the situation in the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. Despite regional problems involving the exploitation of water resources, inter-ethnic distrust, economic reform, and the development […]
