The Unintended Consequences of Peace

The Unintended Consequences of Peace
Author: Arie Marcelo Kacowicz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2021-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1316518825

A rigorous global examination of the links between peaceful borders and illicit transnational flows of crime and terrorism.

China in Latin America

China in Latin America
Author: Robert Evan Ellis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2009
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

"Through exhaustive field research and interviews, Ellis inventories, country by country, China's rapidly expanding commercial and diplomatic presence in Latin America and the Caribbean. The irresistible allure of trade with the Chinese is a mixed blessing for the region: to transport raw materials and agricultural goods, a new East-West infrastructure is expanding Pacific coast ports from Mexico to Chile, once again leaving Latin America overly dependent on the export of low-value-added commodities. And although China's motives may be primarily commercial, the implications of its incursions are geopolitical: visiting Chinese leaders have declared Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela to be "strategic partners." As Ellis documents, China is investing heavily in Venezuelan crude oil, despite worries over Hugo Chávez's volatility and fears of embroiling itself in disputes between Caracas and Washington. China - together with illiberal petrostates - is a vital backstop for Chávez's authoritarian populist project and unrelenting drive to undercut U.S. interests and influence in the region. Inexplicably, Foggy Bottom has seemed largely oblivious to this concerted geopolitical challenge so close to home." -- www.foreignaffairs.com (Oct.15, 2010).

Partnership for the Americas: Western Hemisphere Strategy and U.S. Southern Command

Partnership for the Americas: Western Hemisphere Strategy and U.S. Southern Command
Author: James G. Stavridis
Publisher: NDU Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2014-02-23
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Since its creation in 1963, United States Southern Command has been led by 30 senior officers representing all four of the armed forces. None has undertaken his leadership responsibilities with the cultural sensitivity and creativity demonstrated by Admiral Jim Stavridis during his tenure in command. Breaking with tradition, Admiral Stavridis discarded the customary military model as he organized the Southern Command Headquarters. In its place he created an organization designed not to subdue adversaries, but instead to build durable and enduring partnerships with friends. His observation that it is the business of Southern Command to launch "ideas not missiles" into the command's area of responsibility gained strategic resonance throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America, and at the highest levels in Washington, DC.

State Building in Latin America

State Building in Latin America
Author: Hillel David Soifer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2015-06-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1316301036

State Building in Latin America diverges from existing scholarship in developing explanations both for why state-building efforts in the region emerged and for their success or failure. First, Latin American state leaders chose to attempt concerted state-building only where they saw it as the means to political order and economic development. Fragmented regionalism led to the adoption of more laissez-faire ideas and the rejection of state-building. With dominant urban centers, developmentalist ideas and state-building efforts took hold, but not all state-building projects succeeded. The second plank of the book's argument centers on strategies of bureaucratic appointment to explain this variation. Filling administrative ranks with local elites caused even concerted state-building efforts to flounder, while appointing outsiders to serve as administrators underpinned success. Relying on extensive archival evidence, the book traces how these factors shaped the differential development of education, taxation, and conscription in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.

Street Gangs

Street Gangs
Author: Max G. Manwaring
Publisher:
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2005
Genre: Electronic government information
ISBN:

The primary thrust of the monograph is to explain the linkage of contemporary criminal street gangs (that is, the gang phenomenon or third generation gangs) to insurgency in terms f the instability it wreaks upon government and the concomitant challenge to state sovereignty. Although there are differences between gangs and insurgents regarding motives and modes of operations, this linkage infers that gang phenomena are mutated forms of urban insurgency. In these terms, these "new" nonstate actors must eventually seize political power in order to guarantee the freedom of action and the commercial environment they want. The common denominator that clearly links the gang phenomenon to insurgency is that the third generation gangs' and insurgents' ultimate objective is to depose or control the governments of targeted countries. As a consequence, the "Duck Analogy" applies. Third generation gangs look like ducks, walk like ducks, and act like ducks - a peculiar breed, but ducks nevertheless! This monograph concludes with recommendations for the United States and other countries to focus security and assistance responses at the strategic level. The intent is to help leaders achieve strategic clarity and operate more effectively in the complex politically dominated, contemporary global security arena.