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Can great powers be confident that their peers have benign intentions? States that trust each other can live at peace; those that mistrust each other are doomed to compete for arms and allies and may even go to war. This book offers a theory—intentions pessimism—that says great powers can rarely if ever be confident that their peers have benign intentions, because it is extraordinarily difficult for them to obtain the kind of information that would allow them to reach such a conclusion. Any optimistic assertions to the contrary—and there are many—are wrong. Indeed, even in cases that supposedly involved mutual trust—Germany and Russia in the Bismarck era (1871-90); Britain and the United States during the great rapprochement (1895-1906); France and Germany, and Japan and the United States in the early interwar period (1919-30); and the Soviet Union and the United States at the end of the Cold War (1985-90)—the protagonists were acutely uncertain about each other’s intentions. As a result, they competed for security. The ramifications for the future of U.S.-China relations are profound. Uncertain about the other side’s intentions, but aware of its formidable capabilities, Washington and Beijing will go to great lengths to strengthen their military and diplomatic positions, triggering a competitive action-reaction spiral with the potential for war.

This book explores the impact of Chinese growth on Latin America since the early 2000s. Some twenty years ago, Chinese entrepreneurs headed to the Western Hemisphere in search of profits and commodities, specifically those that China lacked and that some Latin American countries held in abundance—copper, iron ore, crude oil, fishmeal and soybeans. Focusing largely on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru, the book traces the evolution of political and economic ties between China and these countries back to the 1950s and explores how more recent and ongoing interaction with China has shaped the respective political economies of these country cases. Drawing on the development economics literature as an analytical roadmap, the book offers two sets of findings. First, the three small, open economies—Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru—outperformed Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico by a wide margin during the China 2003–2013 boom and thereafter. Second, success in dealing with China has varied by sector, project, and country. The author argues that while opportunities for closer economic integration with China are seemingly infinite, so are the risks. The best outcomes have stemmed from endeavours where the rule of law, regulatory oversight, and a clear strategy exist on the Latin American side.

The inviolability of national borders is an unquestioned pillar of the post-World War II international order. Fixed borders are believed to encourage stability, promote pluralism, and discourage nationalism and intolerance. But do they? What if fixed borders create more problems than they solve, and what if permitting borders to change would create more stability and produce more just societies? This book examines this possibility, showing how we arrived at a system of rigidly bordered states and how the real danger to peace is not the desire of people to form new states but the capacity of existing states to resist that desire, even with violence. The book proposes a practical, democratically legitimate alternative: a right of secession. With crises ongoing in the United Kingdom, Spain, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and many other regions, this reassessment of the foundations of our international order is more relevant than ever.

This book argues that the desire for world status plays a key role in shaping the foreign policies of China and Russia. Applying social identity theory—the idea that individuals derive part of their identity from larger communities—to nations, the book contends that China and Russia have used various modes of emulation, competition, and creativity to gain recognition from other countries, and thus validate their respective identities. To make this argument, the book analyzes numerous cases, including Catherine the Great's attempts to westernize Russia, China's identity crises in the nineteenth century, and both countries' responses to the end of the Cold War. The book employs a multifaceted method of measuring status, factoring in influence and inclusion in multinational organizations, military clout, and cultural sway, among other considerations. Combined with historical precedent, this socio-psychological approach helps explain current trends in Russian and Chinese foreign policy.

The “two-state solution” is the official policy of Israel, the United States, the United Nations, and the Palestinian Authority alike. However, this book argues that Israel's “state-building” process has never risen above the level of municipal governance, and its goal has never been Palestinian independence. It explains that a coherent Palestinian state has already been rendered an impossibility and, to move forward, Palestine must redefine its present predicament and future aspirations. The book covers the history of Palestine, the process and consequences of Palestine's territorial dismemberment and its subjugation by Israel, the reconstruction of the Palestinian nation, and the Palestinian efforts at state-building. Based on detailed fieldwork, exhaustive scholarship, and an in-depth examination of historical sources, this controversial book will be widely read and debated by all sides.

The question of when or whether a nation should intervene in another country's affairs is one of the most important concerns in today's volatile world. Taking John Stuart Mill's famous 1859 essay “A Few Words on Non Intervention” as his starting point, international relations scholar Michael W. Doyle addresses the thorny issue of when a state's sovereignty should be respected and when it should be overridden or disregarded by other states in the name of humanitarian protection, national self determination, or national security. In this time of complex social and political interplay and increasingly sophisticated and deadly weaponry, Doyle reinvigorates Mill's principles for a new era while assessing the new United Nations doctrine of responsibility to protect. Intervention today can take many forms: military and economic, unilateral and multilateral. Doyle's thought provoking argument examines essential moral and legal questions underlying significant American foreign policy dilemmas of recent years.

Western struggles — and failures — to create functioning states in countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan have inspired questions about whether statebuilding projects are at all viable, or whether they make the lives of their intended beneficiaries better or worse. This book asks why statebuilding has been so hard to achieve, and argues that a large part of the problem has been Westerners' failure to understand or engage with what local people actually want and need. It interrogates the liberal peacebuilding industry, asking what it assumes, what it is getting wrong, and how it could be more effective.

The Internet has transformed the manner in which information is exchanged and business is conducted, arguably more than any other communication development in the past century. Despite its wide reach and powerful global influence, it is a medium uncontrolled by any one centralized system, organization, or governing body, a reality that has given rise to all manner of free-speech issues and cybersecurity concerns. The conflicts surrounding Internet governance are the new spaces where political and economic power is unfolding in the twenty-first century. This book reveals the inner power structure already in place within the architectures and institutions of Internet governance. It provides a theoretical framework for Internet governance that takes into account the privatization of global power as well as the role of sovereign nations and international treaties. In addition, the book explores what is at stake in open global controversies and stresses the responsibility of the public to actively engage in these debates, because Internet governance will ultimately determine Internet freedom.

The Montreal Protocol has been cited as the most successful global agreement, responsible for phasing out the use of ozone-depleting substances. However, this book argues that the Montreal Protocol has failed—largely because of neoliberal ideals involving economic protectionism, but also due to the protection of the legitimacy of certain forms of scientific knowledge. The book traces the rise of a new form of disagreement between global powers, members of the scientific community, civil society, and agro-industry groups, leaving efforts to push for environmental protection relatively ineffective.