A common feature of conflict in the 1990s is death and suffering from small arms and light weapons. The global diffusion of assault rifles, machine guns, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades, which can be easily carried by an individual or transported by a light vehicle, has greatly intensified the violence of conflicts in countries around the world. This book represents the perspectives of the foremost specialists on light weapons, and it surveys the wide range of policy options open to the international community. These include export and import controls, law enforcement strategies to break up black markets, collection and destruction of weapons following the end of conflict, and efforts to illuminate how small arms and light weapons make their way to the killing grounds of the 1990s.

Civil war is one of the critical issues of our time. Although intrastate in nature, it has a disproportionate and overwhelming effect on the overall peace and stability of contemporary international society. Organized around the themes of contested nationalism, violence, external intervention, post-conflict reconstruction, reconciliation and governance, Amalendu Misra investigates why civil wars have become so widespread and how can they be contained? Particularly noteworthy is its focus on the "cycle" of conflict, ranging as it does on the causes, conduct, and end of civil wars as well as on subsequent efforts to return post-conflict society to "normal" politics. Theoretically robust and empirically solid, this book clearly charts the course of contemporary civil wars using case studies from a variety of zones of conflict including Africa, Asia and Latin America to produce the most comprehensive guide to understanding civil wars in an interconnected and interdependent world.

This text examines how and why States decay and what, if anything, can be done to prevent them from collapsing. The disparate field of research is structured acording to political, social and economic criteria.

During the 1990s the United Nations was called upon to conduct unprecedented peacekeeping and humanitarian operations in order to bring peace to war-torn states. Essential to the resolution of these conflicts was deemed to be the disarmament of the former warring parties. United Nations Disarmament Processes in Intra-State Conflict therefore seeks to identify the most important lessons taught by the UN's experiences in disarmament and constructs an original analytical framework to explain the variation in the UN's success. On this basis Stephen M. Hill proffers recommendations for the UN's present and future disarmament operations.

This book contains some 600 entries on a range of topics from ancient Chinese warfare to late 20th-century intervention operations. Designed for a wide variety of users, it encompasses general reviews of aspects of military organization and science, as well as specific wars and conflicts. The book examines naval and air warfare, as well as significant individuals, including commanders, theorists, and war leaders. Each entry includes a listing of additional publications on the topic, accompanied by an article discussing these publications with reference to their particular emphases, strengths, and limitations.

This insightful book debates whether conflict within states has emerged as the Achilles Heel of the international community. It covers a wide-range of issues including the roots of internal conflict, small arms supplies, intervention, human rights and international humanitarian law, refugees and post-conflict reconstruction. Internal Conflict and the International Community provides supplementary reading for third level undergraduates, post-graduates and scholars of international relations, comparative politics, development studies, international law and security and defence studies.

"A project of the International Peace Academy and CISAC, The Center for International Security and Cooperation"--P. ii.

Each year, governments spend billions of dollars on peacekeeping efforts around the world, and much more is spent on humanitarian aid to refugees and other victims of armed struggle. Yet, research shows that nearly one-half of all countries experiencing civil war have renewed violent conflict within five years of a peace agreement. How do we account for such a poor track record? The authors in this volume consider how global capitalism affects fragile peace processes, arguing that the international economic system itself is a major contributor to violent conflict. By including the work of anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists, this book presents a broad yet thorough exploration of the complexities of peacebuilding in a global market economy. Included in the volume are specific studies of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as considerations of conflicts on a global scale.

"Clearly the best single volume treatment of civil war now available. This is an admirable synthesis and analysis of theoretical, historical, statistical, and case study literatures. Useful as a textbook at the undergraduate and graduate level." - Roy Licklider, Rutgers University