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Post-Cold War has seen ever increasing threats to national and international security. Security problem in the 21st century are becoming even more complex and multidimensional and a growing array of military, non-military and transnational factors are shaping the international security landscape. The contributors to this volume debate on these considerations and their essays are divided in three parts. Part 1 focuses on weapons and security and the strategic implications of US military hegemony and the dynamics and dangers of weapons proliferation. The second part examines the non-military aspects of security, the scope of the international security agenda and of factors such as environmental change and resource competitions, demographic developments, the impact of HIV/AIDS on political and military instability and the complex effects of humanitarian assistance. The third and final part of the book examines the roots and ramifications of contemporary international terrorism, the contributions of NGOs and the emergence of private military firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book highlights the military, political and diplomatic errors made by Western European powers in handling the Yugoslav crisis and their lack of preparedness in dealing with this foreseen crisis after the death of Marshall Tito. They had no coherent plans ready for a rational brokering of the resulting problems of state succession. The author is critical of the premature state recognition by certain leading Western European political players and discusses whether that may have triggered the on-rush of political and military events which led to the Bosnian and Kosovo tragedies in the 1990s. The book also examines the consequences and challenges for international law and law-making in the face of current developments and considers, in particular, the direct conflict between the UN Charter principle of Non-Intervention and the claimed ‘New’ International Law principle of Humanitarian Intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]