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This book, part of a two-volume exploration, examines the trajectory of India-China relations, spanning from the making of a common border to the events leading to the 1962 war. Relying on vast Chinese, Indian, as well as western sources, the study provides a detailed exegesis of the nature of conflict covering over a century of political contours in the British India, Manchu China, Republican China and finally the Republic of India and Peoples Republic of China. This includes the British as well as Manchu aggression in Tibet and the ensuing diplomatic manoeuvrability between various stakeholders, resulting in conclusion of various conventions and boundaries including the contentious McMahon Line and shifting line alignments of the Chinese in the Western Sector of India-China border. The domestic socio-political and economic climate as well as the equations that resulted from the Cold War between India and China have been looked into and analysed reflecting the Chinese and well as Indian perspectives. The special case of Sino-Pak entente and India-China rivalry in Asia as a whole has been analysed vis-à-vis their security concerns.

This book presents an in-depth and provoking analysis of the current global landscape and the challenges it presents for development. Offering a unique approach examining the implications of strategic uncertainty on strategies for development, it discusses contemporary challenges to the field, particularly those relating to crisis management. Positing that we live in an age of strategic uncertainty, the authors progress the notion that crisis responses require extensive and holistic strategic deliberation vis-à-vis economic and social considerations, short-term and long-term projections, as well as evaluations of domestic and international spheres of development. Tracing the infrastructure of globalization, the book acknowledges the need for medium-term strategies for each crisis but emphasizes that they must be intricately woven into a larger unitary vision, ultimately highlighting the critical role of strategic thinking in addressing complex challenges we face today.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents a monumental shift in the global power landscape. Through ambitious infrastructure projects and strategic economic investments, China has emerged as a formidable challenger to U.S. dominance in the modern Great Power Competition (GPC), leveraging a unique blend of soft power and non-interference policy. This distinctive strategy has allowed China to rapidly gain footholds in resource rich regions such as Central Asia-South Asia (CASA) and the Middle East, compelling the U.S. to rethink its foreign policy approach in response. Given China's adept leveraging of soft power in these geostrategic regions, the critical question arises: how can the U.S. meet the nuanced challenges of the modern GPC? The Great Power Competition Volume 6: The Rise of China delves into China's calculated rise, exploring how the BRI has captivated nations spanning pivotal regions, entrenching Chinese influence across critical sectors. This edited volume brings together distinguished global experts and thought leaders to provide comprehensive analyses of China's expanding influence across economic, political, technological, and security domains. The collection of essays offers critical insights and recommendations for navigating the modern-day great power competition in an era defined by China's ascent. The book highlights China's BRI brand diplomacy and its strategic use of soft power and non-interference policy to reshape the geopolitical landscape. The authors'final analyses underscore that in the modern era of the GPC, strategic competition and soft power are deeply intertwined.

This book argues that cybersecurity's informational ontology offers empirical challenges, and introduces a new interdisciplinary theoretical and conceptual framework of ‘entropic security'.Cyber-attacks have been growing exponentially in number and sophistication; ranging from those conducted by non-state actors to state-backed cyber-attacks. Accordingly, cybersecurity now constitutes an integral part of public, private, and academic discourses on contemporary (in)security. Yet, because its emergence as a novel security field occurred after many long-established frameworks had already been developed, cybersecurity has been repeatedly scrutinised for its compatibility with conventional security theories, concepts, and understandings, particularly with that of military security. This book, however, argues that cybersecurity differs profoundly from many other security sectors because of the ontological nature of ‘information'that sits at the heart of this field. Through this new framework, the book investigates three key empirical challenges in cybersecurity that are co-produced by its informational ontology: (1) the disordered nature of cybersecurity and its tendency towards increasing insecurity as a manifestation of the intrinsic uncertainties in information systems; (2) the unpredictable and unintended consequences resulting from autonomous cyber-attacks that challenge human control of cybersecurity environments; and (3) the persistent harms engendered by ‘mundane'cyber threats that do not fit within conventional understandings of existentiality in security theories. Through a detailed analysis of cybersecurity discourses and practices in the USA (2003-present), the book goes on to show how these complex cybersecurity challenges are better analysed and theorised through the new information-theoretic notion of ‘entropic security'.This book will be of much interest to students of cyber-security, critical security studies, science and technology studies and International Relations in general.

This book addresses a central puzzle in ontological security theory, namely the relationship between identity continuity and change, and the role anxiety plays in fostering and inhibiting change.The work argues for a more nuanced perspective on how change and threats to national identity relate, thus advancing our understanding of the role anxiety plays in shaping state choices. The case studies of Sweden and Germany show that national identity can experience highly disruptive challenges when the external security environment changes. According to extant ontological security theory, these structural challenges should lead to heightened anxiety and identity crises as national narratives become unstable and fragile. Instead, empirical evidence shows that states turn ontological anxiety into strategies of anxiety abatement, management, and ontological innovation. The evidence also reveals that states go to extraordinary lengths to maintain existing narratives, discursively maneuvring between the twin needs of biographical continuity and responsiveness to change. In their efforts to adapt and preserve identity, states embrace ontological ambiguity; they neither fully respond to change, nor do they ignore it. Rather, they strive for discursive innovation where new interpretations of how to be are balanced with new interpretations of the meaning of necessary change. In the process, ontological ambiguity becomes the new normal. These findings suggest that Sweden and Germany may not be outliers, and that being and becoming is an inherent feature of social life all state actors must engage with.This book will be of interest to students of security studies, European politics, foreign policy, and international relations.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of international attempts to engage North Korea diplomatically with the aim of avoiding a nuclear war.It highlights the difficulty of this task, concluding that the containment of North Korea currently depends more on military deterrence than on diplomatic restraint. It considers the various multilateral attempts at diplomatic engagement over recent decades and explores the different approaches of different countries, examining the domestic factors and the strategic interests which drive different countries'different approaches. It includes an account of China's growing estrangement, Russia's increasing closeness, and the surprising relationship between North Korea and Sweden which has been effective in providing the North Korean people with humanitarian aid.Revealing the story of diplomatic frustrations and failures when engaging North Korea, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Korean studies, Asian politics, and international relations.

This book offers a multidisciplinary examination of the international crimes committed in the Russia-Ukraine War, and the challenges of their prosecution and documentation.As the largest international armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia's war against Ukraine has provoked strong reactions and questions about the post-1945 world order, the utility of the war, and the effectiveness of international criminal justice. Throughout the chapters in this volume, scholars and legal practitioners from Canada, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, the UK, and the United States present the results of interdisciplinary research, insights from the perspective of other post-communist states, and first-hand expertise from directly working on the documentation and prosecution of these crimes. This offers a broader picture of post-Cold War relations and sheds light on the roots and nature of the war and the importance of regional approaches. The chapters also present some possible responses to the crimes committed in the conflict, with a focus on a victims-centered approach to transitional justice.This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of international criminal and humanitarian law, security studies, peace and conflict studies, and Eastern European history.

This book examines the causes and consequences of the dramatic shift in Japanese national security perspectives and mutually exclusive policies toward China and the USA. It sheds new light on the changing trajectories of triadic dynamics shaping U.S.-China-Japan strategic insecurity, their historical roots, its implications for trans-Pacific peace and stability, and their potential influence on emerging regional and systemic security architectures. Against the backdrop of U.S.-proclaimed'great power competition'with China as the defining feature and organizing principle of the U.S.-led coalition's strategic and geopolitical responses to China's'national rejuvenation,'with primacy's'displacement anxiety'triggering a'systemic transitional fluidity,'the book examines the origins and outcomes of Sino-Japanese insecurity, its polarizing effects on U.S.-China and U.S.-Japan relations, and the wider systemic resonances and dissonances as the post-Cold War unipolar systemic structure gives way to an uncertain, ambiguous, and imprecise successor regime. Finally, historical lessons drawn from primary documents are used to illuminate the prospects for triangular relations in shaping the Asia-Pacific security ecology over the medium term.

This open access book focuses on the geopolitical competition in the South China Sea, an area with highly concentrated choke points in the Indo-Pacific, presenting ideas and recommendations to manage this competition and foster cooperation to maintain a peaceful and stable environment and promote sustainable governance of the South China Sea and of the Indo-Pacific in a broader sense. The increasingly complex geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific has made the South China Sea the epicenter of strategic competition between the great powers, with a rising China on the one hand and the United States, its allies, and partners on the other. In this strategic chessboard, the South China Sea is a test of resilience of the rules-based international order, such as versus grey zone operations, as well as disruptive technological developments in both traditional and non-traditional domains. The book incorporates foreign policy analysis methods to analyze and forecast key players'goals, intentions, and behaviors within the competitive strategic environment of the South China Sea. The success or failure of managing major power competition in the South China Sea, one of the hot spots of the Indo-Pacific region, will determine the future structure of international relations. In addition, as a dynamically developing region of the world, promoting collaborative ideas, particularly in areas related to conflict management is essential for maintaining a peaceful and stable environment, restoring economic growth, and progressing toward a sustainable future. This book is of interest to politicians, policy-makers, experts, scholars, researchers, and other readers who are interested in how regional issues can shape the global order.

This book examines how the principle of ecological integrity in international law and governance can help address our current global crises.The principle of ecological integrity points to the basic foundations that must exist for life – all life – not only to exist but also to flourish. Ecological integrity, or well-being, cuts across legal and geopolitical spheres, insofar as it is the decisions within our systems of governance that determine the integrity of our various living systems. This book provides a comprehensive examination of how the principle of ecological integrity can help us respond to our current crises of global conflict and insecurity. Including chapters by both academics and practitioners and by both experienced and emerging authors, the book covers a range of contemporary issues – the climate crisis, war, the pandemic, food, and more – at the intersection of peace, public health, and global security.It will appeal to scholars across a range of fields, including law, sociology, political science, environmental studies, and public health.