1st Edition
International and Regional Security The Causes of War and Peace
This volume is a collection of the best essays of Professor Benjamin Miller on the subjects of international and regional security.
The book analyses the interrelationships between international politics and regional and national security, with a special focus on the sources of international conflict and collaboration and the causes of war and peace. More specifically, it explains the sources of intended and unintended great-power conflict and collaboration. The book also accounts for the sources of regional war and peace by developing the concept of the state-to-nation balance. Thus the volume is able to explain the variations in the outcomes of great power interventions and the differences in the level and type of war and peace in different eras and various parts of the world. For example, the book’s model can account for recent outcomes such as the effects of the 2003 American intervention in Iraq, the post-2011 Arab Spring and the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine. The book also provides a model for explaining the changes in American grand strategy with a special focus on accounting for the causes of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Finally, the book addresses the debate on the future of war and peace in the 21st century.
This book will be essential reading for students of international security, regional security, Middle Eastern politics, foreign policy and IR.
Preface
1. Introduction: The key themes of my work
Theme I: The Sources of Great Power Conflict and Cooperation
2. Explaining Great Power Cooperation in Conflict Management.
Theme II: International Effects on Regional Conflicts
3. The Global Sources of Regional Transitions from War to Peace
Theme III: The Sources of Regional War and Peace
4. Does Democratization Pacify the State? The Cases of Germany and Iraq.
5. Between the Revisionist and the Frontier State: Regional Variations in State War-Propensity
Theme IV: Grand Strategy, Intervention and National Security
6. The Concept of Security: Should it be Redefined?
7. Democracy Promotion: Offensive Liberalism Vs. the Rest (of IR Theory).
8. Explaining Changes in US Grand Strategy: 9/11, The Rise of Offensive Liberalism and the War in Iraq
9. A New Research Agenda for the 21st Century
Biography
Benjamin Miller is Professor of International Relations at the University of Haifa, Israel. Among his publications are When Opponents Cooperate (2002), States, Nations and Great Powers (2007) and Regional Peacemaking and Conflict Management (co-editor, Routledge 2015).
'In this timely book, Benjamin Miller, a leading world scholar of regions and peace has compiled his three decades long scholarly articles on war, peace and regional and international order with updates and additional materials. A valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the challenging questions of our times.' -- T.V. Paul, McGill University, Canada
'International and Regional Security provides easy access to Benjamin Miller’s most influential articles on great power conflict and cooperation, international/regional/domestic sources of regional conflict, and interventionist grand strategies. This excellent and well-organized collection belongs on the bookshelf of all serious scholars of peace and security.' -- Jack S. Levy, Rutgers University, USA
'This collection of first-rate essays by Benjamin Miller should be widely read among students of international politics. He not only offers fascinating insights on the causes of cooperation and conflict among states, but few scholars are as adept as Miller at making causal arguments that synthesize both domestic and international factors in sophisticated and interesting ways.' -- John J. Mearsheimer, University of Chicago, USA
'Benjamin Miller's continuing stress on regional analysis is a great antidote for all of the people promoting universal generalizations and behavior. To this prescription, add Miller's consistent stress on multi-level explanations (from intervening hegemons to ethno-nationalist groups) and theory building to account for variations in war and peace and you come away with a winning combination.' -- William R. Thompson, Indiana University, USA
'Benjamin Miller’s pioneering work integrating global and regional causes of war and peace is crucially relevant for understanding current developments from Ukraine to Syria to the South China Sea. This volume presents some of Miller’s signature works, bookended new essays that frame his research project and push it toward new frontiers. Readers looking for a rich yet rigorous framework for making sense of a complex and challenging new array of inter and intra-state conflicts should reach for this excellent collection.' -- William C. Wohlforth, Dartmouth College, USA
