President Ronald Reagan needed his ally Thatcher in power to maintain Britain's commitment to his reinvigoration of Soviet containment. Dr. Richard C. Thornton contends that Reagan's solution to the two problems was found in the Falklands War.

Why would countries without nuclear weapons even think about fighting nuclear-armed opponents? A simple answer is that no one believes nuclear weapons will be used. But that answer fails to consider why nonnuclear state leaders would believe that in the first place. In this superb unpacking of the dynamics of conflict under conditions of nuclear monopoly, Paul C. Avey argues that the costs and benefits of using nuclear weapons create openings that weak nonnuclear actors can exploit. Tempting Fate uses four case studies to show the key strategies available to nonnuclear states: Iraqi decision-making under Saddam Hussein in confrontations with the United States; Egyptian leaders' thinking about the Israeli nuclear arsenal during wars in 1969–70 and 1973; Chinese confrontations with the United States in 1950, 1954, and 1958; and a dispute that never escalated to war, the Soviet-United States tensions between 1946 and 1948 that culminated in the Berlin Blockade. Those strategies include limiting the scope of the conflict, holding chemical and biological weapons in reserve, seeking outside support, and leveraging international non-use norms. Counterintuitively, conventionally weak nonnuclear states are better positioned to pursue these strategies than strong ones, so that wars are unlikely when the nonnuclear state is powerful relative to its nuclear opponent. Avey demonstrates clearly that nuclear weapons cast a definite but limited shadow, and while the world continues to face various nuclear challenges, understanding conflict in nuclear monopoly will remain a pressing concern for analysts and policymakers.

Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. relations with Europe have charted a new course, influenced especially by the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the expansion of NATO, and the growing strength of the European Union. This volume analyzes U.S. interactions with Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, and examines the new role for NATO and the evolving dynamics in the U.S.-EU partnership. Through their assessment of mutual perceptions, evolving interests, and clashing agendas, the contributors offer a fresh and thoughtful exploration of the U.S. relationship with the major European states.

The dispute over the South Atlantic islands that Britain calls the Falklands and Argentina claims as the Islas Malvinas has its own unique features, but the legal and political problems at its center, the tension between sovereignty based on prior title, the principle of territorial integrity, and the right of "a people" to self-determination are core issues in many of the other difficult conflicts that beset our rapidly changing world. This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the Falklands/Malvinas dispute and offers concrete suggestions for a new approach to its resolution. The author reviews the long and complex legal history of the islands, from the papal bulls of the fifteenth century and the diplomatic maneuverings of the European colonial powers to the break-up of empires and the evolution of the concept of self-determination. He also describes more recent developments in detail: the role of the United Nations, the failed negotiations that preceded military conflict in 1982, and the profound changes that have occurred in the islands since then. The Falklands War did not resolve the dispute between Britain and Argentina; after a period of stalemate, new initiatives are emerging, new proposals are being offered. The author argues that the opportunity now exists for all three partiesArgentina, Britain, and the islandersto get beyond outdated assumptions and rigidly held positions and construct a new framework for discussions and negotiations, one based on the real and present mutual interests of all concerned. This book makes an important contribution not only to the ongoing debate on the fate of the Falklands/Malvinas but also to the field of international law and conflictresolution.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is naval history’s most powerful and versatile warship. It is the reason the U.S. Navy is the predominant force at sea today. Throughout its illustrious history, the carrier has overcome serious flaws, including its expense, vulnerability, centralization of combat power, and its airwing’s short range. The U.S. Navy always accepted those flaws because the carrier was the best means of delivering firepower. Today’s technologies, however, provide key opportunities for the U.S. Navy to move beyond the limitations of a carrier-centric fleet by redesigning its force structure. Questioning the Carrier examines how the U.S. Navy can embrace the Age of the Missile, network the distributed fleet, and diversify to develop a fleet that benefits from the aircraft carrier’s many strengths without being wholly dependent on them. By acting on those opportunities, the U.S. Navy can develop a structure that performs the carrier-centric fleet’s functions more effectively using a force consisting of more platforms with less total risk and within the same long-term budget. As adversaries are improving their ability to deter the carrier thus causing its utility to wane, the author examines the Navy’s past successes to show how it can overcome institutional resistance to change and continue to rule the seas.

The very existence of diversionary wars is hotly contested in the press and among political scientists. Yet no book has so far tackled the key questions of whether leaders deliberately provoke conflicts abroad to distract the public from problems at home, or whether such gambles offer a more effective response to domestic discontent than appeasing opposition groups with political or economic concessions. Diversionary War addresses these questions by reinterpreting key historical examples of diversionary war—such as Argentina's 1982 Falklands Islands invasion and U.S. President James Buchanan's decision to send troops to Mormon Utah in 1857. It breaks new ground by demonstrating that the use of diversionary tactics is, at best, an ineffectual strategy for managing civil unrest, and draws important conclusions for policymakers—identifying several new, and sometimes counterintuitive, avenues by which embattled states can be pushed toward adopting alternative political, social, or economic strategies for managing domestic unrest.

Thirty years after the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, the war remains a source of continued debate and analysis for politicians, historians and military strategists. Not only did the conflict provide a fascinating example of modern expeditionary warfare, but it also brought to the fore numerous questions regarding international law, sovereignty, the inheritance of colonialism, the influence of history on national policy and the use of military force for domestic political uses. As the essays in this collection show, the numerous facets of the Falklands War remain current today and have ramifications far beyond the South Atlantic. Covering issues ranging from military strategy to Anglo-American relations, international reactions and international law to media coverage, the volume provides an important overview of some of the complex issues involved, and offers a better understanding of this conflict and of the tensions which still exist today between London and Buenos Aires. Of interest to scholars of history, politics, international relations and defence studies, the volume provides a timely and forthright examination of a short but bloody episode of a kind that is likely to be seen with increasing frequency, as nations lay competing claims to disputed territories around the globe.