Praise for the first edition: "... this masterful and concise volume overviews the range of approaches social scientists have applied to explain events in the Third World." --Journal of Developing Areas Understanding Third World Politics is a comprehensive, critical introduction to political development and comparative politics in the non-Western world today. Beginning with an assessment of the shared factors that seem to determine underdevelopment, B. C. Smith introduces the major theories of development--development theory, modernization theory, neo-colonialism, and dependency theory--and examines the role and character of key political organizations, political parties, and the military in determining the fate of developing nations. This new edition gives special attention to the problems and challenges faced by developing nations as they become democratic states by addressing questions of political legitimacy, consensus building, religion, ethnicity, and class.

En række afhandlinger om de teoretiske og praktiske aspekter af Sovjetunionens og USA's militære indblanding i den 3. Verdens lande. Årsagerne til og baggrunden for en evt. indblanding undersøges, ligesom der anvises metoder til at løse problemerne på. Afhandlingerne er skrevet af Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Gordon H. McCormick, Dov. S. Zakheim, W. Scott Thompson, Andrew B. Walworth, Terry L. Deibel, Norman Friedman, Kevin N. Lewis, William J. Taylor Jr., og Michael E. Vlahos.

This book explores two of the most important dimensions of the military as an institution in Third World politics: its role in domestic power structures and internal development, and its impact on the formation and execution of the security aspects of foreign policy. These internal and external orientations are compared here across selected Third World countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The authors are area experts and specialists in comparative and international politics. Part 1 focuses on how the interaction of military and civilian elites creates a specific domestic political climate. The socioeconomic characteristics of these elites are compared and related to their policy preferences. An examination of military establishments in regimes ranging from communist (Cuba) through business-oriented (Indonesia) reveals whether military similarities persist among differing types of government. In Part 2 the contributors examine the role of military force in the Third World through a general empirical treatment of military behavior in developing countries; an assessment of the security policies–with emphasis on their military components–of several Middle Eastern and Asian states; and an evaluation of the U.S. experience in supporting anti-communist Third World security efforts.

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Politics - Region: USA, grade: A, American University of Central Asia, language: English, abstract: This research focuses on the United States’ foreign policy in the Third World (meaning here not industrialized, mainly poor countries) and its use of words (internetional law and diplomacy) and deeds (coercive diplomacy and military intervention). The numerous historical examples reveal the treacherous nature of American Foreign Policy, because the USA prefers the law of force rather than the force of law for the sake of its own interests. The examples of the invasion of Grenada, Libya, and Nicaragua support the argument that the USA is ready to use force and go against international law to pursue its own national interest. Contrary to its claims of being the fighter for democracy and human rights in the world, America does protect it only when it is convenient to it and when it can somehow benefit from spending money on the liberation operations. However, it is vital to keep in mind that being a rational player the USA invaded only militarily weak countries.

Strong nation-states often assume that they can use their military might to intervene in civil wars and otherwise reshape the domestic political order of weaker states. Often, however, as recent history demonstrates, foreign military interventions end up becoming protracted conflicts. This was the case, for example, for the United States in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Syria in Lebanon, Israel in Lebanon, South Africa and Cuba in Angola, and India in Sri Lanka. Some of these cases resulted in major setbacks; in others, a greater degree of success was achieved. But in all six, the interventions turned out to be long, complicated, and costly undertakings with far-reaching repercussions. Foreign Military Intervention: The Dynamics of Protracted Conflict brings together prominent scholars in an ambitious and innovative comparative study. The six case studies noted above constitute a diverse set, involving superpowers and regional powers, democracies and non-democracies, neighboring states and distant states, and incumbent regimes and insurgent movements. The book examines both the similarities and the differences among these cases, identifying key patterns and gaining insights both about the individual cases themselves and the dynamics of foreign military intervention in general. Each case study is structured according to three analytical stages of intervention--getting in, staying in, and getting out--and is focused through three levels of analysis: the international system, the domestic context of the intervening state, and the domestic context of the target state. Three additional chapters provide cross-case comparisons along each of the analytic stages, adding depth and richness to the study. A concluding chapter by the editors provides additional perspective on foreign military interventions, integrating major arguments and presenting key theoretical as well as policy-oriented findings. While all six cases are drawn from the Cold War era, the issues raised and dilemmas posed never have been strictly tied to any particular system structure. Indeed, they preceded the Cold War and, as already evident amidst the new and widespread domestic instability of the post-Cold War world, will postdate it. Foreign Military Intervention: The Dynamics of Protracted Conflict thus is a timely, important study of value and relevance both to scholars and policymakers dealing with the challenges of contemporary world politics.

Interventionism—the manipulation of the internal politics of one country by another—has long been a feature of international relations. The practice shows no signs of abating, despite the recent collapse of Communism and the decline of the Cold War. In The Political Economy of Third World Intervention, David Gibbs explores the factors that motivate intervention, especially the influence of business interests. He challenges conventional views of international relations, eschewing both the popular "realist" view that the state is influenced by diverse national interests and the "dependency" approach that stresses conflicts between industrialized countries and the Third World. Instead, Gibbs proposes a new theoretical model of "business conflict" which stresses divisions between different business interests and shows how such divisions can influence foreign policy and interventionism. Moreover, he focuses on the conflicts among the core countries, highlighting friction among private interests within these countries. Drawing on U.S. government documents—including a wealth of newly declassified materials—he applies his new model to a detailed case study of the Congo Crisis of the 1960s. Gibbs demonstrates that the Crisis is more accurately characterized by competition among Western interests for access to the Congo's mineral wealth, than by Cold War competition, as has been previously argued. Offering a fresh perspective for understanding the roots of any international conflict, this remarkably accessible volume will be of special interest to students of international political economy, comparative politics, and business-government relations. "This book is an extremely important contribution to the study of international relations theory; Gibbs' treatment of the Congo case is superb. He effectively takes the "statists" to task and presents a compelling new way of analyzing external interventions in the Third World."—Michael G. Schatzberg, University of Wisconsin "David Gibbs makes an original and important contribution to our understanding of the influence of business interests in the making of U.S. foreign policy. His business conflict model provides a synthetic theoretical framework for the analysis of business-government relations, one which yields fresh insights, overcomes inconsistencies in other approaches, and opens new ground for important research. . . . [Gibbs] provides a sophisticated analysis of the conflicts within the U.S. business community and identifies the complex ways in which they interacted with agencies within the government to form U.S. foreign policy toward the Congo. . . . This is a well-crafted analysis of a critical case of U.S. postwar intervention which should be of general interest to scholars and others concerned with the domestic bases of foreign policy."—Thomas J. Biersteker, Director, School of International Relations, University of Southern California