Subsequent chapters analyze the dynamics of interstate conflict in the Third World, the role of Third World countries in the international system, and, especially, the critical impact of the end of the Cold War on the Third World security problematic. Ayoob concludes with a set of explanations intended to help students, scholars, and policymakers decipher the continuing profusion of conflicts in the Third World and the trends and problems that will likely dominate well into the twenty-first century.

With the end of the Cold War, the world is seen by many as an increasingly safe and secure place. In the Third World, however, people continue to be at risk, often from their own state authorities; these regimes in turn, beset with challenges to militarization and repression. What exists is not a security dilemma in the traditional sense, but instead insecurity dilemmas, in which national security, defined as regime security by state authorities, becomes pitted against the incompatible demands of ethnic, social, and religious forces.

Much has already been written about the effects of the changes of the Cold War on conflict. The ongoing disengagement of East and West from bipolar Cold-War politics has resulted in an unstable international political situation which is characterized by regional conflicts. Most analyses now concentrate on the consequences for Europe and the former communist Central and East European states. This book, however, explores the effects for the Third World. The contributors provide major theoretical analyses of the causes of conflict in developing countries. Four main factors are distinguished: the processes of state-formation and nation-building; the rise or return of ethnicity and nationalism; socio-economic factors; and the armaments-conflict nexus. The volume also provides in-depth regional analyses, as well as policy perspectives on the issue of conflict and development.

A common thread ties together the five case studies of this book: the persistence with which the bilateral relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union continues to dominate American foreign and regional policies. These essays analyze the LIC environment in Central Asia, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa.

This book contains a probing and comprehensive theoretical analysis of the emerging notion of national security in light of the dramatic post-Cold War transformation of the international system. It begins with a discussion of the nature of this change, emphasizing declining national sovereignty, escalating international interdependence, and proliferating anarchic conflict. After developing a framework of the conceptual components of national security, this study focuses on analyzing change--both in priorities and tradeoffs--in military security, economic security, resource/environmental security, and political/cultural security. Brief case studies of the 1991 Gulf War, the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, the 1992 Earth Summit, and the ongoing Yugoslavia conflict illustrate the theoretical contentions. Finally, a set of crucial, fundamental security policy challenges and responses conclude the book.

"... Explores the connections between fragile statehood and violent conflict, and analyses the limitations of outside intervention from international society."--P. 4 of cover.