For more than eleven months this bipartisan commission of leading experts on national security, arms control, and nuclear technology met with Congressional leaders, military officers, high-level officials of several countries, arms control groups, and technical experts to assess the appropriate roles for nuclear weapons, nonproliferation programs, and missile defenses. This official edition contains a discussion of key questions and issues as well as the Commission’s findings and recommendations for tailoring U.S. strategic posture to new and emerging requirements as the world moves closer to a proliferation tipping point.

Coicaud presents a thoughtful and wide-ranging survey of the UN’s contribution to peacekeeping and world politics after the Cold War.

A major work from a seminal figure in the field of conflict resolution, Building Peace is John Paul Lederach's definitive statement on peacebuilding. Marrying wisdom, insight, and passion, Lederach explains why we need to move beyond "traditional" diplomacy, which often emphasizes top-level leaders and short-term objectives, toward a holistic approach that stresses the multiplicity of peacemakers, long-term perspectives, and the need to create an infrastructure that empowers resources within a society and maximizes contributions from outside.

Sophisticated yet pragmatic, the volume explores the dynamics of contemporary conflict and presents an integrated framework for peacebuilding in which structure, process, resources, training, and evaluation are coordinated in an attempt to transform the conflict and effect reconciliation.

Building Peace is a substantive reworking and expansion of a work developed for the United Nations University in 1994. In addition, this volume includes a chapter by practitioner John Prendergast that applies Lederach's conceptual framework to ongoing conflicts in the Horn of Africa.

The concept of a “middle ground” between simple peace enforcement and traditional peacekeeping by lightly armed observers has been both ill defined and controversial. But the authors of this thoughtful yet challenging volume make a strong case for both the practicability and the desirability of such operations.

“Coercive inducement”—the term was suggested by Kofi Annan, when he was undersecretary general for peacekeeping—is a form of coercive diplomacy that relies more on the deployment and demonstration of military force than on the use of force per se. In the absence of such an option, the international community finds it hard to respond to a variety of crises, including ones that can spiral into genocide.

After first laying out general principles, the book explores four recent UN operations (in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Haiti) in which coercive inducement was particularly relevant, and then presents operational guidelines for its use. Clear-sighted and pragmatic throughout, the authors conclude by suggesting when and to what extent the international community should commit itself to undertake coercive inducement.

Presents broad guidelines and specific prescriptions for combating serious crime in societies emerging from conflict.

Distinguished scholars, criminal justice practitioners, and former senior officials of international missions examine the experiences of countries that have recently undergone transitions from conflict with significant international involvement.

Examines the UN Security Council’s new, expansive exercise of legal authority in the post-Cold War period and its devising of bold and innovative methods—coercive and noncoercive—to stop nascent wars and “threats to the peace,” including international terrorism.

A comparative study of the policies, strategies, and instruments employed by various democratic governments in the fight against terrorism.

Can Russia and the United States really move beyond their bitter Cold War rivalry to a genuinely cooperative relationship?

Addressing an increasingly important and greatly understudied phenomenon in international affairs, this groundbreaking volume analyzes the formation, actions, and efficacy of groups of states created to support UN peacemaking and peace operations. While these groups—Friends of the Secretary-General and related mechanisms—may represent just one small component of the United Nations’ increased involvement in conflict management, they have fast become a critical element in today’s system of global-security governance.

Bringing to the study a rare combination of both a scholarly eye and an insider’s perspective of the United Nations, Teresa Whitfield provides an overview of the types of groups and coalitions that have been actively engaged in issues of peace and security within the UN sphere and identifies five core factors for their success. She also offers case studies of El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Georgia, Western Sahara, and East Timor, illustrating in a comparative manner the utility and limitations of groups of Friends under widely different conditions. She ultimately arrives at conclusions and presents recommendations that will no doubt prove vital to policymakers when deciding whether to form a group of Friends or another more informal coalition. Indeed, the study provides compelling evidence for the impact—both positive and negative—that external political intervention can have on peace processes.

An original, important, and timely study, Friends Indeed? adds substantially to the literature on international conflict resolution and the role of international organizations in resolving crisis. Perhaps more significant, it greatly furthers understanding of how and in what circumstances the United Nations secretary-general and secretariat can work productively with groups of states in the resolution of conflict.