Encirclement, Andrea Bartoletti argues, is an essential strategic possibility of the international system and a key trigger of major war. Using historical case studies, Escaping the Deadly Embrace examines how great powers try to escape the two-front war problem and seek to preserve their security. Encirclement is a geographic variable that occurs in the presence of one or two great powers on two different borders of the surrounded great power. The surrounding great powers may not have the capacity to initiate a joint invasion. Yet their threatening presence triggers a double security dilemma for the encircled great power, which has to disperse its army to secure its borders. When the surrounding great powers become capable of launching a two-front attack, the encircled great power initiates war. This situation, disastrous in itself, can also lead to war contagion when other great powers intervene in the new conflict owing to the rival-based network of alliances. Combining archival work and historiographical analysis, Escaping the Deadly Embrace demonstrates the efficacy of this by assessing three major wars: the Italian Wars, the Thirty Years' War, and World War I. These findings, Bartoletti shows, have important implications for future major wars. Challenging the current focus on the US-China rivalry, he argues that the most concerning strategic scenario is the encirclement of China by India and Russia.

Reproduction of the original: Archibald Hughson by W.H.G Kingston

Organized by region, boasting an international roster of contributors, and including summaries of selected creative and critical works and a guide to selected terms and figures, Salhi's volume is an ideal introduction to French studies beyond the canon.

Over the five hundred or so years that man searched for an elusive sea passage from Europe to Asia through the North American land mass, dozens of ships were lost and hundreds of mariners died. Eventually, a sea route stretching through the waters of the archipelago and along Canada's mainland Arctic coast was pieced together. But could ships navigate the Northwest Passage to the extent that it could be used as an international shipping route? Two seagoing captains and their ships -- a Norwegian, Roald Amundsen, and a Canadian of Norwegian birth, Henry Asbjorn Larsen -- answered that question in the first half of the 20th century. The first part of this book recounts their successful efforts. The second part addresses the many unsettling environmental and sovereignty issues concerning the future of the Northwest Passage in this time of melting ice caps, glaciers and sea ice in the Arctic.

Published in 1934: This book describes his adventures and experiences among the Nomads of Central Asia.