A country-by-country guide to the world. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, The CIA World Factbook 2017 offers complete and up-to-date information on the world’s nations. This comprehensive guide is packed with data on the politics, populations, military expenditures, and economics of 2016. For each country, The CIA World Factbook 2017 includes: • Detailed maps with new geopolitical data • Statistics on the population of each country, with details on literacy rates, HIV prevalence, and age structure • New data on military expenditures and capabilities • Information on each country’s climate and natural hazards • Details on prominent political parties and contact information for diplomatic consultation • Facts on transportation and communication infrastructure Also included are appendixes with useful abbreviations, international environmental agreements, international organizations and groups, weight and measure conversions, and more. Originally intended for use by government officials, this is a must-have resource for students, travelers, journalists, and businesspeople with a desire to know more about their world.

By intelligence officials for intelligent people

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, The CIA World Factbook 2016 offers complete and up-to-date information on the world’s nations. This comprehensive guide is packed with detailed information on the politics, populations, military expenditures, and economics of 2015. For each country, The CIA World Factbook 2016 includes: • Detailed maps with new geopolitical data • Statistics on the population of each country, with details on literacy rates, HIV prevalence, and age structure • New data on military expenditures and capabilities • Information on each country’s climate and natural hazards • Details on prominent political parties, and contact information for diplomatic consultation • Facts on transportation and communication infrastructure • And much more! Also included are appendixes with useful abbreviations, international environmental agreements, international organizations and groups, weight and measure conversions, and more. Originally intended for use by government officials, this is a must-have resource for students, travelers, journalists, and business people with a desire to know more about their world.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, The CIA World Factbook 2015 offers complete and up-to-date information on the world’s nations. This comprehensive guide is packed with detailed information on the politics, populations, military expenditures, and economics of 2015. For each country, The CIA World Factbook 2015 includes: Detailed maps with new geopolitical data Statistics on the population of each country, with details on literacy rates, HIV prevalence, and age structure New data on military expenditures and capabilities Information on each country’s climate and natural hazards Details on prominent political parties, and contact information for diplomatic consultation Facts on transportation and communication infrastructure And much more! Also included are appendixes with useful abbreviations, international environmental agreements, international organizations and groups, weight and measure conversions, and more. Originally intended for use by government officials, this is a must-have resource for students, travelers, journalists, and business people with a desire to know more about their world.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

The first book to offer a rigorous, sophisticated analysis of ISIS's rhetoric and why it is so persuasive ISIS wages war not only on the battlefield but also online and in the media. Through a close examination of the words and images ISIS uses, with particular attention to the "digital caliphate" on the web, Philippe-Joseph Salazar theorizes an aesthetic of ISIS and its self-presentation. As a philosopher and historian of ideas, well versed in both the Western and the Islamic traditions, Salazar posits an interpretation of Islam that places speech--the profession of faith--at the center of devotion and argues that evocation of the simple yet profound utterance of faith is what gives power to the rhetoric that ISIS and others employ. At the same time, Salazar contends that Western discourse has undergone a "rhetorical disarmament." To win the fight against ISIS and Islamic extremism, Western democracies, their media, politicians, and counterterrorism agencies must consider radically changing their approach to Islamic extremism.

In this new Brookings Marshall Paper, Michael O'Hanlon argues that now is the time for Western nations to negotiate a new security architecture for neutral countries in eastern Europe to stabilize the region and reduce the risks of war with Russia. He believes NATO expansion has gone far enough. The core concept of this new security architecture would be one of permanent neutrality. The countries in question collectively make a broken-up arc, from Europe's far north to its south: Finland and Sweden; Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; and finally Cyprus plus Serbia, as well as possibly several other Balkan states. Discussion on the new framework should begin within NATO, followed by deliberation with the neutral countries themselves, and then formal negotiations with Russia. The new security architecture would require that Russia, like NATO, commit to help uphold the security of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other states in the region. Russia would have to withdraw its troops from those countries in a verifiable manner; after that, corresponding sanctions on Russia would be lifted. The neutral countries would retain their rights to participate in multilateral security operations on a scale comparable to what has been the case in the past, including even those operations that might be led by NATO. They could think of and describe themselves as Western states (or anything else, for that matter). If the European Union and they so wished in the future, they could join the EU. They would have complete sovereignty and self-determination in every sense of the word. But NATO would decide not to invite them into the alliance as members. Ideally, these nations would endorse and promote this concept themselves as a more practical way to ensure their security than the current situation or any other plausible alternative.

From the world’s most sophisticated intelligence gathering organization, here is the CIA’s official country-by-country data on nations around the world. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, The CIA World Factbook 2020-2021 offers complete and up-to-date information on the world's nations. This comprehensive guide is packed with data on the politics, populations, military expenditures, and economics of 2020 and looks ahead to 2021. For each country, The CIA World Factbook 2020-2021 includes: Detailed maps with new geopolitical data Statistics on the population of each country, with details on literacy rates, HIV prevalence, and age structure New data on military expenditures and capabilities Information on each country's climate and natural hazards Details on prominent political parties and contact information for diplomatic consultation Facts on transportation and communication infrastructure Also included are appendixes with useful abbreviations, international environmental agreements, international organizations and groups, weight and measure conversions, and more. Originally intended for use by government officials, this is a must-have resource for students, travelers, journalists, and business people with a desire to know more about their world.

Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.