Hans-Joachim Gießmann Book order

Security Handbook is a series on regional security developments and cooperation. Security Handbook 2008 turns its face to Asia. India, Russia, and particularly China have become new challengers for the regional East Asian order. Distinguished analysts from the region, the U. S. and Europe reflect on causes, results and tendencies of recent power shifts. The analyses hint at risks and chances to employ the capability of emerging powers for the sake of regional stability and cooperation. Ironically, Russia’s, India’s and also China’s rises offer fewer risks than opportunities for resolving bilateral and regional conflicts and for mastering global challenges in a regional context. The provided picture is completed by reviewing the two “hot spots” in East Asia, and by a discussion of whether there should be a shaping role for a European actor or mediator in the region. A statistical appendix provides facts and figures for additional reference. The Editor, Prof. Dr. Dr. Hans J. Giessmann, is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) in Hamburg and Head of the Centre for European Peace and Security Studies (ZEUS). He is editor of the research book series “Demokratie, Sicherheit, Frieden” and member of the advisory board of the security-political journal “S+F. Sicherheit und Frieden – Security and Peace”.

Over a short period of time, the area of security in its traditional sense has witnessed consecutive tides of threats and challenges, which have caught the attention of researchers, politicians and the media. The interest and fascination of the security community has been stimulated by the successively long-term and complicated consequences of the disintegration of the Soviet empire, post-communist nationalism, ethnic, religious and other conflicts, humanitarian tragedies that called for international intervention, "rogueî nations and "failingî states, and finally, international terrorism. The unstable situation and its unpredictable development make it impossible to come up with a new paradigm of security and build a solid institutional infrastructure of international security. The Polish and German editors of this book have encouraged a group of renown international researchers to tackle this project. The authors look from different thematic and national perspectives at current problems of international security, grouped into four large "basketsî: Threats and challenges, new concepts, problems of security in the Euro-Atlantic zone and issues of arms control. The book is dedicated to Professor Adam Daniel Rotfeld, nowadays a State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland and formerly the Director of the Stockholm-based International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).