S. Mahmud Ali – författare

After more than four decades the Cold War ended with the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost simultaneously China emerged as the new potential disruptor of international stability, with Beijing replacing Moscow as the key source of Western insecurity. Drawing upon extensive primary resources, Ali questions the logic behind this perception, reflected both in popular and academic literature. Disclosing hitherto unknown aspects of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, the text reveals a secret strategic alliance between the USA and China during the Cold War’s final decades. Presenting an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the two countries, the book identifies the bases on which the alliance emerged; the growing mutual concern of a ‘Soviet threat’. Using documentation from the three capitals, Ali presents a compelling tale of intrigue and conspiracy at the highest level of the international security system. The text brings a new dimension to the current literature and deepens our understanding of a key aspect of the Cold War – its end.

After more than four decades the Cold War ended with the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost simultaneously China emerged as the new potential disruptor of international stability, with Beijing replacing Moscow as the key source of Western insecurity. Drawing upon extensive primary resources, Ali questions the logic behind this perception, reflected both in popular and academic literature. Disclosing hitherto unknown aspects of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, the text reveals a secret strategic alliance between the USA and China during the Cold War’s final decades. Presenting an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the two countries, the book identifies the bases on which the alliance emerged; the growing mutual concern of a ‘Soviet threat’. Using documentation from the three capitals, Ali presents a compelling tale of intrigue and conspiracy at the highest level of the international security system. The text brings a new dimension to the current literature and deepens our understanding of a key aspect of the Cold War – its end.

This book examines the critical changes to the Asia-Pacific security architecture emerging in the context of shifts in the global order as the Obama Administration’s major strategic innovation and likely legacy unfold. The author reviews the state of the international security system during the Obama presidency, recording the Administration’s Asia-Pacific inheritance, and tracing its efforts to chart a collaborative course aimed at retaining US primacy amidst strategic turbulence. While security discourses are coloured by relative US ‘decline’ and China’s ‘rise,’ the book points out the competitive-cooperative complexity of interactions, with symbiotic economic ties moderating rivalry. Focusing on the military-security cutting edge of Sino-US dynamics, the narrative outlines the dangers posed by extreme nationalist dialectics in an interdependent milieu. It examines the policies of Japan, Australia, India and Russia towards the evolving Sino-US diarchy, while recording Washington’s and Beijing’s contrasting approaches to these allies and possible adversaries. The book concludes with observations on the loss of definition and clarity as the system evolves with multiple actors bidding for influence, and the need for statesmanship as the systemic fulcrum moves from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Asian Politics, American Politics, International Security and International Relations.

This text examines elite-insecurity perceptions in India, Pakistan and the USA in the 1950s. The book highlights the consequent linkages in alliance-building efforts and the subsequent triangular covert collaboration against Communist China, especially along Tibet's Himalayan frontiers. This secret alliance had an unexpected fall-out on the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. Lastly the book examines the divergence of Indo-Pakistani security policies along fundamental cleavages since the 1960s.

This book examines the critical changes to the Asia-Pacific security architecture emerging in the context of shifts in the global order as the Obama Administration’s major strategic innovation and likely legacy unfold. The author reviews the state of the international security system during the Obama presidency, recording the Administration’s Asia-Pacific inheritance, and tracing its efforts to chart a collaborative course aimed at retaining US primacy amidst strategic turbulence. While security discourses are coloured by relative US ‘decline’ and China’s ‘rise,’ the book points out the competitive-cooperative complexity of interactions, with symbiotic economic ties moderating rivalry. Focusing on the military-security cutting edge of Sino-US dynamics, the narrative outlines the dangers posed by extreme nationalist dialectics in an interdependent milieu. It examines the policies of Japan, Australia, India and Russia towards the evolving Sino-US diarchy, while recording Washington’s and Beijing’s contrasting approaches to these allies and possible adversaries. The book concludes with observations on the loss of definition and clarity as the system evolves with multiple actors bidding for influence, and the need for statesmanship as the systemic fulcrum moves from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Asian Politics, American Politics, International Security and International Relations.

This text examines elite-insecurity perceptions in India, Pakistan and the USA in the 1950s. The book highlights the consequent linkages in alliance-building efforts and the subsequent triangular covert collaboration against Communist China, especially along Tibet's Himalayan frontiers. This secret alliance had an unexpected fall-out on the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. Lastly the book examines the divergence of Indo-Pakistani security policies along fundamental cleavages since the 1960s.

Bangladesh, a Muslim majority nation with a population of some 154 million people, receives little notice in the West, other than when political upheaval or natural disasters bring it to our attention. In "Understanding Bangladesh", an account of the political and economic experiences of the Bangladeshi state and its people, S. Mahmud Ali seeks to redress that imbalance. His book identifies the key players among Bangladesh's tiny military, political and business elite, explores the attempts to establish their authority in a crowded field, and considers the relative merits of their attempts at nation-building. Ali concludes by outlining both the remarkable achievements recorded by this land of unusual narratives, and the elemental challenges its burgeoning populace faces in the years ahead, among which is a resurgent and highly politicized form of militant Islamism.

This book examines the evolution and major elements of China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), a trillion-dollar project for the revival and refinement of ancient terrestrial and maritime trade routes.

This book examines the evolution and major elements of China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), a trillion-dollar project for the revival and refinement of ancient terrestrial and maritime trade routes.

This book analyses international relations between the USA, China, and Russia and provides an overview of how the US-China-Russia triangle has evolved over time.

This book analyses international relations between the USA, China, and Russia and provides an overview of how the US-China-Russia triangle has evolved over time. Based on a forensic examination of primary documentation from US archives, the author illustrates how the US strategic perspectives on Chinese–Russian relations have developed since the late-19th century. The author demonstrates how US relations with the Russian and Chinese empires began expanding into greater sophistication and complexity in the 19th century, reflecting changing US concerns, priorities, and preferences vis-à-vis Sino-Russian dynamics which themselves, too, were evolving in parallel and, in some instances, in an interactive fashion. The book analyses US perceptions of Sino-Russian interactions in ways which, from the US perspective, affected US interests, either positively or negatively.

This book examines the causes and consequences of the dramatic shift in Japanese national security perspectives and mutually exclusive policies toward China and the USA. It sheds new light on the changing trajectories of triadic dynamics shaping U.S.-China-Japan strategic insecurity, their historical roots, its implications for trans-Pacific peace and stability, and their potential influence on emerging regional and systemic security architectures. Against the backdrop of U.S.-proclaimed "great power competition" with China as the defining feature and organizing principle of the U.S.-led coalition's strategic and geopolitical responses to China's "national rejuvenation," with primacy's "displacement anxiety" triggering a "systemic transitional fluidity," the book examines the origins and outcomes of Sino-Japanese insecurity, its polarizing effects on U.S.-China and U.S.-Japan relations, and the wider systemic resonances and dissonances as the post-Cold War unipolar systemic structure gives way to an uncertain, ambiguous, and imprecise successor regime. Finally, historical lessons drawn from primary documents are used to illuminate the prospects for triangular relations in shaping the Asia-Pacific security ecology over the medium term.

This book reveals the nature of Sino-US strategic competition by examining the influence exerted by major secondary stakeholders, e.g. Japan, Russia, India, the Koreas, and ASEAN, on the two powers, USA and its rival China, who consider each other as a source of greatest challenges to their respective interests. By adopting “strategic triangles” as the analytical framework and assessing triangular relational dynamics, such as US-China-Japan or US-China-Russia, the author illustrates how secondary stakeholders advance their own interests by exploiting their respective linkages to the two rivals, thereby, shaping Sino-US completive dynamics. This work adds a regional and multivariable perspective to the understanding of the Indo-Pacific’s insecurity challenges.

By adopting “strategic triangles” as the analytical framework and assessing triangular relational dynamics, such as US-China-Japan or US-China-Russia, the author illustrates how secondary stakeholders advance their own interests by exploiting their respective linkages to the two rivals, thereby, shaping Sino-US completive dynamics.

This book examines the nature and consequences of strategic competition between the US and China, which affects the global security landscape and the emerging security architecture across the broader Asia-Pacific region.