SpringerBriefs in International Relations – serie

In the context of rapid developments in Turkey and its broader geopolitical environment over the past decade, this book examines and conceptualises Turkey’s changing foreign policy towards a more assertive and revisionist paradigm. More specifically it details the rhetorical and practical-political content of what is termed ‘Lausanne Syndrome’; namely, Turkey’s efforts in recent years – under the AKP government – to revise the geopolitical status quo brought about by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) in its broader neighbourhood.By employing a Neoclassical Realist theoretical framework and paying particular attention to ideational factors, the book argues that, contrary to the more widely known ‘Sèvres Syndrome’, which predicts a more cautious brand of Turkish foreign policy, the ‘Lausanne Syndrome’ is associated with a different political-ideological current and predicts a more revisionist type of foreign policy behaviour, even though it has emerged out of the same historical circumstances and been triggered by the same external geopolitical factors. The impact of the ‘Lausanne Syndrome’ on Turkey’s foreign policy behaviour is subsequently tested in four case studies from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East: Cyprus, Libya, Syria, and Iraq.

This book examines the geostrategic alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean and MENA regions. It analyzes how these alliances transcend stereotyped political and cultural prototypes throughout western Eurasia as the outcome of shifting regional power balances. The authors explain how this development has its foundation mostly in the United States' ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy, resulting in a lower priority ranking of the Middle East for Washington, but also in the emergence of China’s economic incursion on the wider region.The book looks into and presents different reasons for this paradigm shift: First and foremost, the historical ambitions and conflicting assertions of sovereignty in the region. Then, competition over control of hydrocarbons reserves and pipeline politics, civil wars, and political chaos in certain littoral states. US retrenchment and Russia’s naval base expansion in Syria, as well as Turkish expansion in Libya, NATO allies divisions and, not to reckon with, waves of migration and refugees. Yet some internal and external factors could lead to some changes in these trends, including the need to engage in energy transitions due to climate change consequences in the region.Therefore, this book is a must-read for scholars, students, policy-makers, and practitioners interested in a better understanding of the political development in the Eastern Mediterranean and MENA regions, as well as of International Relations in general.

Based on detailed empirical evidence, this book investigates the dynamic nature of individual sanctions measures, their multi-layered objectives as a foreign policy tool, their effects on the targeted economies and governments, and how targeted states respond to them.

As the war in Ukraine enters its fourth year, this book critically examines the strategies employed by the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) in their support of Ukraine.

This Brief revisits the question of whether states tend to resist a threatening adversary. It begins by assessing one influential contribution to the debate that offers an elegant reformulation of the problem, and then advances a plausible alternative analytical framework. It surveys three situations in which several states faced the choice of mobilizing against or aligning with a prospective aggressor. In each case, proximity to the expansionist state and the clarity of the danger it posed to the existing order might well have prompted adjacent states to engage in balancing. The fact that balancing did not predominate in any of these situations challenges the orthodox view of how states respond to evident threats and compels a reconsideration of the circumstances under which bandwagoning is likely to occur in the anarchic international arena.Building on influential studies of bandwagoning in international politics, the volume reassesses states' responses to aggressive adversaries. It offers an alternative explanation for why states often—indeed, usually—choose not to resist aggressors, and illustrates this argument by revisiting East Asia in 1931 and Central and Eastern Europe in 1938. It also provides a new perspective on the reactions of the Arab Gulf states to the abrogation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

This Brief provides a detailed exploration of a modified “escalation ladders” model as applied to state-sponsored targeted killings in the post-Cold War political landscape. Using a modified version of Herman Kahn's "ladders of escalation," the authors offer a systematic comparison of the components and features of multiple state-sponsored killing programs. The Brief begins with a historical overview of the creation of escalations ladders in the 1950s and 1960s, their original applications in conflicts between nuclear superpowers, and their discontinuation in the wake of the end of the Cold War. The second part illustrates how the modified Ladders of Escalation model can be utilized in various national intelligence agencies, through international case studies: Russia, Israel, the United States, India, and France. In the third section, the authors draw parallels between the models, ending with further discussion on how Ladders of Escalation can support, or even improve, current intelligence practices. Providing a new and valuable theoretical framework for analyzing political violence, this Brief will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, critical security studies, intelligence studies, as well as intelligence professionals and human rights practitioners.

This book examines, with a particular emphasis on Brazil, how Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) intertwined with its economic diplomacy toward Latin America between 1960 and 2001. Using a neorealist lens and a comparative design that links ODA time series to trade balances and inward foreign direct investment, the book tests the correlation between aid, trade, and investment. It documents the roles of state agencies—MOFA, MITI/METI, JETRO, JBIC/JICA—and the sogo shosha in expanding productive capacities and generating persistent trade surpluses with the region. One of its core contributions is the periodization of four policy moments—war reparations (1945–1960), export-promotion aid (1960–1970), aid as a diplomatic resource (1970–1980), and aid as a foreign-policy instrument (1980–2001)—that explain the shift from postwar cooperation to active economic diplomacy. By moving beyond descriptive inventories to a causal account of ODA as a mechanism of economic insertion, the book provides historical evidence and an analytical scaffold for reassessing Japan–Latin America relations in the 20th century and for reinterpreting the policy tools that made them possible.

This Brief addresses the intersection between diplomacy and cyberspace, with the chief aim of bringing conceptual clarity to an area that has become exponentially complex. Specifically, it proposes a novel categorization to organize this conceptual space into three interrelated domains: cyberdiplomacy, digital diplomacy, and tech diplomacy. The authors argue that these concepts - rather than used interchangeably - should be differentiated based on their orientation towards rationales of national security and norms for state conduct, dialogue and representation, and innovation and technological advancement, respectively. Underpinned by rigorous literature review, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and current examples from international politics, this Brief offers both an advanced introduction and contemporary guide to this topic.

This book contends that a pivotal effort to challenge the presumed uniqueness of the atomic bomb emerged with the United States’ adoption of the counterproliferation doctrine in 1993. For the first time, U.S. armed forces were explicitly tasked with preparing for limited wars against nuclear‑armed adversaries—an approach that marked a profound shift in how nuclear weapons were conceptualized.Building on an extensive review of U.S. government documents that defined and shaped the doctrine, the book also draws on interviews conducted shortly after its launch with senior analysts and officials directly involved in its development. Together, these sources offer an unparalleled view into the doctrine’s origins, rationale, and internal debates.In addition to tracing the doctrine’s evolution, the book situates it within its broader historical moment. It examines the academic and foreign‑policy discussions of the early 1990s that influenced the doctrine’s emergence and assesses the extent to which it reshaped strategic thinking inside the Pentagon. The analysis shows that, despite fostering a new mindset, the doctrine ultimately failed to achieve its core promise of improving U.S. military preparedness for limited wars against nuclear‑armed opponents.The book concludes that—even amid dramatic shifts in global power dynamics over the past three decades—early understandings of the atomic bomb as a uniquely devastating and fundamentally undefendable weapon remain compelling. Yet the counterproliferation doctrine left an enduring imprint: by asserting that wars against nuclear‑armed states are winnable and that the effects of nuclear weapons can be contained, it helped normalize the atomic bomb in U.S. strategic thought.

This book is for policy-makers navigating the digital transformation. Breaking through the previous asymmetrical distribution of technology and institutional power, China threatens the United States’ technology hegemony.

The authors examine this question from various perspective including conflict resolution theories, international relations theories, geopolitical theories, domestic and regional politics, regional security system, public opinion and national identity of Ukraine, etc.

This open access book delves into Japan's humanitarian aid efforts in Myanmar following the military coup of February 2021.