Bücher von Hall Gardner

This edited book will examine the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean from multidimensional geo-strategic, political-economic, socio-cultural/religious and demographic perspectives. It analyzes the conflicting geopolitical interests of the major and regional powers, as well as those of NATO and the European Union, with a focus on energy, democracy and corruption, shifts in population, as well as religious political influence. The authors argue that the US, NATO and EU leaderships can no longer afford to ignore the two regions ¿ if the increasing potential for conflict is to be averted. The Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean are returning to a major position in the contemporary geostrategic nexus since NATO began a new expansion into the Balkans by bringing Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in March 2020 into membership, after its previous expansion to Slovenia in NATO¿s ¿Big Bang¿ in 2004 and to both Albania and Croatia in 2009.

The whole Communist world is in the middle of a democratic revolution. Hall Gardner¿s novel depicts the protests taking place prior to the June 1989 Tiananmen Square repression¿a subject still taboo in China. Hired to teach English, Mylex H. Galvin records his experience in his ¿Anti-Marco Polö journal after he meets expats from around the world, while trying to come to grips with the Chinese language, history, and politics. Galvin becomes disillusioned with the poverty and environmental destruction that he finds in China; his barefoot doctor heroes are not capable of treating AIDS; Chinese and African students clash in Nanjing¿with no sense of international solidarity. As the democracy movement heats up, he is torn between the love of Tao Baiqing, a Daoist, and Mo Li, a student of English Lit, and unwittingly betrays the ties between the journalist, Hayford, and the democracy activist, Chia Pao-yüaccused of leaking ¿top secrets¿ to Hayford. As Galvin studies Chinäs relations with the Western world since Marco Polo, with emphasis on the ¿hundred years of humiliation,¿ he becomes haunted by nightmares of a ¿clash of civilizations¿ and warns against a coming Apocalyptic Color War between the Balding Eagle and the Chinese Dragon¿as the latter transmogrifies from Red into shades of Red-Brown-Black.

This book critically examines elements of America-First nationalism, neo-conservatism, neo-realism, neo-liberalism, environmental theories, and social constructionism by way of developing an "alternative realist" approach to the study of the origins of major power war. The author critiques concepts of "polarity" and "sovereign" decision making and diplomacy before developing the concept of "highly uneven polycentrism." The book then develops a unique comparative historical approach that seeks to compare and contrast the pre-World War I, pre-World War II, and Cold War eras with the contemporary post-Cold War period. It is argued that the US, as it remains the leading global hegemon, must fully engage in multilateral diplomacy with major friends and rivals alike in the establishment of differing forms of power sharing and joint sovereignty accords-in order to prevent the global system from polarizing into two contending alliances more reminiscent of both the pre-World War I and pre-World War II periods than the "new Cold War."

He contends that if NATO and Russia cannot reach a compromise over a new system of security in Central and Eastern Europe, then Russia could adopt an increasingly assertive Eurasian stance by more closely aligning with potentially anti-Western states such as Belarus, China, India, Iraq, and Iran.

It is increasingly important to understand the complexity of central and southeastern Europe following the enlargement of NATO into Central Europe, the ongoing problems of the Balkans, and the subsequent focus of global attention on the entire region.

Surviving the Millennium traces the rise of the U.S.-Soviet antagonism from its roots in the U.S.-tsarist Russian relationship and critically reexamines U.S. containment strategy during the Cold War.