Book Reviews

The Mini-Nuke Conspiracy by Peter Hounam and Steve McQuillan, London: Faber and Faber, (1995)

The Amateur Strategist: Intuitive Deterrence Theories and the Politics of the Nuclear Arms Race By James DeNardo, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995), (pbk) ISBN 0-521-48446-4

After Empire: The Emerging Geopolitics of Central Asia By Jed C. Snyder (ed.), Washington DC: National Defense University Press, (1995), 235 pp., ISBN 0-16-051682-x.     

The effect of terror on job stability among security guards

Palestinian uprising, ‘intifada’, aggravated the recession of 2001–2004 in Israel which dampened demand for labor in all industries except security services. We use this exogenous shock to study whether a cohort of young men who were attached to temporary jobs as security guards for unusually long periods of time during the intifada landed on an inferior career path, as compared to security guards from a pre-intifada cohort. We find that the intifada cohort had less employment mobility, were ultimately less connected with the labor market, and earned less on jobs after the security services, relatively to the pre-intifada cohort.     

Ukrainian and Belorussian dimensions of Turkmenistan foreign policy: small states in a multipolar world

As the USA continues to decline both in relative and absolute terms, the global order emerges where no center of power exists. This creates a complicated and instable geopolitical situation where small states could act behind the back of the great powers. The relationship between Turkmenistan and Ukraine is the example of this sort of relationship. Whereas Ukraine wants to get cheap gas, Turkmenistan wants to find the way to sell its gas to the West. It looks as though both countries pay little attention to Russian objection and act without direct help from either the USA or other great powers.