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Since its origins, in the context of the Cold War's beginning, NATO has been a robust defensive alliance, acting in accordance with UN Charter, as a collective defence structure based on solidarity and mutual trust. Nowadays it has 28 member states and one can say that it fulfilled its main role: to protect the West against communist/Soviet threats using the deterrence and containmemt tools. Neither USSR nor its main instrument, the Warsaw Pact dare to attack the Euro-Altantic area. Our main assumption is that because the specific national interests of each member state, because of the domestic-constitutional issues and bureaucratic obstacles, the Alliance cannot yet forge a common strategic culture for all its members and also lacks a common lens for detecting real risks and therats, be they nation states or non-states actors. Nowadays, Russia and Islamic State are the main adversaries for the Western states, thus NATO should be more effective in dealing with them. And there is a need for reform and transformation. Divergences between adepts of territorial defence and those of pro-active "out of area" missions go in addition to divergences concerning the neeed for increased defence budgets for all members and especially concering the attitude towards Russia. Moscow used economic and energy tools trying to divise some allies like Hungary, Greece and Bulgaria and it partially succeeded. Using some theories of alliances and of democratic peace, resorting to recent facts and figures related to NATO's activities and plans, will help the reader understand the problem of increasing the power vs. increasing the security dilemma and the prospect of future conflicts.

Lucrarea de față urmărește să contribuie la dezvoltarea culturii de securitate a publicului larg prin dezvoltarea unor aspecte generale legate de domeniul Intelligence, în special în condițiile actuale ale evoluției mediului de securitate, marcat decisiv de procesul de globalizare.

The work as a whole deal extensively with the historical-geographical, geopolitical and geostrategic context of the emergence and evolution of the North Atlantic Alliance, one of the most successful international security organizations, a true reference point within them, in order to identify possible scenarios of evolution and further transformation of NATO. The book is structured in 5 chapters, each chapter being divided into sub-chapters, points and sub-points; the work itself is preceded by a brief introduction in context, and concludes with some conclusions, an explanatory glossary of acronyms, terms and definitions with which we have worked throughout the work, the bibliography studied and some appendices. In the first two chapters (the theoretical part) we have presented the contextual situation regarding the emergence and evolution of NATO, anchored in a generic approach to the concept of alliance, the particular scope of the work being given by chapters 3, 4 and 5 (the applied part), to which we have devoted most of the space, in interesting conceptual-strategic and spatial-temporal analyses. The theoretical aspects are coupled with analytical applications and concrete syntheses, their originality being eloquent.

Nowadays, criticism of the UN is related to excessive bureaucracy, to the parallelism in the functions of many of its structures. In addition, the UN is accused of reacting more to crises than preventing them. The selective interest of the United Nations in conflicts in different regions of the world gives reasons to assert the presence in its activity of double standards. Especially, the UN authority has been greatly undermined by such events as the United States's actions in Iraq and Yugoslavia, after which many have questioned international law in general and United Nations, in particular. Thereat, there are a lot of statements that the United Nations is in the deepest crisis and there is a set of proposals and views on the content and essence of the need for UN reform. In this article, the author argues the opportunity of UN reform, elucidating some current gaps in the work of this international organization and coming up with concrete recommendations to remedy them.

by Chan, Cheuk-Wah. ; Thesis submitted in: August 1997. ; Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Abstract also in Chinese. ; Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- p.1. ; Chapter 1.1.-- --- The main theme ; Chapter 1.2. -- --- Theoretical background ; Chapter 1.2.1. -- --- The proper role of the state in the economy ; Chapter 1.2.2. -- --- Conception of the development state ; Chapter 1.2.3. -- --- Politics of defining the role of the state ; Chapter 1.2.4. -- --- The relative autonomy of the state ; Chapter 1.2.5. -- --- "The ISH Model-- Institutions, Strategic actions of agents, Historical contingencies" ; Chapter 1.2.6. -- --- The ISH Model and the economic dynamics in Hong Kong ; Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- p.22. ; Chapter 2 -- --- "Historical Background, Contingency and International Hurricane (from the mid of 1940s to the mid 1950s)" ; Chapter 2.1. -- --- Introduction ; Chapter 2.2. -- --- Historical background ; Chapter 2.3. -- --- Conflicts between China and the West (Korean War and Cold War) ; Chapter 2.4. -- --- Hong Kong's fluctuating economy and the colonial minimal government ; Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- p.44. ; Chapter 3. --- The Dynamics of the Process of Economic Restructuring and the Strategies of the Industrialists (1950s-60s) ; Chapter 3.1. -- --- Introduction ; Chapter 3.2. -- --- The path of economic restructuring ; Chapter 3.2.1. -- --- Profile of textiles industry ; Chapter 3.2.2.-- --- rofile of clothing industry ; Chapter 3.2.3. -- --- Profile of toys and plastic industry ; Chapter 3.3.-- --- Strategies of the Chinese industrialists ; Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- p.62. ; Chapter 4. --- Hong Kong Government's Role and Selective Interventions in the Economy ; Chapter 4.1. -- --- Introduction ; Chapter 4.2. -- --- Monetary/fiscal policy with colonial bias ; Chapter 4.3. -- --- Housing policy ; Chapter 4.4. -- --- Investment and trade promotion ; Chapter 4.5. -- --- Land and infrastructure development ; Chapter 4.6. -- --- Influences on the prices and ...