Contemporary Security Studies
About the Book Series
This series focuses on new research across the spectrum of international peace and security, in an era where each year throws up multiple examples of conflicts that present new security challenges in the world around them.
Examining the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: Navigating the Security-Development Nexus
1st Edition
By Zdeněk Rod
July 27, 2026
This book examines how Provincial Reconstruction Teams sought to stabilise Afghanistan’s provinces by combining security operations with reconstruction and development initiatives during 2002–15. Drawing on extensive academic and policy literature, as well as interviews with practitioners and ...
Violence, Coercion, and the Politics of State Capture: Elites and Armed Actors in Vulnerable and Fragile States
1st Edition
Edited
By Federico Manfredi Firmian
June 16, 2026
This edited volume examines how political violence and coercion are central to state capture. Departing from accounts that largely emphasize economic influence, corruption, and institutional weakness, this volume demonstrates how armed force, intimidation, and repression can be decisive in enabling...
Values and Ethics in Russia's War Against Ukraine: The Axiological Dimension of Conflict
1st Edition
Edited
By Cezary Smuniewski, Przemysław Wywiał, Błażej Bado
May 29, 2026
This volume focuses on the role of ideas in Russia's war against Ukraine and contains interdisciplinary analyses of the values that have shaped and sustained Ukrainian resistance. The book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of Russia's war against Ukraine from the perspective of values and ethics...
Finland in NATO: Perspectives on Strategy
1st Edition
Edited
By Tommi Koivula, Matti Puranen, Antti Seppo
March 23, 2026
This edited volume offers a detailed analysis of Finland’s transformation from neutrality to a pivotal NATO member following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. With contributions from scholars and military practitioners, the volume fills a critical gap in the literature by focusing on Finland’s ...
The Rise of US Military Legalism: A New Theory of Military Professionalism
1st Edition
By Doyle K. Hodges
November 25, 2025
This book introduces and explains the concept of military legalism, and analyzes its importance for US military decision-making. The book documents a change over the past 50 years in the way in which US military officers make decisions about using force, which it calls "military legalism". Rather ...
Reinterpreting Russia's Strategic Culture: The Russian Way of War
1st Edition
By Nicolò Fasola
October 27, 2025
This book analyses the categories of thought underpinning Russia’s strategic decision-making and military operations, unpacking their nature, development, and interaction. The work argues that mainstream Western analysis of Russian military and strategic behaviour is affected by two limitations: ...
Defending NATO’s Northern Flank: Power Projection and Military Operations
1st Edition
Edited
By Lon Strauss, Njord Wegge
July 31, 2025
This book investigates several aspects of military power and security in the North Atlantic and Arctic regions. NATO’s northern flank is a large maritime and littoral theatre, where NATO directly borders Russia’s Northern Fleet Military Administrative Territory, which is the location of some of ...
War Narratives in Post-Conflict Societies: Keeping the Past Alive in the former Yugoslavia
1st Edition
By Michal Mochtak
June 27, 2025
This book studies war narratives and their role in the political arenas of post-conflict societies, with a focus on the former Yugoslavia. How do politicians in postwar societies talk about the past war? How do they discursively represent vulnerable social groups created by the conflict? Does the ...
The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict and War Crimes: Challenges for Documentation and International Prosecution
1st Edition
Edited
By Patrycja Grzebyk, Dominika Uczkiewicz
October 07, 2024
This book offers a multidisciplinary examination of the international crimes committed in the Russia-Ukraine War, and the challenges of their prosecution and documentation. As the largest international armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia’s war against Ukraine has provoked strong ...
Contesting Torture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
1st Edition
Edited
By Rory Cox, Faye Donnelly, Anthony Lang Jr.
May 27, 2024
This edited volume seeks to contest prevailing assumptions about torture and to consider why, despite its illegality, torture continues to be widely employed and misrepresented. The resurgence of torture and public justifications of it led to the central questions that this inter-disciplinary ...
Security Cooperation between Western States: Openness, Security and Autonomy
1st Edition
By Olivier Lewis
May 27, 2024
This book examines security cooperation between Western states. Security cooperation occurs between Western (i.e. European and North American) states as a coping mechanism, as an imperfect substitute for integration. The book investigates the reasons for cooperation, what Aristotle called the ‘...
Serbian Paramilitaries and the Breakup of Yugoslavia: State Connections and Patterns of Violence
1st Edition
By Iva Vukušić
May 27, 2024
This is the first book to offer a comprehensive analysis of the emergence, nature, and function of Serbian paramilitary units during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. The book investigates the nature and functions of paramilitary units throughout the 1990s, and their ties to the state and ...