the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the worlds most powerful state, and then used that power to initiate wars against smaller countries in the Middle East and South Asia.
According to balanceofpower theorythe bedrock of realism in international relationsother states should have joined together militarily to counterbalance the United States rising power.
Yet they did not. Nor have they united to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China Sea or Russian offensives along its western border.
This does not mean balanceofpower politics is dead, argues renowned international relations scholar T, V. Paul instead it has taken a different form, Rather than employ familiar strategies such as active military alliances and arms buildups, leading powers have engaged in “soft balancing,” which seeks to restrain threatening powers through the use of international institutions, informal alignments, and economic sanctions.
Paul places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective, from the postNapoleonic era to todays globalized world, This book offers an illuminating examination of how subtler forms of balanceofpower politics can help states achieve their goals against aggressive powers without wars or arms races.
T. V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the department of Political Science at McGill University, Paul specializes and teaches courses in international relations, especially international security, regional security and South Asia, He is the author or editor ofbooks all published through major university presses and nearlyjournal articles or book chapters.
T. V. Paul was elected as theth President of International Studies Association and on March,he took charge as ISA President for.
He delivered the presidential address on the theme: “Recasting Statecraft: International Relations and the Strategies of Peaceful Change, ” In the presentation, he called for the International Relations discip T, V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the department of Political Science at McGill University, Paul specializes and teaches courses in international relations, especially international security, regional security and South Asia, He is the author or editor ofbooks all published through major university presses and nearlyjournal articles or book chapters.
T. V. Paul was elected as theth President of International Studies Association and on March,he took charge as ISA President for.
He delivered the presidential address on the theme: “Recasting Statecraft: International Relations and the Strategies of Peaceful Change, ” In the presentation, he called for the International Relations discipline and its theoretical paradigms to devote attention to strategies for achieving enduring peace among states.
As ISA president, he spearheaded the Global South Task Force whose report and recommendations were adopted by the ISA Governing Council in San Francisco in March.
Paul was born in the Indian state of Kerala Mevellor, Kottayam District on November,and his early education was at institutions in Kerala.
He completed his Masters in Political Science from Maharajas College, Ernakulum affiliated to Kerala University inand then worked as a journalist for the Press Trust of India PTI news agency in New Delhi fromtill.
During this period, he completed his MPhil from the School of International Studies SIS, Jawaharlal Nehru University, From Julytill Julyhe spent a year at the University of Queensland, Australia, as a research scholar, In Julyhe was admitted to graduate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA from where he completed his PhD in Political Science in June.
In September, he began his teaching career at McGill University where he was appointed as an assistant professor, promoted and tenured to associate professor in, and full professor in.
In, he was awarded the prestigious James McGill chair, instituted in the name of the universitys founder, He has been a visiting professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, visiting scholar at the APEC Study Center, University of California, Berkeley, East West Center, Honolulu, Center for International Affairs CFIA and the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, and James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey.
He was the founding Directorof the McGill University of Montreal Center for International Peace and Security Studies CIPSS, which originated from the Research Group in International Security REGIS which he co directed for over a decade.
Betweenandhe served as the Chair of the International Security Studies Section ISSS of the International Studies Association ISA and duringas ISAs Vice President.
Currently, he serves as the editor of Georgetown University Press South Asia in World Affairs book series and on the editorial boards of many scholarly journals.
He has travelled widely and given scores
of seminars at leading academic institutions worldwide, Paul has made a number of contributions to the study of international relations, especially broader international security and South Asia.
He is especially known for rigorous puzzle driven scholarship utilizing case studies as opposed to paradigms, He has been a proponent of eclectic modeling which he uses in several of his works, He is also a conceptual innovator and has made contributions to topics such as asymmetric conflicts, soft balancing, tradition of nuclear non use, and status accommodation of rising powers.
His first major book: Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers Cambridge University Press,was pioneering as it addresses a neglected question of materially weake sitelink.