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In its efforts to secure the unipolar New World Order and its continued dominance of the system, the United States considered it paramount to establish control over major oil resources (the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea). In the Persian Gulf, the United States established successfully a substantial military presence. In the Caspian Sea, American oil and gas companies signed so many energy exploration, exploitation and exportation agreements that they gave Washington a seemingly legitimate claim of real interest in that region. By planning to move its Encerlik military base (in Turkey) to Abshuran (in the Azerbaijan Republic), and by adding the Russian Federation to NATO’s central committee, the United States enabled eastward expansion of NATO to the Caspian Sea.

This paper provides a contextualised review of research in the area of humanitarian and emergency relief logistics, providing insights with particular emphasis on lessons learned. The paper tracks the evolution of research against the development of partner networks and key global events; information was collated and assimilated from cross-cutting themes such as disaster preparedness, emergency response structures and the transferability of commercial-world concepts and principles (such as sustainability) into volatile and fragile environments. It concludes by suggesting possible future challenges which could steer humanitarian response on the ground and will influence the path of academic research going forward.

The paper provides a general review of work undertaken in the area of Humanitarian Logistics. Use is made of vignettes of case studies in order to provide focus to the discussion and to highlight key issues that emerged from the research reviewed.

The findings show that there are several new areas of research which will need to be addressed in the humanitarian logistics arena. The discussion demonstrates that research into crisis response is arguably even more important today than it has been previously. Research therefore likely needs to be expanded considerably over the next decade and beyond.

This paper contextualises and synthesises past research into humanitarian logistics responses, highlights key themes and suggests areas for further research.

Recently, inland Chinese regions have become the major manufacturing base for most manufacturing firms. Accordingly, with this change, many shipping companies attempted to provide proper logistics service activities to maintain their business. Hence, this study aims to empirically examine the logistics service preference segments for Chinese landlocked regions from a manufacturer's perspective. By understanding these attributes, not only shipping companies but also logistics companies can provide proper service to their customers.

The preliminary logistics service attributes are determined using an interview and in-depth questionnaire with logistics experts from the local private and government sectors in southwest China and few international logistics coordinators. This study conducted importance-performance analysis (IPA) and used a customer dissatisfaction attitude index to evaluate the priorities for improving logistics service attributes. Cluster analysis is subsequently performed to group respondents on the basis of their factor scores.

Five crucial logistics service dimensions were identified by the factor analysis, namely, packing and storage, logistics supporting, logistics information, transportation planning and information inquiry. The results also revised the IPA model. The top five service attributes that needed to be improved were carrier selection, ship scheduling inquiry, route planning and inquiry, cargo receiving station and freight forwarding. By applying the factor analysis, this study reduced the 27 logistics attributes derived from the literature review to five underlying critical factors.

This study contributes to the inland logistics by investigating the preferences of manufacturers in Chinese landlocked regions. Moreover, in land logistics in China is lacking in the literature; hence, several important implications can be derived from this study's results.

Ethnic conflicts and their links to international human trafficking have recently received a surge in international attention. It appears that ethnic conflicts exacerbate the internal displacement of individuals from networks of family and community, and their access to economic and social safety nets. These same individuals are then vulnerable to being trafficked by the hopes of better economic prospects elsewhere. In this chapter, we empirically examine this link between ethnic fragmentation, conflicts, internally displaced persons, refugees, and international trafficking, making use of a novel dataset of international trafficking. We conduct a direct estimation, which highlights the ultimate impact of ethnic fragmentation and conflict on international trafficking through internal and international displacements.

With the world gradually evolving into a global economy, Africa is playing an increasing role both as a major supplier of commodities and a huge consumer market for products from other parts of the world. Hence, it has become necessary for organisations to understand logistics and supply chain management (SCM) practices in Africa. For organisations that operate in Africa or have business dealings in Africa, it has become a strategic competitive priority to understand the current state of logistics in Africa and identify the challenges and opportunities inherent in the system. Finally, it is essential to learn how to overcome the challenges and maximise the opportunities. This chapter provides a historical and contextual basis for some of the logistics and SCM practices in sub-Saharan Africa. It reviews the current state of logistics management in Africa and identifies the challenges and opportunities that confront anyone interested in doing business in Africa. We reviewed the indigenous management practices that pervade the logistics discipline and highlighted cultural, unique and anecdotal evidence of practices and characteristics peculiar to the African countries. In addition, a comparative analysis of the logistic performance of countries in the region was provided to help readers situate the discussion. We concluded the discussion with some practical suggestions on how to get the best out of the African logistics system.

German tourists have accounted for the largest international arrivals on Majorca Island, Spain, for decades. This research intends to understand the trip patterns of German outbound tourists to Majorca. The study takes two different types of surveys at two different consumption stages. The first is to use self-administrated questionnaires to collect the general travel data from those who are taking their trip on Majorca. The second is to deploy a face-to-face interview to measure the current use patterns of those who were returning back to Germany. Results of this research show that more than 84% of German tourists using a rental car regarded renting a car as important or very important for discovering the island and making excursions around the island. Moreover, tourists spend more money in places that are not directly located at the beaches and notably, support the economy of less frequently visited places on Majorca.

The purpose of this paper is to look to new opportunities that may be available to the nations comprising Central Asia. The region has recovered only slowly since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Based on secondary data from reports by the UN, ADB and other NGOs, academic papers and the press, a quasi‐mathematical equation is used to illustrate how infrastructure development is dependant on many factors. From this analysis the importance of the transportation sector for future growth is discerned. Historical detractors are noted and drivers for the future are discussed.

The paper finds that Central Asia's future growth and prosperity would be based on a robust redevelopment of all its infrastructures but primarily on the implementation of Maglev high speed rail systems to move freight quickly internally and for Eurasian transit.

Well‐integrated transport infrastructures enhance local wellbeing. The interconnectedness and interdependence of globalised economies depend on transport, but other aspects of the total infrastructure local and regional must be integrated to achieve growth. In the case of Central Asia it is seen that an accord between the Presidents is needed to ensure regional cooperation, which will lead to Eurasian cooperation.

The region has been forgotten, to some extent, by the global community, yet it has great potential to become again an important transportation hub between Europe and Asia. The value of the paper is in noting the push of many NGOs towards regional integration, which may be best approached, we suggest, from an initial investment in its transportation infrastructure.

The Incheon Region has numerous assets that fall within a Pentaport model.' These include the Incheon International Airport, the Port of Incheon, a coastal industrial park, free economic zones, a leisure port, and Songdo new town designed to be the future Silicon Valley of Korea. This paper looks at how Northeast Asia trade flows between China and Korea might be enhanced by application of the Pentaport model in making the Incheon region a North East Asian Hub. It looks also at their trade and logistics systems as well as their water borne commerce. It proposes an integrated transportation system for the Yellow Sea Region being beneficial to the economies of the Northeast Asia. It also stresses that innovative technologies for ships, terminals and cargo handling systems should be introduced to develop a competitive short sea shipping system in the region and cooperation among the regional countries will be essential to achieve the final goal. The potential of methods of container shipping is discussed as it might apply to short sea shipping in the Yellow Sea Region that could greatly facilitate Incheon's situation with respect to the broader region in application of the Pentaport model.