Content Type: Journal Article - CIAO Search Results

9601. The Arab Uprisings: Debating the "Turkish Model"

Author:: Alper Y. Dede
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Mass uprisings on the Arab streets have become the vehicle for reform as the availability of modern means of communication has enabled the Arab opposition to express their frustration caused by the stagnancy and inefficiency of the status quo-oriented authoritarian-bureaucratic regimes of the region. There is currently an ongoing debate about whether Turkey could become a model for the region with its growing economy, strengthening democracy, and spreading soft power due to Turkey's increasing popularity in the region and its warm relations with the Arab world. Thus, it is not Turkey's authoritarian secularism or its debacles in the process of democratization that has brought forth Turkey's prominence as a model. This article discusses what the Turkish model is, whether it is applicable to the rest of the region, and the potential risks of proposing Turkey as a model country for the region.
Topic:: Communications
Political Geography:: Turkey

9602. Turkey's "Demonstrative Effect" and the Transformation of the Middle East

Author:: Kemal Kirisci
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: A string of uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt followed by those in other countries have rekindled the issue of Turkey constituting a model for reform and democratization in the Arab world, a point raised by many Western and Arab commentators. Independent of this debate, what is lacking in the literature is an analysis of how come there is a “demand” for the Turkish model. This article develops the concept of a “demonstrative effect” and argues that it is this “effect” that makes the Turkish model of interest to the Middle East and that this “effect” is a function of three developments: the rise of the “trading state”, the diffusion of Turkey's democratization experience as a “work in progress”, and the positive image of Turkey's “new” foreign policy. The concluding part of the article discusses several challenges Turkey has to meet so that its “demonstrative effect” can have a positive impact.
Topic:: Cold War
Political Geography:: Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Hiroshima

9603. Beyond the Democratic Wave in the Arab World: The Middle East's Turko-Persian Future

Author:: Mohammed Ayoob
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: It is unlikely that the Egyptian revolution will have a major impact on the political and strategic landscape in the Middle East in the short and medium terms. Egypt, the Arab state with the greatest capacity to act regionally, will be tied down for a considerable period of time in getting its house in order and sorting out the relationship between the civilian and military components of the new political order. This means that the shift in the center of political gravity in the region from the Arab heartland comprising Egypt and the Fertile Crescent to what was once considered the non-Arab periphery – Turkey and Iran – which was becoming clearly discernible before the recent upheavals in the Arab world will continue. The shift in the strategic and political balance in the Middle East in favor of Turkey and Iran is the result of a combination of factors, some domestic, some regional and some global.
Political Geography:: Middle East, Arabia, and Egypt

9604. From Distance to Engagement: Turkish Policy towards the Middle East, Iraq and Iraqi Kurds

Author:: Mesut Ozcan
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Turkey's Middle East policy has witnessed revolutionary changes since 1999. The changes in the attitude of Turkey towards the region can be easily grasped by examining its policy towards Iraq. Today Ankara is an active player in the region using non-military means of diplomacy, such as economic tools and international conferences. This paper analyzes the changes in Turkish foreign policy towards Iraq through a framework of processes, means and outcomes. The article covers approximately the last ten years and looks at three turning points that triggered change. These turning points are the capture of the PKK leader Öcalan in 1999, Turkey's refusal to allow the transfer of US soldiers to Iraq in March 2003, and the Turkish responses to the PKK attack on the Aktütün military post on the Turkish-Iraqi border in October 2008. The article contends that as a result of the transformations in Turkey's foreign policy, it has become an indispensable actor in Middle Eastern politics.
Political Geography:: Iraq, Turkey, and Middle East

9605. Turkey as a Migration Hub in the Middle East

Author:: Secil Pacaci Elitok and Thomas Straubhaar
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This article focuses on Turkey's process of transition from a country of emigration to a country of immigration and transit. The paper is organized in the following way: After a brief introduction, the second part of the paper will analyze the pattern of emigration from Turkey and immigration to Turkey (from the EU and Middle East) in its historical context. In the third part, theoretical expectations and empirical considerations with respect to the potential for migration from Turkey within the context of possible EU membership are outlined. In this section, a critique of the available literature estimating the amount of potential migration from Turkey and projections on the possible future migration obstacles for Turkey- if it is not successful in its accession bid for the EU membership- are presented as well. The fourth and final part of the paper analyzes the challenges and opportunities for Turkey, as it waits at the EU's gates, in terms of migration and concludes with a call for a necessary change in Turkey's policy to improve the management of its migration policies.
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

9606. Trade among OIC Countries: Limits of Islamic Solidarity

Author:: Savas Alpay Atlamaz
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Since the early 1970s, member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have been pursuing the goal of enhancing economic and commercial cooperation to improve the economic linkages and coordination among themselves and to jointly act against the global challenges facing them. Special attention has been given to trade and considerable efforts have been exerted at various OIC forums to develop ways and means of joint cooperative action to increase trade among the OIC countries. Enhancing intra-OIC trade was also among the priorities of the Ten-Year Programme of Action, which set a target of a level of 20 percent for intra-OIC trade to be achieved during the period covered by the Programme (by 2015). It is with this inspiration that this study presents an analytical overview of the evolution and the current structure of the merchandise trade among the OIC countries. Also, broad policy recommendations are outlined to enhance intra-OIC trade.
Topic:: Islam

9607. Nevra Necipoglu, Byzantium Between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and Society in the Late Empire

Author:: John Haldon
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This volume is a welcome contribution to the study of the last centuries of the existence of the Byzantine state, the 'empire' that until its demise in 1453 had dominated the Bosphorus and the link between Europe and Asia Minor, even though its political authority was minimal from the early years of the 14th century. Yet authority and legitimacy aside (for the Byzantines always saw themselves as the legitimate heirs to the Roman empire) it exercised both a fascination for those around it as well as an having an importance and, until quite late on, an influence far in excess of its actual military or economic power. Necipoğlu's book focuses on the politics of the empire, more particularly on the ways in which different groups within the empire adopted, fought for, or abandoned particular views of their situation within Byzantine society and in the wider world, and more particularly in the context of the influence, cultural, military and economic, of the regional powers around it. The empire's Latin neighbors in the southern Balkans on the one hand, along with the central Balkan powers of Serbia and Bulgaria (albeit minimally for the period in question), and the rising Ottoman power in Asia Minor and then Thrace on the other hand, frame this portrait, and the chronology is set by the last almost-century of the empire's existence, from the 1360s and 1370s to the 1450s. But the author's real interest is not foreign relations or military events, but rather the ideological, one might even say psychological, make-up of the various groups and factions within Byzantium, especially in Constantinople, Thessaloniki and in the southern Peloponnese, which can be detected in the sources of the period.
Political Geography:: Europe, Asia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Balkans

9608. Britain, Turkey and the Soviet Union, 1940-45: Strategy, Diplomacy and Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean

Author:: Mustafa Sitki Bilgin
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Turkey, due to its geopolitical position, was subject to political and military pressures by the Great Powers during and immediately after World War Two. During the war, the Great Powers exerted substantial pressures on Turkey to obtain its compliance in operating the Straits policy in accordance with their own strategic interests. This situation led to collaboration and competition among the Great Powers. In fact, the rivalry and collaboration of the Great Powers in the eastern Mediterranean during these periods, and the interaction of British, Soviet and American policies with those of regional states, has been examined by a number of Turkish and foreign researchers in recent years. Nicholas Tamkin is one of these authors and he has meticulously trawled through British archives and other published and unpublished sources available in Britain to elucidate Turkey's role in British strategy and diplomacy during World War Two. He makes a significant contribution on the formulation of British foreign policy and wartime strategy towards Turkey with a special emphasis given on Turkey's place in the uneven relationship between Britain and the Soviet Union.
Political Geography:: Britain, Turkey, and Soviet Union

9609. Selen B. Morkoç, A Study of Ottoman Narratives on Architecture: Text, Context and Hermeneutics

Author:: Nina Ergin
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This volume is a welcome contribution to the study of the last centuries of the existence of the Byzantine state, the 'empire' that until its demise in 1453 had dominated the Bosphorus and the link between Europe and Asia Minor, even though its political authority was minimal from the early years of the 14th century. Yet authority and legitimacy aside (for the Byzantines always saw themselves as the legitimate heirs to the Roman empire) it exercised both a fascination for those around it as well as an having an importance and, until quite late on, an influence far in excess of its actual military or economic power. Necipoğlu's book focuses on the politics of the empire, more particularly on the ways in which different groups within the empire adopted, fought for, or abandoned particular views of their situation within Byzantine society and in the wider world, and more particularly in the context of the influence, cultural, military and economic, of the regional powers around it. The empire's Latin neighbors in the southern Balkans on the one hand, along with the central Balkan powers of Serbia and Bulgaria (albeit minimally for the period in question), and the rising Ottoman power in Asia Minor and then Thrace on the other hand, frame this portrait, and the chronology is set by the last almost-century of the empire's existence, from the 1360s and 1370s to the 1450s. But the author's real interest is not foreign relations or military events, but rather the ideological, one might even say psychological, make-up of the various groups and factions within Byzantium, especially in Constantinople, Thessaloniki and in the southern Peloponnese, which can be detected in the sources of the period.
Topic:: Disaster Relief
Political Geography:: Europe and Asia

9610. Amy Mills, Streets of Memory: Landscape, Tolerance and National Identity in Istanbul

Author:: Sibel Bozdogan
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Recent neoliberal/post-Kemalist shifts in Turkish culture and politics have ushered in, among other things, a rekindled interest in Istanbul’s cosmopolitan past and in the remaining vestiges of its historical urban fabric. While an increasingly sophisticated culture industry is mobilized to recast the former as an object of nostalgia for popular consumption, gentrification projects are transforming the social landscape of historical neighborhoods in new and often controversial ways. Amy Mills’s ethnographic study of Kuzguncuk offers a compelling account of these processes at work in a picturesque neighborhood on the Asian shores of the Bosporus, widely accepted to be the paradigm of multi-ethnic coexistence, neighborliness and aesthetic charm in a city that has lost most of these qualities to republican urban/social modernization during the latter half of the 20th century. As Mills uncovers in six thematic chapters, this image of Kuzguncuk as the idealized mahalle—as the embodiment of belonging and familiarity as well as ethnic/religious harmony and tolerance—in fact obscures deeper histories of discrimination, conflict and violence that went hand in hand with nationalism, “Turkification” and successive episodes of migration. “Nostalgia constitutes the flip side of silence”, writes Mills (p. 210), and Streets of Memory makes a convincing case of how cosmopolitan nostalgia, along with its silences, ultimately bolsters the very same Turkish nationalist narrative that it claims to contest.
Political Geography:: Istanbul

9611. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present

Author:: Mitat Çelikpala
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: With the assertion of being the first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Christopher Beckwith's Empires of the Silk Road is a complex and well argued book. Beckwith unites the history of the peoples of the world's largest landmass into a remarkable history by describing the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires such as the Scythians, the Huns, the Turks, and the Mongols under Genghis Khan.
Political Geography:: Eurasia

9612. The Borders of Islam: Exploring Samuel Huntingtons's Faultlines, from Al-Andalus to the Virtual Ummah

Author:: Numan Telci
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: The Borders of Islam gives an insider's view of the so-called “Islam's bloody borders” through an examination of the countries that straddle two cultures/civilizations from across various regions. The book makes an enormous contribution to debates on “clash of civilizations” by critically examining various cases of war and conflict, which is one of the key elements of the thesis formulated by Samuel Huntington and popularized by the media. Hansen, Mesoy and Kardas take on Huntington's main thesis with an aim to falsify it. The book stands out as one of the strongest counter-arguments to the main premises of the clash of civilizations thesis. It does so by arguing that the clash sometimes is constructed, as is the case of various internal and external conflicts taking place in and around Iraq, or it neglects the division within the Islamic civilization, as is the case with Lebanon where the Sunnis have a different agenda than the Shiite Muslims, or that the clash between Muslims and Christians is not necessarily religiously-driven in Nigeria, Ethiopia or Sudan. While laying out this argument, the book sets out to understand whether religion could be considered as the most tangible source of conflicts involving groups that hold different religious faiths.
Political Geography:: Sudan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, and Nigeria

9613. The Almohads: The Rise of an Islamic Empire

Author:: Amira K. Bennison
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: As a dynasty based in medieval North Africa and southern Spain, the Almohads have received relatively little attention from Anglophone scholars in Islamic Studies, many of whom work from a Middle Eastern perspective. Allen Fromherz's book is thus a very welcome contribution to the field. His over-arching aim is to present an account of the rise of the Almohads by looking at the Almohad movement's leader, Muḥammad b. Tūmart; the Maṣmūda Berber tribal environment in which the empire arose; and the doctrines by which Ibn Tūmart galvanised these tribes from the High Atlas mountains of Morocco.
Political Geography:: Spain, North Africa, and Morocco

9614. Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam

Author:: Yossef Rapoport
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This brilliant, eloquent and insightful book is not, despite its title, a provocative one. It does not claim that in Islam being a wife is like being a slave. Nor does it support the overly simplistic view of an egalitarian ethical Islamic core corrupted by social hierarchies. Instead, the author brings to the fore a very rich legal discourse, dating from the early centuries of Islam, in which the rights of wives and the rights of slaves are repeatedly compared and analysed in relation to each other. This discourse, the author shows, was central to the way the major Sunni jurists understood what rights and duties are entailed in marriage.
Topic:: Islam

9615. A History of the Middle East: From Antiquity to the Present Day

Author:: Bezen Balamir Coskun
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: The Lebanese economist and historian Corm has written a timely book contributing to our understanding of a Middle East which is marked by complexities and conflicts. By putting the region's long history into perspective, Corm aims to help reader go beyond the stereotypes that the media and many Western and Middle Eastern policymakers seem to use to legitimatize the violence that has taken over the region for over two centuries.
Political Geography:: Middle East

9616. Identités culturelles et citoyenneté européenne. Diversité et unité dans la construction démocratique de l'Europe

Author:: Enes Kabakçı
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This book brings together ten articles that were presented at a regional conference series on “Cultural Identities and European Citizenship” organized by the Forum Europe des Cultures. Forum Europe des Cultures, an organization founded in Brussels in 2003 (see pp. 149-151 for its brief foundation history, objectives, members and activities), aims to uncover the question of how cultural identities could be recognized, one of the most debated issues in the process of European integration, by organizing six neoconferences in one year in Bruges, Rennes, Strasbourg, Santarem, Corfu and Brussels.
Political Geography:: Europe

9617. Religious Pluralism, Globalization and World Politics

Author:: Nukhet Ahu Sandal
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: As the link between religion and international affairs has come under special scrutiny especially since 9/11, there has been an increase in the number of books and articles that investigate the issues of the public sphere from a faith-based perspective. Edited books have especially enjoyed considerable attention since they bring diverse voices in manageable bits. Some have explored theoretical links between international relations and religion, while others have drawn attention to more practical issues on the ground. Thomas Banchoff's Religious Pluralism, falling between these purely theoretical and completely practical projects, is a book worth reading especially given the diverse backgrounds of the 12 scholars it brings together. These contributors draw attention to the multiple roles religious actors have been playing in the international arena. Religious ideas constitute a market with its supply and demand side and the volume explores the actors, obstacles and possibilities in such a market. Especially with the trauma of 9/11 —and one can make the argument that the trauma actually started with the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran— there has been a disproportionate attention given to the violent manifestations of religion. Therefore, the acknowledgement of the constructive role of faith-based initiatives can still be considered a relatively new topic both to the academic and policy worlds. The authors discuss a number of contentious issues that have been subject to heated debates but due to the space limitations that pose a challenge to a thorough review of edited volumes, only a couple of issues are highlighted in this essay.
Topic:: International Relations and Islam
Political Geography:: Iran

9618. The Ethos of Europe: Values, Law and Justice in the EU

Author:: Dario Castiglione
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Although the analysis offered in this book is not very innovative in its details, the overall project is of some originality. Andrew Williams's main contention is that the EU project has developed its own institutional ethos, and that this is the product of both the entrenchment in European public discourse of a number of values, and of the way in which the European legal system (and its underlying philosophy) promotes and protects such values. Williams, however, is critical of the particular ethos that to date has supported the EU polity since he finds it partly incoherent in the articulation of its central values, and relatively uncommitted in the way in which it sustains them. The ethos's incoherence lies, in his view, in the way in which the values at the heart of the EU project are both ambiguous and indeterminate; while the lack of commitment is the product of the half-hearted way in which the institutional framework (in particular European law) supports a public philosophy for Europe, while functioning more as a prop for European governance.
Topic:: Human Rights
Political Geography:: Europe

9619. Editor's Note; An Iranian View on the Uprisings in the Arab World

Author:: Seyed Kazem Sajjadpour
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: In the last couple of seasons, the Arab world has been engulfed by popular uprisings. What was sparked by a young Tunisian man's self- immolation, by any definition in social science, has evolved into a turning point in the Middle East and North Africa. Some observers have compared recent events with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I, resulting in the birth of a new regional order. All concerned players in international and regional politics have demonstrated a high degree of sensitivity to this indeed remarkable shift and have been trying to cope with a plethora of analytical as well as policy challenges. In this equation, how does the Iranian perspective on these developments look like? Taking into account that there are a wide range of views in the Iranian discourse on the Arab uprisings on the one hand, and the exigencies of Iranian neighborhood with the Arab world, on the other there is no single way to discern "the Iranian view". However, an Iranian perspective may be recognized by looking at Iran's views on the nature and direction of the Arab uprisings, as well as the opportunities and challenges these developments pose for the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Arabia, North Africa, and Tunisia

9620. Free and Confined: Iran and the International System

Author:: Mohiaddin Mesbahi
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: The study of Iran's interaction with the international system is predicated on three broad theoretical assertions. First, the international system is a tripartite system with three interrelated yet distinct structures, namely coercive-military, normative-social, and economic-developmental. Second, agency (state), Iran in this case, is simultaneously unitary and composite, interacting distinctly with corresponding structural components of the international system. Third, the net assessment of any state's position within the international system, in this case Iran's, must take into consideration the symbiotic impact of the interaction with all three structures, and the cross fertilization and cross compensatory dynamics between them; weakness and vulnerability in one might be compensated for by strength in another. The delicate balance of Iran's interaction with the international system in the last three decades, and especially in the post-Soviet/post-9/11 era, has vacillated between a systemically permissible threat of war and the potential for a historical, though reluctant, systemic accommodation. In its brinksmanship interaction with the three layers of the international system, Iran by design and by default has been strategically “lonely” and deprived of meaningful alliances and great power bandwagoning. Nevertheless, Iran is not isolated but rather intensely engaged, relying on its own capability which is predicated on a native strategic culture. The protection of this strategic culture remains the most formidable challenge facing the Islamic Republic in the fourth decade of its life; a challenge that emanates partially from systemic pressure and no less significantly by domestic normative dynamics.
Political Geography:: Iran

9621. Afghanistan, NATO and the Regional States: Challenges and Responses

Author:: Shirin Akiner
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: Ambiguous, often contradictory, assessments of the achievements of NATO/ISAF operations in Afghanistan make it difficult to form a clear picture of the situation on the ground. However, despite the rhetoric of politicians and military leaders who speak of 'sticking it out' till the job is done, there are unmistakable signals that the endgame has started. The emphasis now is on fashioning an exit strategy that will justify the claim of 'mission accomplished'. It is ironic that it is only now, with the dawning awareness that 'a victor's peace is impossible', that the importance of involving the regional states is finally being recognized. With the exception of Pakistan, which from the outset played a strategic role in Western-led operations, there was an implicit reluctance, amounting to a virtual ban, on cooperating with these states as equal partners. China, Russia and Iran were largely ignored, while the Central Asian states were regarded mainly as transit routes. Yet by geography, history, ethnic ties and culture, Afghanistan is an integral part of the region. The 'neighbourhood' states are neither unaware nor indifferent to what happens there. Before and since 2001 there have been regional initiatives aimed at promoting stability and development in Afghanistan. This paper gives an overview of the main initiatives, bilateral and multilateral which seek to promote the country's re-integration into regional cultural, economic and security networks.
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Iran, and Central Asia

9622. Sanctions against Iran: War and Containment

Author:: Mostafa Zahrani
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: While completing a general assessment of the fourth round of international sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic of Iran, this paper assumes that even if the sanctions successfully target the country's economic sector, they will not reach their main objective, which is to suspend the Iranian nuclear energy program within the timetable desired by the West. Based on such an assumption, the alternative to sanctions is war (with different aims and various degrees of intensity) or containment. In this review, it will be indicated that as war is rejected during the period in question, U.S. policy in the last three decades, i.e. containment through dexterity and with newer dimensions, will continue and severe sanctions will be used as the main element of containment. This paper includes sanctions, containment and war as three fundamental concepts. As sanctions are futile in stopping the Iranian nuclear program, the questions then are why and how Washington is stepping up sanctions within the framework of its containment policy alongside talk of war? The hypothesis is that the talk of war as a means to support diplomacy will remain as the main pillar of U.S. containment policy.
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, and Washington

9623. Iran and the Persian Gulf Security

Author:: Reza Simbar and Arsalan Ghorbani
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: The Arab uprisings, and the one in Bahrain in particular, have caused tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Bahraini government's Saudibacked crackdown on pro-democracy protests has caused ties between Iran and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to turn somewhat hostile in nature. However, just a few years ago, the situation was very different, with Iran being invited to a GCC summit. This paper intends to give context to the aforementioned development by analyzing its background and dynamics of Iran-GCC relations. To this aim, this paper will examine, review and analyze Iranian foreign policy with regard to the security geopolitics of the Persian Gulf. In the course of history, the countries in the region have undergone political, economic, security and even ideological ups and downs, which have led them to become the focus of major powers' attention. The region has also attracted attention due to its decisive role from geopolitical, security and economic points of view. A look at the background of security arrangements in the region establishes that all designs by outside powers' and all extra-regional interference have been futile in bringing security and stability to the region. Iran is among the Persian Gulf littoral states which, due to their strategic location and possession of huge crude oil and natural gas reserves, enjoy a special status. Any form of insecurity in the region will directly impact Iranian interests. Therefore, the strategy of the Iranian government vis-à-vis the security of this important region is based on the expansion of regional cooperation and intra-regional security-building. In this regard, there has been a remarkable growth in political exchanges and interaction at high levels between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other Persian Gulf states.
Political Geography:: Iran, Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Persia

9624. Iran and China - Looking for an Alliance and Regional Power Status

Author:: Erzsébet N. Rózsa
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: It is widely held that the 21st century will be China's century on the global stage, while Iran, in the beginning of the 21st century, is becoming a regional power in the Middle East even if the limits to its power can be questioned. Both countries stand practically alone, without allies in a world that looks upon their expansion unfavourably, if not with outright hostility. The 21st century, however, will not be the period of gaining influence by military means, even if the use of military force cannot be excluded. One of the main characteristics of both the Chinese and the Iranian expansions is economic expansion. Chinese presence is booming in the Middle East. Iran has developed a significant economic activity in Western Afghanistan, then in Iraq. Both countries look back on ancient civilisations, to which they frequently refer to and which contributes to their perceptions of the surrounding world. China has traditionally perceived itself as the centre of the universe. Iran, by the right of its Islamic revolution of 1979, wishes to be the leading power of the Islamic world. Ayatollah Khomeini was speaking of Islam, in spite of the fact that the Islamic government put forward by him is rooted in Shiite Islam. This leading role seems to return under the presidency of Ahmadinejad – even if in a new form. 11 September 2001 has created the moving space for Iran in which it can become a regional power.
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, and West Asia

9625. EU Policy and US Strategy towards the Persian Gulf – Different Approaches for Common Goals?

Author:: Michele Brunelli
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: Despite deep differences shown during 2003 Iraqi crisis, European Union expresses a joint policy towards the Persian Gulf. This is essentially based on the equation: “economy” = “development” and so “security and stability”. Economy is the tool which is really trans-European: it means that despite some different approaches on few geopolitical issues of its members, it remains fundamental pillar on which a real “European Foreign Policy”, can be built. During last years, this particular approach allowed EU: i) to start a fruitful discussion with GCC countries about a Persian Gulf currency union, ii) to include in its Agenda establishment of a free trade area with the GCC countries, iii) start negotiations for an EC-Iran Trade and Cooperation agreement, iv) to involve Iran, Iraq and Yemen in this process. All these actions will allow EU to create an area of dialogue, cooperation and exchange, which is one of the EU top priorities. A new wider space of cooperation composed of the countries belonging to the MENA region, GAFTA, Persian Gulf, Iraq and Yemen. While European Union has chosen a “more economic” approach, US policy towards the Persian Gulf is “more political”. US equation is: “freedom and democracy” – even coercively imposed = “security and stability for a specific area” = “security and stability for the US”. But in some parts of the world this strategy showed some imperfections (Afghanistan), demonstrating its fallacy (Iraq). In some cases US applied political model which doesn't reflect social, political realities and doesn't respect historical roots and heritages of the area.
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Europe, Iran, Yemen, and Persia

9626. Foreign Policy Planning in Iran in Twenty Year Outlook Plan

Author:: Seyed Kazem Sajjadpour and Ardeshir Nourian
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: Foreign policy is influenced by structural elements, internal, regional and international political dynamics. The decisive role of human factors in decision making and orientation as well as the role and priorities in the path taken by nation-states in foreign relations also have an impact on foreign policy. The most considerable reflection of the elites' will in determining the orientation of foreign policy and international planning is embodied in the formulation of national outreach documents like national strategic plans, long-term strategic plans or perspective plans. As a regional power, the Islamic Republic of Iran, after three decades of struggle for its independence and national sovereignty, codified the 2025 National Perspective Document in 2003 after lengthy debate and a consensual decision making process. It serves as a key outreach document in which the framework of domestic and foreign policies aimed at turning Iran into a superior power in the southwest Asian region takes form. While explaining the link between foreign policy planning and economic development both from domestic and international perspectives, as explained in the document, this paper stresses the indivisibility of the two concepts. By emphasizing the structural and human elements at the same time, an explanation of the two concepts and the link between them are also considered. The theoretical framework of this research is based on constructivist theory, it holds that becoming a regional superpower is dependent on a developmentalist foreign policy. Moreover, it argues that from a normative point of view, simultaneous consideration of domestic sources of development and positive action and engagement with the international community is essential.
Political Geography:: Iran and Asia

9627. American power and identities in the age of Obama

Author:: Inderjeet Parmar
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: Although the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency represents a landmark event in the history of that country, questions remain over its broader political significance. What is the likelihood of Obama's foreign and national security policies differing fundamentally from those of the Bush administrations? Does Obama's election signal a 'post-racial' phase in American national life? What are the factors that suggest opportunities to change and expand American identities as opposed to those that limit Obama's sphere of action? This article introduces the special issue and suggests that although Obama's room for manoeuvre is limited by legacies inherited from the Bush administration, Obama's own appointments to high office as well as other actions, despite the availability of alternative courses, indicate that he is not the transformational president he claimed to be. American identities, therefore, are deeply embedded and remain heavily imbued with racial, religious and imperial features.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: United States

9628. Foreign policy, bipartisanship and the paradox of post-September 11 America

Author:: Nicole Mellow and Peter Trubowitz
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: The attacks of September 11 and the resulting war on terrorism present a puzzle to conventional explanations of foreign policy bipartisanship. Public anxiety about the international environment increased sharply after the attacks in 2001, but this did not translate into greater foreign policy consensus despite the initial predictions of many analysts. In this article, we advance a theory of foreign policy bipartisanship that emphasizes its domestic underpinnings to explain the absence of consensus in Washington. We argue that bipartisanship over foreign policy depends as much on domestic economic and electoral conditions as on the international security environment. Using multivariate analysis of roll call voting in the House of Representatives from 1889 to 2008, we show that bipartisanship over foreign policy is most likely not only when the country faces a foreign threat but also when the national economy is strong and when party coalitions are regionally diverse. This was the case during the Cold War. Despite concern about terrorism in recent years, economic volatility and regional polarization have made bipartisan cooperation over foreign policy elusive.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Climate Change, and Cold War
Political Geography:: Washington and Central Asia

9629. The domestic limits to American international leadership after Bush

Author:: Tara McCormack
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: In this article it is argued that there is a striking absence from contemporary academic (and policy) discussions about American international leadership, and that is the domestic dimension to international leadership. Most current discussion focuses upon the actions of the Bush administration in the international sphere, which is argued to have eroded legitimate American leadership. It is hoped that Obama can reinvigorate American leadership through his actions in the international sphere. Here, however, it is argued that legitimate American leadership during the Cold War was based firstly upon a specific domestic political context in Europe. This specific domestic political context has steadily changed since the late 1960s, eroding legitimate American international leadership. In the absence of this domestic context, America will not be able to reassert legitimate leadership. International legitimacy, like charity, must begin at home in the domestic political sphere.
Political Geography:: America and Europe

9630. The political economy of Anglo-American War: The case of Iraq

Author:: Sandra Halperin
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: This article relates the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq to fundamental aspects of Anglo-American political economy, including the increasing integration of the British and US economies, and the largely Anglo-American-led project of global economic restructuring currently taking place. Part I discusses the political economy of UK–US relations and the evolution of an Anglo-American military–industrial conglomerate. Part II links the Anglo-American relations and interests detailed in the first part of the article to an on-going project of global reconstruction. With this as a context, Part III reviews the history of British and US foreign policies towards Iraq and the culmination of these policies in the invasion of the country. The conclusions draw implications for the overall nature and direction of current trends of change.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and America

9631. From Woodrow Wilson in 1902 to the Bush doctrine in 2002: Democracy promotion as imperialism

Author:: Tony Smith
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: The secular notion of American exceptionalism divorced from explicit racial or religious expression and based on governmental institutions and civic virtue – America as 'the last, best hope of earth' (Lincoln), America as 'the ark of the liberties of the world' (Melville) – goes back to the American Revolution. Nevertheless, before Wilson the conceptual framework that could explain the rightness of American global expansion in terms of bringing democratic government to others had not been well formulated. With Wilson, by contrast, the United States for the first time could present in secular terms, concepts argued from a cultural and historical perspective that made the expansion of American influence around the globe legitimate, not only in terms of national security but to the benefit of all mankind. Here is the key, I would propose, to the self-confidence and self-righteousness, which has been the hallmark of American foreign policy for a century now. Democracy promotion (associated with open markets economically and multilateralism) reflected America's cultural superiority (inherited from racial thinking), as well as its mission to help others (descended from its religious background). In Wilson's hands, an enduring framework for American foreign policy was born, one that remains with us to this day.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: United States and America

9632. What is so American about the American empire?

Author:: Srdjan Vucetic
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: This article argues that the American empire cannot be fully understood without reference to the ways in which American imperial identities have been associated with the historical experience of England/Britain. To make this argument, the article considers four discourses of identity in particular – Anglo-Protestantism (religion), Anglo-Saxonism (ethnicity/race), Anglo-Saxon capitalism (institutions) and English (language). US imperial development was conditioned by many forces, but none match the aggregate power of America's 'Anglo-ness'. Although it is too early to assess the ways in which these discourses are negotiated, critiqued and reproduced in the 'age of Obama', the American empire is likely to continue to protect and project Anglo-ness vis-à-vis to the rest of the world.
Political Geography:: Britain and America

9633. New paradigms, old hierarchies? Problems and possibilities of US supremacy in a networked world

Author:: Giles Scott-Smith and Moritz BaumgÃ¤rtel
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: As Obama took office at the beginning of 2009, several new figures attained important advisory positions in his administration. Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and now Director of Policy Planning in the State Department, is a prime example of the 'change' that has come to Washington. In recent years she has been part of a growing academic circle that views networks at the centre of international relations. At the same time, she has promoted the idea that the United States can be 'the most connected country' in such a world. By taking a closer look into the discourse of US supremacy and the current state-of-the-art in the theory of transnational networks, this article reveals the divergence between wishful thinking and reality in Slaughter's position. By analysing her position and introducing three case studies, we conclude that the complexity of power relations in a world of networks makes any assumption of US supremacy highly problematic. Some might 'mirror' the beliefs and values of America (Open Society Institute); some might only be a 'prism' of various different voices (Al-Jazeera); and some might fall totally outside state control to form 'shadow networks' (Khan Network). Ultimately, it is the belief in US exceptionalism that perpetuates the claim that the United States has 'an edge' in such a world, with potentially problematic consequences.
Political Geography:: United States and America

9634. Evangelicalism, race and world politics

Author:: Stuart Croft
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: American identities have traditionally been bound up with racial and religious markers – the WASP marker being for many, many decades and that which described the fullest state of American-ness. In the age of an African-American President, such conventional wisdoms are clearly challenged; and yet race and religion still describe different degrees of American-ness. This article investigates these identity themes not through the traditional duologue of white and African American, but seeks to understand in different communities how race and religion combine to produce different American-ness. Through an examination of two communities deemed problematic because of the high percentage of unchurched among them – First Peoples and Asian Americans – the article describes different processes at work. First Peoples are often seen in racial rather than national terms. The work of evangelicals 'among' such peoples is assessed within the United States and beyond. In contrast, Asian-American identities are often articulated through evangelism, particularly on the campuses of the United States. Together, these case studies show that American-ness is being redefined, to include new racial categories and groups newly empowered by their religious activity. This connects to issues of migration; evangelism is now active in America as well as beyond, as the world comes to live in the United States, traditional boundaries – inside/outside and white/African American – carry different and often less weight than hitherto has been the case.
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, America, and Asia

9635. American power and the racial dimensions of US foreign policy

Author:: Mark Ledwidge
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: This article consists of a critical discourse that examines the meteoric rise of Barack Obama within the context of international and domestic race relations. The article explores the impact of American racism on domestic and foreign affairs, in addition to providing contrasting viewpoints on the significance of Obama's election to the presidency. The article utilises the Obama phenomenon to assess US perceptions of the North–South divide, race, ethnicity, religion and anti-Americanism, in addition to unpacking the controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright's characterisations of American power. The Obama campaign's post-9/11 context will be used to ascertain whether conservative efforts to associate Obama with Islam represent a conservative backlash that represents an ethnocentric re-articulation related to race, religion and the War on Terror, followed by an assessment of whether the Obama phenomenon is indicative of the perfectibility of US democracy, which would justify the exportation of American values. The article will engage in an interdisciplinary discourse grounded in political science, history and IR to provide the depth of knowledge and theoretical competency to frame the discussion in a historical and contemporary context that acknowledges Obama's relevance to domestic and international politics.
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: America

9636. Religion, identity and American power in the age of Obama

Author:: Lee Marsden
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: US foreign policy owes much to a malleable religious identity, shaped by foundational myths, and that this religious dimension has, until recently, been largely neglected in the US foreign policy literature to the detriment of our understanding of how America's status as global hegemon is formed, sustained and expanded. This article explores the role of the foundational myths of manifest destiny, exceptionalism and innocent nation. These foundational myths are explored as they develop into a civil religion espoused by successive presidents from George to the present day. The article considers how Barack Obama has utilised civil religion to maximise domestic support for a foreign policy agenda, which seeks to maintain US hegemony through a more conciliatory and multilateral approach than his predecessor in the White House. Examples of the use of soft power through missionary endeavour and the evangelicalisation of military hard power beginning during the George W. Bush presidency are detailed in order to reveal an Obama presidency that continues to define itself in religious terms while providing opportunities for religious actors to continue to play a role in representing US interests beyond its shores.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Washington

9637. 'Change we can believe in?' Barack Obama, race and the 2008 US presidential election

Author:: Kevern Verney
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: This article addresses two questions. It begins by comparing the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest with the 1980s campaigns of Jesse Jackson. It examines the different background and personalities of Obama and Jackson, together with an analysis of what has changed in US political life in the intervening decades, in an attempt to understand why Obama succeeded where the earlier Jackson campaigns failed. The second part of the article analyses the subsequent general election with a view to determining whether Obama's defeat of John McCain should be seen as a result of a unique set of political circumstances, or evidence of the increasing irrelevance of race in US electoral politics. In particular, this discussion assesses the validity of the claims made by some commentators that Obama's victory marks the beginning of a new 'post-racial' era in American political life.
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: United States and America

9638. 'War in countries we are not at war with': The 'war on terror' on the periphery from Bush to Obama

Author:: Maria Ryan
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: This article examines the origins of the 'Global War on Terror' (GWoT) in peripheral locations; in other words, in countries and regions beyond Iraq and beyond Afghanistan. Although those two countries have remained the 'core' regions of the GWoT, the Bush administration also undertook many other military interventions in countries and regions in ostensibly peripheral locations under the auspices of the 'war on terror'; operations which it referred to in its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review as 'war in countries we are not at war with'. These include operations in the Horn of Africa, Georgia and the Caspian region, the Philippines and the countries across the Sahara region including Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania. This article examines these peripheral theatres in the GWoT and argues that, by its second term, the Bush administration had moved beyond a state-based worldview vis-à-vis terrorism and had truly come to understand it as a transnational problem; a protean network that should be tackled through using Special Operations Forces and unconventional warfare to wage 'war in countries we are not at war with'. The article also considers the extent to which these operations on the 'periphery' were expedient in other ways that often transcended the war on terror because they coincided with the existence of long-standing or newly identified US strategic interests. Finally, the article considers the Obama administration's continuation – and in some cases escalation – of many of the Bush administration's operations in peripheral regions, even as Obama looks to wind down the war in Iraq.
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, and Georgia

9639. Culture, identity and hegemony: Continuity and (the lack of) change in US counterterrorism policy from Bush to Obama

Author:: Richard Jackson
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: This article explores the social and political construction of US counterterrorism policy since the onset of the war on terrorism. The first part of the article focuses on the period of the Bush administration. It explores the cultural grammar expressed in the language of the war on terror, as well as administration attempts to 'sell' the policy to the American public. In addition, it explores the ways in which the war on terror has been institutionalised in counterterrorism practices and institutions, and how it has been normalised and embedded in American popular culture and linked by the national identity narratives surrounding '9/11' and the negative ideograph of 'terrorism', to American identity. Section two of the article explores the discourse and practice of the war on terrorism in the initial period of the Obama administration. It questions the extent to which counterterrorism policy can be rewritten, given the degree to which it accords with the deep cultural grammar of American identity and is now a well-established ideograph, the extent to which it has been institutionalised in American political practice and embedded in American culture and the ways in which it is rooted in the political-economic interests of the American polity and empire. Finally, the article briefly reflects on questions of change and identity in the construction of US foreign policy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: United States and America

9640. Between freedom and fear: Explaining the consensus on terrorism and democracy in US foreign policy

Author:: Michael J. Boyle
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Politics
Institution:: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:: Why have two successive US administrations concluded that fighting terrorism must involve democracy promotion? This assumption became prevalent in US political discourse following the events of September 11 despite the fact that the empirical evidence linking democracy and terrorism is weak or ambiguous. More strikingly, it has persisted even after the missions to establish democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to increasing violence, including a worldwide increase in terrorist attacks. This article argues that the link between democracy and terrorism was established by the combined effect of three factors: (a) the framing of the September 11 attacks in a way that increased the receptivity to this conceptual opposition between freedom and fear; (b) the ideological influence of the Wilsonian tradition, as manifested today in an unusual consensus between modern neo-conservatives and liberal internationalists on the desirability of democratic reform as a means of changing foreign policy behaviour; and (c) a powerful bipartisan domestic constituency in favour of democracy promotion. Owing to these three factors, the contraposition of democracy and terrorism in American political discourse is effectively over-determined because it mirrors the dominant ideological and political preferences of American elites. This fixed preference for democracy promotion explains why the Obama Administration has remained wedded to the binary distinction between freedom and fear in its public statements despite its efforts to break in style and substance with the policies of its predecessor.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, and America

9641. Editorial

Author:: Terry Terriff, James Keeley, and John Ferris
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: The May election brought substantial change to Canada, with both a majority Conservative government and the emergence of the New Democratic Party as the Official Opposition. Whether the Liberals can, over the longer term, recover from their historic defeat remains to be seen. For the time being, however, barring a major misstep from either the Conservatives or the NDP, the Liberals, necessarily focused on rebuilding, will be less of a factor in defence policy.
Political Geography:: Canada

9642. Violent Conflicts as an impediment to the Achievement of Millennium Development Goals in Africa.

Author:: Dickson Ogbonnaya Igwe
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are an international commitment to the reduction of poverty and to promoting human development across the planet. The goals are measurable targets attached to a timeframe for making a difference in the lives of billions of people. In September 2000, over 189 member states at the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the MDGs. The goals are also recognition of the fact that 60 years after the end of World War II, the world remains far from achieving the ideals of peace and prosperity inspired by the end of that global conflict. The MDGs provide a strategic framework for developing, implementing and monitoring poverty-eradication programs at national and international levels.
Topic:: Development and War
Political Geography:: Africa and United Nations

9643. Don't Expect Much from Japan in the Indian Ocean

Author:: Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Japan is an Indian Ocean power of long standing. Ten years ago, in a post-9/11 show of solidarity with the United States and to exercise a more muscular foreign policy, Tokyo committed vessels of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF, or MSDF) to the coalition naval contingent supporting combat operations in Afghanistan. JMSDF tankers resupplied coalition warships, while Aegis destroyers guarded against air and surface threats in the Arabian Sea. Japanese seamen posted impressive statistics for this naval enterprise. The Japan Ministry of Defense reported that JMSDF vessels supplied about 137 million gallons of fuel oil and some 2.8 gallons of water to customers from about a dozen countries, including the United States, Pakistan, France, Britain, and Germany. Tokyo spent over $110 million on the logistics mission in its final two years according to Defense Ministry spokesmen, even as demand for such support dwindled.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Britain, Afghanistan, United States, Japan, India, France, Arabia, Germany, and Tokyo

9644. The Idea of a Strategist's Education

Author:: Steven Anthony Pomeroy
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: This essay adopted from “Ancient Alexandria, Alexander, and History: The Relevance of Humanistic Thought in the Contemporary Strategic Environment,” a talk the author gave on December 28, 2009, Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The comments herein are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Unites States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government. The author wishes to thank the following professors: Colonel (Dr.) Thomas A. Drohan, Dr. James R. Titus, and Dr. John Farquhar of the Military and Strategic Studies Department at the United States Air Force Academy. The comments herein are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government. Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), 406. Contending that nuclear weapons had fundamentally changed the character, if not the nature, of warfare, Brodie emphasized the importance of rigor and a scientific approach to strategic problem solving in the nuclear era.
Topic:: Climate Change, Education, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:: United States and Colorado

9645. A Role for Effects-Based Planning in a National Security Framework

Author:: Brad Gladman and Peter Archambault
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Modern operations, both domestic and expeditionary, share much with those of the past in that they require the application of both civil and military power to shape the operating environment towards the desired end state. Recently, two related concepts have been developed to codify the best practices related to resolving crises and conflicts through the coordinated use of a variety of levers of power. Of course, the extent to which this process should be considered conceptual is open to question, given that it reflects only what competent civilian and military leaders have always sought to accomplish. Nonetheless, there is broad intuitive acceptance that the Comprehensive Approach (CA) or Whole of Government (WoG) approach is a strategic level framework for the coordination of all elements of national or coalition power, with an Effects-Based Approach to Operations (EBAO) being the military contribution to the larger effort.
Topic:: Government and National Security

9646. The Evolving Arctic Operating Environment: Implications for Defence

Author:: Donald A. Neill
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Effective planning for DND/CF activities in the arctic operating environment requires as reliable an understanding as may reasonably be achieved of what that environment is likely to be, and how it is likely to evolve, throughout the planning period in question. This is complicated by the inherently unpredictable nature of climate; as the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acknowledged, ‚in climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.‛
Topic:: Climate Change and Environment
Political Geography:: United Nations

9647. Decision-Making under Uncertainty: Using Case Studies for Teaching Strategy in Complex Environments

Author:: Dr. Volker Franke
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Today's strategic environment is increasingly characterized by threats that "are both diffuse and uncertain, where conflict is inherently unpredictable, and where our capability to defend and promote our national interests may be restricted by political, diplomatic, informational and economic constraints. In short, it is an environment marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA)." Decision-makers, both civilian and military, who want to operate effectively in this environment must consider a wide range of social, political and cultural factors and demonstrate cognitive flexibility, adaptability and the ability to make decisions "on the fly."
Topic:: Climate Change and Economics

9648. The Patrol: Seven Days in the Life of a Canadian Soldier in Afghanistan

Author:: Ryan Flavelle
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Nothing can prepare a person for the reality of bloody, concussive warfare. . . . Those who like war are aptly named warriors. Some, like me, are fated never to be warriors, as we are more afraid of war than fascinated by it. But I have the consolation that I have walked with warriors, and know what kind of men they are. I will never be a warrior, but I have known war.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and Canada

9649. Martin Kitchen, Rommel's Desert War: Waging WWII in North Africa, 1941-1943. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Author:: Matt Bucholtz
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: While one could be forgiven for wondering if yet another volume concerning the North African campaign in the Second World War was truly needed, Martin Kitchen's book Rommel's Desert War: Waging WWII in North Africa, 1941-1943 is nevertheless a significant and worthwhile contribution to the field. Kitchen states early in his introduction that his aim is to produce a complete and comprehensive account of the desert war, and judged by this standard the author is, on the whole, quite successful. He does not pretend that his is the first, nor the last, work on the topic, but rather seeks to provide a detailed and balanced account of the campaign based on current historiography, examining each of the combatants, and spanning the entire length of the conflict in North Africa.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: North Africa

9650. NATO After Libya

Author:: Anders Fogh Rasmussen
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: NATO's sea and air mission in Libya is the first major military engagement undertaken since the global financial crisis. With European NATO allies drastically reducing their defense spending, there were legitimate fears as to whether they could still afford to respond to such complex crises. Reports early on that the operation lacked sufficient strike capabilities reinforced these fears. But the unprecedented speed, scale, and sustained pace of execution of Operation Unified Protector tell a different story. As of early May, the pace of air sorties had remained high since the beginning of the operation, and strikes had accounted for just under half of those sorties. When requirements changed as Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces altered their tactics, NATO allies provided more of the high-precision strike capabilities that the commanders needed. Meanwhile, more than a dozen ships have been patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and enforcing the UN arms embargo. The mission in Libya has revealed three important truths about military intervention today. First, to those who claimed that Afghanistan was to be NATO's last out-of-area mission, it has shown that unpredictability is the very essence of security. Second, it has proved that in addition to frontline capabilities, such as fighter-bombers and warships, so-called enablers, such as surveillance and refueling aircraft, as well as drones, are critical parts of any modern operation. And third, it has revealed that NATO allies do not lack military capabilities. Any shortfalls have been primarily due to political, rather than military, constraints. In other words, Libya is a reminder of how important it is for NATO to be ready, capable, and willing to act. Although defense is and must remain the prerogative of sovereign nations, an alliance that brings Europe and North America together requires an equitable sharing of the burden in order to be efficient. Downward trends in European defense budgets raise some legitimate concerns. At the current pace of cuts, it is hard to see how Europe could maintain enough military capabilities to sustain similar operations in the future. And this touches on a fundamental challenge facing Europe and the alliance as a whole: how to avoid having the economic crisis degenerate into a security crisis. The way Europe responds to this challenge could determine its place in the global order and the future of security.
Topic:: NATO
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Europe, Libya, and North America

9651. The Secrets of Germany's Success

Author:: Steven Rattner
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As Americans fret about their economic decline, Germans are celebrating their country's success as a manufacturing juggernaut. Obama's former auto czar explains the key to Germany's export boom -- and how the United States can emulate it.
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Germany

9652. Washington's Phantom War

Author:: Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the wake of Islamabad's decision to ban the United States from using the Shamsi airbase to launch drone attacks, Washington will need to rethink its drone program. Unless the strikes become more transparent and control over them is transferred from the CIA to the military, they won't help Washington win the larger war.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

9653. Are U.S. Borders Secure?

Author:: Edward Alden and Bryan Roberts
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In response to record numbers of illegal border crossings and the security fears triggered by the 9/11 attacks, over the past two decades the United States has steadily increased its efforts to secure its borders against illegal immigration. The number of U.S. Border Patrol agents has risen from fewer than 3,000 to more than 20,700; nearly 700 miles of fencing have been built along the southern border with Mexico; and surveillance systems, including pilotless drones, now monitor much of the rest of the border. In a speech in El Paso, Texas, in May, U.S. President Barack Obama claimed that the United States had "strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible." Yet according to spring 2011 Rasmussen poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans think the border is no more, or even less, secure than it was five years ago. Some administration critics claim that the United States' frontiers have never been more porous. This contradiction stems in part from the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has never clearly defined what border control means in practice. A secure border cannot mean one with no illegal crossings -- that would be unrealistic for almost any country, especially one as big and as open as the United States. On the other hand, the borders cannot be considered secure if many of those attempting to enter illegally succeed. Defining a sensible middle ground, where border enforcement and other programs discourage many illegal crossings and most of those who try to cross illegally are apprehended, is the challenge. Unfortunately, the U.S. government has failed to develop good measures for fixing goals and determining progress toward them. Since 2005, the DHS has reported how many miles of the country's land borders are under its "operational control," but it has done so without having clearly defined what that standard means and without providing hard data to back it up. The lack of sound measurement has left the administration touting its efforts rather than their results: during a press conference in 2010, Obama noted, "We have more of everything: ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], Border Patrol, surveillance, you name it. So we take border security seriously."
Topic:: Security and Border Control
Political Geography:: United States and America

9654. Globalization and Unemployment

Author:: Michael Spence
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Jobs growth was slow in May, renewing pessimism about the U.S. economy. Spence, a Nobel Prize-winning economist writes that economic growth and employment in the United States have started to diverge, increasing income inequality and reducing jobs for less-educated workers.
Topic:: Economics, Globalization, Poverty, and Labor Issues

9655. How Health Care Can Save or Sink America

Author:: Peter R. Orszag
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States' fiscal future depends on whether the country can limit health-care costs. Obama's reforms were a major step in the right direction, argues the former White House budget director. But to finish the job, the U.S. medical system must evolve so that it emphasizes evidence and pursues quality rather than quantity.
Topic:: Health
Political Geography:: United States and America

9656. Does Obama Have a Grand Strategy?

Author:: Daniel W. Drezner
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As the U.S. military intervenes in Libya, a fierce debate has erupted over the possible existence of an Obama doctrine, with a chorus of foreign policy observers bemoaning the United States' supposed strategic incompetence. Last fall, the columnist Jackson Diehl wrote in The Washington Post, "This administration is notable for its lack of grand strategy -- or strategists." In The National Interest this January, the political scientist John Mearsheimer concluded, "The root cause of America's troubles is that it adopted a flawed grand strategy after the Cold War." The economic historian Niall Ferguson took to Newsweek to argue that alleged U.S. setbacks in the Middle East were "the predictable consequence of the Obama administration's lack of any kind of a coherent grand strategy, a deficit about which more than a few veterans of U.S. foreign policymaking have long worried." Even the administration's defenders have damned it with faint praise. The National Journal's Michael Hirsh argued that "the real Obama doctrine is to have no doctrine at all. And that's the way it's likely to remain." Hirsh, at least, meant it as a compliment. But is it true that President Barack Obama has no grand strategy? And even if it were, would that be such a disaster? The George W. Bush administration, after all, developed a clear, coherent, and well-defined grand strategy after 9/11. But those attributes did not make it a good one, and its implementation led to more harm than benefit. Grand strategies are not nearly as important as grand strategists like to think, because countries tend to be judged by their actions, not their words. What really matters for great powers is power -- national economic and military strength -- and that speaks loudly and clearly by itself. Still, in times of deep uncertainty, a strategy can be important as a signaling device. In these moments, such as the present, a clearly articulated strategy matched by consistent actions is useful because it can drive home messages about a country's intentions to domestic and foreign audiences.
Political Geography:: United States, Middle East, and Libya

9657. On Humanitarianism

Author:: Michael Walzer
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Humanitarianism is probably the most important "ism" in the world today, given the collapse of communism, the discrediting of neoliberalism, and the general distrust of large-scale political ideologies. Its activists often claim to escape or transcend partisan politics. We think of humanitarian aid, for example, first of all as a form of philanthropy -- a response to an earthquake in Haiti or a tsunami in Asia, which is obviously a good thing, an effort to relieve human suffering and save lives, an act of international benevolence. But there is a puzzle here, for helping people in desperate need is something that we ought to do; it would be wrong not to do it -- in which case it is more like justice than benevolence. Words such as "charity" and "philanthropy" describe a voluntary act, a matter of kindness rather than duty. But international humanitarianism seems more like duty than kindness, or maybe it is a combination: two in one, a gift that we have to give. Individuals send contributions to charitable organizations when there is a humanitarian crisis, and then these organizations rush trained aid workers into the zone of danger and desperate need. But governments also send help, spending tax money that is coercively collected rather than freely given. Are individual citizens free not to give? Are governments free not to act? Does it matter whether the money is a gift or a tax?
Topic:: Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:: Asia

9658. Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring

Author:: F. Gregory Gause III
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The vast majority of academic specialists on the Arab world were as surprised as everyone else by the upheavals that toppled two Arab leaders last winter and that now threaten several others. It was clear that Arab regimes were deeply unpopular and faced serious demographic, economic, and political problems. Yet many academics focused on explaining what they saw as the most interesting and anomalous aspect of Arab politics: the persistence of undemocratic rulers. Until this year, the Arab world boasted a long list of such leaders. Muammar al-Qaddafi took charge of Libya in 1969; the Assad family has ruled Syria since 1970; Ali Abdullah Saleh became president of North Yemen (later united with South Yemen) in 1978; Hosni Mubarak took charge of Egypt in 1981; and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali ascended to Tunisia's presidency in 1987. The monarchies enjoyed even longer pedigrees, with the Hashemites running Jordan since its creation in 1920, the al-Saud family ruling a unified Saudi Arabia since 1932, and the Alaouite dynasty in Morocco first coming to power in the seventeenth century. These regimes survived over a period of decades in which democratic waves rolled through East Asia, eastern Europe, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Even the Arab countries' neighbors in the Muslim Middle East (Iran and Turkey) experienced enormous political change in that period, with a revolution and three subsequent decades of political struggle in Iran and a quasi-Islamist party building a more open and democratic system in secular Turkey.
Political Geography:: America, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Arabia

9659. The Financial Rebalancing Act

Author:: Alan M. Taylor
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The global financial crisis that began in 2007 has only just begun to recede, but economists and policymakers are already considering its future implications. Has the Great Recession introduced a new economic era? Or was it a temporary shock that will eventually correct itself? The answers to these questions will affect a number of vital economic issues, including the relationship between emerging and developed economies, the direction of international trade and capital flows, and the potential for currency wars or other economic conflicts. Both the recent crisis and the policies that ended it were unprecedented. Compared to other periods of economic turmoil, this crisis was not only unparalleled in scale but also unique in its causes -- among them, many argue, global financial imbalances. Basic economic theory presumes that capital will flow "downhill" from capital-rich developed economies to capital-scarce emerging ones, as investors in the first seek profits in the second. Yet over the past 15 years, capital has, on net, flowed "uphill" from emerging economies to developed ones. Although private capital did travel downhill, as conventional wisdom predicts, it was offset by vast government reserves from emerging countries, chiefly from central banks and sovereign wealth funds, heading uphill. When the recession struck, this unprecedented flow of capital and accumulated reserves suddenly seemed less of a mystery, as emerging markets facing problems began to use the reserves they had accumulated to ride out the economic storm. With that insurance on hand, they defended their currencies, averted capital flight, buffered their financial systems, maintained access to capital markets, and pursued fiscal stimulus programs more successfully than they had during previous episodes of economic turmoil and with greater confidence than some of the developed economies.

9660. A Crude Predicament

Author:: Michael Levi and Robert McNally
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members have long maintained large oil reserves to limit volatility in oil prices. But with key states now refusing to maintain such expensive buffers, the world must learn how to cope with big price swings in the years ahead.
Political Geography:: Saudi Arabia

9661. The Crisis in Clean Energy

Author:: David G. Victor and Kassia Yanosek
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After years of staggering growth, the clean-energy industry is headed for a crisis. In most of the Western countries leading the industry, the public subsidies that have propelled it to 25 percent annual growth rates in recent years have now become politically unsustainable. Temporary government stimulus programs -- which in 2010 supplied one-fifth of the record investment in clean energy worldwide -- have merely delayed the bad news. Last year, after 20 years of growth, the number of new wind turbine installations dropped for the first time; in the United States, the figure fell by as much as half. The market value of leading clean-energy equipment manufacturing companies has plummeted and is poised to decline further as government support for the industry erodes. The coming crisis could make some of the toughest foreign policy challenges facing the United States -- from energy insecurity to the trade deficit to global warming -- even more difficult to resolve. The revolution in clean energy was supposed to help fix these problems while also creating green jobs that would power the economic recovery. Some niches in clean energy will still be profitable, such as residential rooftop solar installations and biofuel made from Brazilian sugar cane, which is already competitive with oil. But overall, the picture is grim. This is true not only for the United States but also for the rest of the world, because the market for clean-energy technologies is global. Whether this shakeout will strengthen or weaken the clean-energy industry will depend on how policymakers, notably in the United States, prepare for it. The root cause of today's troubles is a boom-and-bust cycle of policies that have encouraged investors to flock to clean-energy projects that are quick and easy to build rather than invest in more innovative technologies that could stand a better chance of competing with conventional energy sources over the long haul. Indeed, nearly seven-eighths of all clean-energy investment worldwide now goes to deploying existing technologies, most of which are not competitive without the help of government subsidies. Only a tiny share of the investment focuses on innovation.
Political Geography:: United States

9662. South Africa's Land Reform

Author:: Bernadette Atuahene
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Under colonialism and apartheid, the ruling white minority stole vast amounts of land from black Africans in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Reclaiming this land became an important rallying cry for liberation movements in both countries; but in the years after white minority rule ended, it was extremely difficult for the new regimes to redistribute the land fairly and efficiently. In recent years, as the unaddressed land inequality in Zimbabwe became a pretext for President Robert Mugabe's demagoguery and led to Zimbabwe's demise, many observers have asked: Could South Africa be next? When Nelson Mandela took power in South Africa in 1994, 87 percent of the country's land was owned by whites, even though they represented less than ten percent of the population. Advised by the World Bank, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) aimed to redistribute 30 percent of the land from whites to blacks in the first five years of the new democracy. By 2010 -- 16 years later -- only eight percent had been reallocated. In failing to redistribute this land, the ANC has undermined a crucial aspect of the negotiated settlement to end apartheid, otherwise known as the liberation bargain. According to Section 25 of the new South African constitution, promulgated in 1994, existing property owners (who were primarily white) would receive valid legal title to property acquired under prior regimes, despite the potentially dubious circumstances of its acquisition. In exchange, blacks (in South Africa, considered to include people of mixed racial descent and Indians) were promised land reform. But the new government upheld only one side of the liberation bargain: South African whites kept their property, but blacks still have not received theirs. Political apartheid may have ended, but economic apartheid lives on.
Political Geography:: Africa and South Africa

9663. Defending Democracy in Cote d'Ivoire

Author:: Thomas J. Bassett and Scott Straus
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In early April, in the final days of Côte d'Ivoire's torturous four-month-long political crisis, French and UN helicopters bombarded the presidential residence in Abidjan. This military operation sealed the fate of the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, paving the way for Alassane Ouattara, the widely recognized winner of the November 2010 presidential elections, to claim office. But the French and UN action had another effect: it triggered commentary and outrage about international interference -- in particular on the part of France -- in African affairs. Ivoirian newspapers backing Gbagbo fulminated about France's desire to retake its former colonies. The French press, meanwhile, obsessed about whether France's military intervention spelled a new era of Françafrique, the term, first introduced in the 1950s, for French interference in the internal affairs of its former African colonies. The New York Times ran a story about France's "long shadow" over its former colonies, and pundits around the world worried that these international actions could doom Ouattara's legitimacy. Such a Eurocentric focus, however, both mischaracterizes the internal dynamics of the conflict and misses the more significant diplomatic development -- namely, the role of African regional organizations. In the end, France and the UN did not win the war for Ouattara and his self-styled "Republican Forces." By the time France and the UN intervened, Ouattara's forces controlled 90 percent of the country and were on the verge of taking the commercial capital, Abidjan. International forces did manage to hasten Gbagbo's demise: in effect, accomplishing the inevitable and preventing a final attack on Abidjan, which would have resulted in a terrible humanitarian crisis.
Topic:: Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, and New York

9664. The Settlement Obsession

Author:: Elliott Abrams
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Two recent books on the Israeli settlements explore their corrosive effect on Zionism and Israeli society. But despite the problems settlements cause, Washington should not overstate their importance for the peace process, argues a former U.S. deputy national security adviser.
Political Geography:: Africa and Israel

9665. What China Wants

Author:: Andrew J. Nathan
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Henry Kissinger's new book argues that the United States should yield gracefully to China's rise; Aaron Friedberg's gives the opposite advice. By focusing on intentions instead of capabilities, both books overstate China's actual power.
Political Geography:: United States and China

9666. Secularism and its Discontents

Author:: Karen Barkey
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Olivier Roy's new book argues that religion and culture are disengaging from each other thanks to globalization. But he underestimates the close interactions of religious movements and national politics on the ground in the Islamic world and elsewhere.

9667. The City and the State

Author:: Sandy Hornick
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: New books by Witold Rybczynski and Edward Glaeser celebrate the ever-changing American urban experience. In proposing how to revitalize modern cities, however, both books underplay the critical role of the government.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

9668. Arab Spring, Persian Winter

Author:: Dalia Dassa Kaye, Frederic M. Wehrey, and Michael Scott Doran
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: READING THE NEW MIDDLE EAST MAP Dalia Dassa Kaye and Frederic Wehrey With long-standing U.S. allies toppled or under pressure from unprecedented dissent across the Arab world, Michael Doran, in "The Heirs of Nasser" (May/June 2011), warns that Iran is poised to walk away from the Arab Spring a winner. In his view, the chaotic Arab political scene will allow Iran and its radical allies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria -- to stoke public frustration over unmet expectations or engage in subversive provocations, thereby embroiling new regimes in the region's old conflicts. In previous periods of regional upheaval, revolutionaries such as Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser employed this strategy at the expense of U.S. and Western interests. Nasser played the Israel card to goad his Western-backed rivals into war, while exhorting their publics to rebel. Why, Doran argues, should one expect any less from Iran and its allies today? Certainly, the regional shakeup will give Iran and its allies much to prey on. The Arab world's secular, liberal youth movements, often hobbled by a lack of organization and leadership, will compete with long-established parties with starkly different views of the future, be they remnants of the old regimes or Islamist forces. The region's new governments will confront economic challenges that will limit their ability to meet the expectations of a youthful and increasingly impatient public. Meanwhile, the continued Israeli-Palestinian stalemate offers further ammunition for rejectionist forces to reinvigorate the region's tired scapegoats, redirecting the conversation away from talk about the failure of domestic governance. The United States' inconsistent policies toward the Arab revolts (for example, the varying U.S. responses to Bahrain and Libya) offer more fodder for Iran's resistance narrative. Still, although Iran and its allies will attempt to seize on these vulnerabilities to widen the gap between ruler and ruled, they are unlikely to achieve the success of Nasser. In fact, the political upheaval in the Arab world has led to at least three fundamental shifts in the regional order that have only sharpened the preexisting limitations of Iranian influence.
Political Geography:: United States, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia

9669. Can Disarmament Work?

Author:: Bruce Blair, Josef Joffe, James W. Davis, Matt Brown, and Richard Burt
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: IN SUPPORT OF ZERO Bruce Blair, Matt Brown, and Richard Burt In their ringing defense of classical nuclear deterrence ("Less Than Zero," January/February 2011), Josef Joffe and James Davis see nuclear weapons not as a problem but as a solution. We profoundly disagree. Nuclear weapons represent a global threat that is orders of magnitude greater than any other. The danger has increased as these weapons have spread to weak and fragile states, and they could eventually fall into the hands of terrorists. The Global Zero movement, which we coordinate, calls for the phased and verified elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide and is spearheaded by more than 300 international leaders, including current and former heads of state, national security officials, and military commanders. It does not discount the real or perceived benefits of nuclear weapons that existed during the Cold War, but it argues that the growing dangers of nuclear proliferation and terrorism have come to greatly outweigh those dissipating benefits. That is why Global Zero calls for eliminating all existing nuclear arsenals and building stronger barriers against the acquisition of nuclear weapons and the materials to build them. Global Zero does not underestimate the difficulty of reversing proliferation. Our critics, Joffe and Davis included, imply that the movement subscribes to the simplistic "good example" theory of deproliferation, which holds that states will cut their arsenals when inspired by the example of others' doing so. But that characterization of our view is a straw man. We do not suggest that North Korea will abandon its nuclear weapons if it sees reductions by other countries. Rather, we argue that it will take a great-power-led coalition of nuclear and nonnuclear countries, fully committed to the elimination of all nuclear weapons, to marshal the political, economic, and military might to halt proliferation worldwide. To date, the international community has paid lip service to erecting strong new barriers to nuclear acquisition while mustering only a lukewarm and inconsistent effort to do so. By contrast, a truly unified coalition could overcome that inertia by enforcing the Global Zero program worldwide. It would engineer universal verification and enforcement regimes, wielding hard incentives and punishments, not moral example, to convert the wayward.

9670. Disengaging from Taiwan

Author:: Douglas Paal, Charles Glaser, and Shyu-tu Lee
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: MISREADING CHINA'S INTENTIONS Shyu-tu Lee According to Charles Glaser, the prospects for avoiding war between the United States and China are good ("Will China's Rise Lead to War?" March/April 2011). But by ignoring China's history and economic policy and other relevant factors, Glaser arrives at policy prescriptions that would increase the chance of a Chinese nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland. Glaser misjudges Chinese motives. China's military modernization is not primarily motivated by insecurity, as he asserts. China is not threatened by the United States or any of its neighbors. It is advocating its model of governance -- managed capitalism combined with one-party authoritarianism -- as a more efficient alternative to a free-market economy and democracy. China's mission is to regain its place as the dominant superpower so that the country can cleanse itself of the humiliation it has experienced at the hands of the West. The rise of China poses grave challenges to U.S. security. Beijing implements a mercantilist trade policy and artificially sets a low value on its currency to promote exports, thus creating a large U.S. trade deficit with China year after year. Its army has been modernizing at a rapid pace, developing anti-access, area-denial weapons and cyber- and space-warfare capabilities. Meanwhile, China wants to integrate Taiwan because its democracy threatens Beijing's autocratic and repressive rule. In addition, Beijing needs Taiwan as a military base from which to project power into the Indian and Pacific oceans. To keep the peace, the United States must discard the culture of excessive deference to Beijing and implement policies to maintain U.S. military superiority, stanch the flow of U.S. wealth to China, steer China toward democratization, strengthen its alliances with Japan and South Korea, and engage China in an economic and strategic dialogue to promote fair trade and avoid misunderstandings.
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, and South Korea

9671. From the Editor

Author:: Rashid Khalidi
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: A number of the essays and other items appearing in the current issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies have direct or indirect bearing on Palestinian strategy and the stalled “peace” process.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: United States, Palestine, and Central America

9672. Palestinians in Central America: From Temporary Emigrants to a Permanent Diaspora

Author:: Manzar Foroohar
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This survey of the understudied topic of the Palestinian diaspora in Central America, based on existing documentation and interviews, focuses mainly on Honduras and El Salvador, the areas of greatest Palestinian concentration. Two waves of immigration are studied: the first and largest, in the early decades of the 20th century, was mainly Christian from the Bethlehem area in search of economic opportunities and intending to return; the second, especially after 1967, came as a permanent diaspora. The article describes the arrival from Palestine, the factors behind their considerable success, the backlash of discrimination, and finally assimilation. Palestinian involvement in Central American politics ( Right and the Left) is also addressed. The article ends with a discussion of identity issues and renewal of ties with Palestine. SINCE THE EARLY YEARS of the twentieth century, Palestinian immigrants to Central America have played a major role in the social, cultural, and economic development of their host countries. In some places, such as Honduras, they have been at the very forefront of commercial and industrial development. But while the history of Palestinian immigration to the United States, Mexico, and South America has been the subject of major scholarly investigations, Palestinians remain almost invisible in Central American historiography. Indeed, this is a research field that is just opening. This article is an attempt to compile existing documentation on the Palestinian international diaspora in Central America. The material is supplemented by nearly two dozen interviews, in Central America and in Palestine, with immigrants or their descendants, or with persons “back home” familiar with the emigration. It focuses on the history of the formation of Palestinian communities in Central America and their social, economic, and political contributions to their adopted countries. While Palestinian communities throughout Central America will be discussed, particular attention will be paid to Honduras and El Salvador, the countries with the largest concentrations of Palestinians in the region. The research and the interviews together shed light on the degree to which Palestinian diaspora communities have been assimilated into their host countries, and the degree to which they have simultaneously retained their identity and ties to their Palestinian origins. THE EARLY IMMIGRANTS Palestinian immigration to Central America began at the end of the nineteenth century. Because Palestine, like most of the Arab Middle East, was under Ottoman rule until 1918, it is difficult before that date to document their numbers accurately, since the immigrants carried Ottoman (Turkish) passports and therefore were categorized in the Central American registries as Turks (turcos). Though some documentation of the Palestinian component of Arab immigration exists for Honduras, where Palestinians are shown to constitute the overwhelming majority, no such information is available for the other states of the region. Palestinian immigration in the early period swelled as of the second decade of the twentieth century and peaked in the 1920s. It is not difficult to understand why. Most historians of the Middle East point to the general economic decline of the Ottoman Empire and the ongoing wars as the main reasons for emigration during the early period. The new Ottoman conscription law of 1908 intensified emigration among young male citizens of the Empire, and indeed the early immigrants to Central America were generally young males, 15 to 30 years old. Moreover, the Ottoman lands, including Palestine, suffered excruciating hardship and even starvation during World War I. Thus, in interviews with descendants of early immigrants, the two factors repeatedly highlighted as the causes of emigration from Palestine were miserable economic conditions in wartime and the military draft obligations. Most of the emigrants initially intended to return home after accumulating savings and for that reason did not invest in real estate in their host countries. After the end of the war and the restoration of stability following Palestine's occupation by Britain (and the establishment of the Mandate), economic and educational opportunities in the homeland increased. According to some scholars, between a third and a half of the early emigrants did return home and invested their savings in land and homes. Meanwhile, the returning emigrants served as sources of information about economic opportunities in the Americas, and their wealth and prosperity spurred others, especially young men, to try their luck in foreign adventures.
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Palestine

9673. Why the Jewish State Now?

Author:: Raef Zreik
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Israel's raison d'être was as a Jewish state, yet for almost four decades after the 1948 declaration of its establishment its Jewishness was not inscribed in any law. This essay, a structural-historical discourse analysis, seeks to explore what led up to today's insistent assertion of the state's Jewish identity. To this end, the author traces Israel's gradual evolution from its purely ethnic roots (the Zionist revolution) to a more civic concept of statehood involving greater inclusiveness (accompanied in recent decades by a rise in Jewish religious discourse). The author finds that while the state's Jewishness was for decades an assumption so basic as to be self-evident to the Jewish majority, the need to declare it became more urgent as the possibility of becoming “normalized” (i.e., a state for all its citizens) became an option, however distant. The essay ends with an analysis of Israel's demand for recognition as a Jewish state, arguing why the Palestinian negotiators would benefit from deconstructing it rather than simply disregarding it.
Political Geography:: Israel and Palestine

9674. Toward a New Palestinian Negotiation Paradigm

Author:: Camille Mansour
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Against a background of prolonged stalemate, this essay provides a detailed examination of two decades of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations with a view to identifying deficiencies in the Palestinian negotiating approach and drawing lessons of use to future Palestinian negotiators in the context of power imbalance. After outlining possible conditions for resuming and conducting negotiations (making the decision and timing tactical rather than strategic), the author advocates a shift in the Palestinian negotiating paradigm that considers negotiations as one diplomatic tool among others in the long Palestinian struggle to achieve their national program, and places the negotiations in the context of priorities for the coming period.
Political Geography:: Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and United Nations

9675. Hamas "Foreign Minister" Usama Hamdan Talks About National Reconciliation, Arafat, Reform, and Hamas's Presence in Lebanon

Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Usama Hamdan, since mid-2010 in charge of Hamas's international relations (in effect, its foreign minister), was born in al-Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1965. After earning his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1986 from Jordan's Yarmouk University, where he was active in the Islamic Student Movement, he worked in private industry in Kuwait until the first Gulf war. Appointed Hamas representative to Iran in 1992, he held that post until 1998, when he was named Hamas representative to Lebanon. Since taking charge of the movement's foreign affairs portfolio, Hamdan commutes between Beirut and Damascus. Hamdan agreed to meet a small group from the Institute for Palestine Studies at his Beirut office, and when directions for reaching it became complicated, he offered to send a driver. How necessary this was became obvious as the car threaded its way through the narrow labyrinthine streets of Dahiya, the poor Shi'i suburb south of Beirut, festooned with banners and laundry and posters of Hizballah leader Shaykh Hasan Nasrallah. The building where Hamas had its offices was modest and nondescript, not unlike the other apartment buildings on the unpaved but clean street, quiet but for a group of children kicking a ball. The reception room where Hamdan met us was spare: a laminated coffee table, a couch, chairs lining the walls, a few small tables. Large black-and-white portraits of Shaykh Ahmad Yasin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, both killed in targeted Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in 2004, adorned one wall. There were also large photographs of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock and Haram al-Sharif, and a colored poster, almost like a chart, of Hamas leaders assassinated by Israel over the years. Hamdan, casually dressed and relaxed, served the coffee and tea himself, spooning the sugar while chatting in fluid English before the tape recorder was turned on. The interview, conducted jointly by the Journal of Palestine Studies (JPS) and the Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniya (MDF), JPS's sister publication, took place on 13 December 2010. The following are excerpts of the two-hour interview. JPS: These days, reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah seems increasingly urgent. Do you think that the fact that almost everyone recognizes the failure of the negotiating process could increase the chances that it can be achieved? UH: For a limited time, yes. But it's important to emphasize that the division between Hamas and Fatah began long before their overt split in 2007, and in fact political divisions within the Palestinian movement began even before the establishment of Hamas and basically go back to the PLO's political program of 1974.1 The outbreak of the first intifada in 1988 offered an excellent opportunity to get rid of that division by creating a new kind of political process internally—one that could reform the PLO and its political program. Unfortunately, Abu Ammar [Yasir Arafat] did not act to eliminate the division. In fact, he thought he could use the intifada to implement the 1974 program, and that was the gist of the talks held in Tunisia starting in 1989 between Robert Pelletreau, who was the U.S. ambassador at the time, and the PLO. When the Palestinian Authority came into the occupied territories in 1994 under the Oslo agreement, our decision in Hamas was not to fight the PA—despite the suggestions from some Palestinian factions that we impose our position by force. Our decision was to deal with the PA as our own people. Some of our members even formed a political party to facilitate dealings with the PA. But it did not work as we hoped. Abu Ammar promised the Americans and the Israelis that he had full control over the Palestinians and tried to prevent us by force from continuing the resistance against the occupation. And in fact Arafat did control the situation up to 2000, but never even tried to have a political dialogue among Palestinians concerning a future course. He did not even consider the idea of such a discussion. Arafat, whether or not you agreed with him, was one of the most important Palestinian leaders. But he was not a strategic leader. Always his tactics pushed him from his goals, and in order to correct the resulting situation, instead of correcting his actions he changed the goals. This was his vital mistake. When he came back from Camp David in 2000 after the breakdown of the talks, he knew that it was over. He saw there was no possibility of a peace with the Israelis that the Palestinians could accept. But for a while he thought that if he could create some kind of resistance—a controlled resistance— it might change the political environment so he could achieve some of his political goals, like a Palestinian state, not on all the occupied lands, but maybe on part of them, and some solution for Jerusalem. But it didn't work. He couldn't manage or control the intifada as he hoped—I think he didn't realize that after seven years of the Palestinian Authority, a new generation had been created that was more tied to their benefits as part of the PA than to the Palestinian cause and their own people. But there was also the generation that had lived the first intifada and still had those ideals—people like Marwan Barghouti, one of the strongest supporters of the peace process but who also believed that we might be able to improve our situation in that process by our resistance. And I believe these people were really ready to resist the Israelis—because the resistance was not only Hamas but also part of Fatah. Of course Arafat had not counted on the Likud victory and Ariel Sharon's becoming prime minister a couple of months after the second intifada began. He was faced with an entirely new political situation: the Labor party had used the PA to do the dirty work of the occupation, but Sharon decided to keep everything in his own hands even if it meant destroying the PA. He invaded and reoccupied the West Bank in 2002 and put Arafat under siege for two years, and everyone knows now what he meant by the reference he reportedly made to George W. Bush with regard to the need for “regime change” in Palestine— something to the effect that there were ways that the angel of death could be assisted in the matter. Of course it also seems that some of those around Arafat had a hand and betrayed him. I can't say directly, but I believe that some worked against him who understood that the time of change was coming. And they learned this from the Americans, not from their own people.
Political Geography:: Palestine

9676. Letter from the UN: After the U.S. Veto on Settlements

Author:: Graham Usher
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Obama's first veto in defense of Israel at the UN was of a Security Council draft resolution that condemned Israeli settlements in language reflecting the administration's own stated policy. The draft, supported by all other UNSC members, forced the U.S. to choose between undermining its credibility internationally and alienating constituencies at home. For the Palestinians, insistence on tabling the draft in defiance of Washington was seen by some as a first step in an “alternative peace strategy” involving a turn away from the Oslo framework in favor of the UN. After reviewing the context of the resolution, the author analyzes the stakes for the various players, the repercussions of the veto, and the diplomatic prospects in its wake. On 18 February 2011, the Obama administration vetoed a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that would have condemned as illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied territories. Palestinian insistence on submitting the resolution incurred America's wrath. But the Council's fourteen other member states (including permanent members Britain, France, China, and Russia and nonpermanent powers Germany, Brazil, India, and South Africa) all voted for the resolution. And a colossal 123 countries cosponsored it, including every Arab and African state except Libya (which rejects a twostate solution to the conflict). Israel “deeply appreciated” the American veto—understandably so. Rarely had it been left so alone internationally, with even close allies like Germany ignoring appeals to abstain. For the Americans, Obama's first veto in defense of Israel at the United Nations came at a time when he wanted to appear at least rhetorically on the side of young Arab protestors who from Morocco to Yemen had been demanding change, rather than with the ancien régimes defending inertia. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice's contortions were palpable as she tried to explain a veto that violated elemental justice, international law, and until recently her administration's own stated policy on settlements—all in the name of a peace process that no longer exists. The veto “cost the Americans blood,” admitted Israel's Maariv newspaper, paraphrasing a “sharp” exchange between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the aftermath. It also cost Obama in the occupied territories. In Ramallah, some 3,000 mainly Fatah members staged a “day of rage” against the veto, with the West Bank Palestinian Authority's (PA) usually pro-American Prime Minister Salam Fayyad incandescent: “The Americans have chosen to be alone in disrupting the internationally backed Palestinian efforts,” he said. Smaller Fatah anti-America demonstrations occurred in Qalqilya, Hebron, Jenin, and East Jerusalem. The Palestinian and Arab decision to take the resolution to the UN was born of the beaching of the U.S.-steered “peace process” after the Israeli government's refusal last September to renew a partial moratorium on West Bank settlement starts. It was the first run of what has been called the PA's new “alternative” diplomatic strategy. Combined with the promise of new elections in the West Bank and Gaza, moves toward reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and the approaching climax of Fayyad's state-building agenda in September, the alternative strategy involves freeing the Palestinian case from the grip of American tutelage in order to anchor it again on UNSC resolutions and international law. How serious is the alternative?
Political Geography:: Russia, China, America, India, South Africa, Brazil, Palestine, and Germany

9677. The Palestine Papers: Chronicling the U.S. Abandonment of the Road Map

Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: A. Meeting Minutes, PLO Negotiation Affairs Department Office, Jericho, 16 September 2009 (excerpts) B. Meeting Minutes, PLO Negotiation Affairs Department Office, Jericho, 17 September 2009 (excerpts) C. Meeting Minutes, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, New York, 24 September 2009 (excerpts) D. Meeting Summary, U.S. State Department, Washington, 1 October 2009 (excerpts) E. U.S. Draft Terms of Reference Document for Restarting Negotiations, 2 October 2009 F. PLO Negotiation Support Unit, Preliminary Comments on U.S. Proposal as Presented on 2 October 2009 G. Meeting Minutes, U.S. State Department, Washington, 2 October 2009 (excerpts) H. Meeting Minutes, U.S. State Department, Washington, 21 October 2009 (excerpts).
Political Geography:: United States and Palestine

9678. A Jerusalem Story

Author:: Michelle Hartman
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Reviewed work(s): Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem, by Sahar Hamouda. Reading: Garnet, 2010. vii + 122 pages. Sources to p. 123. Glossary to p. 125. Al Fitani Genealogy to p. 127. Al Fitani Family Tree to p. 130. $39.95 cloth.
Political Geography:: Jerusalem

9679. Selective Legal History

Author:: Michael Lynk
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Is it a coincidence that, as disillusionment spreads about the viability and justice of a two-state settlement as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we are witnessing a spate of books that is shifting the political-historical focus from 1967 to the 1917–1948 period as the fulcrum point by which to assess this malignant struggle? Recent histories such as The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Jonathan Schneer (Random House, 2010) and Victor Kattan's From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891–1949 (Pluto Press, 2009) have lucidly and critically explored the colonialist foundations of the British Mandate, the British-Zionist alliance, and the deeply flawed premises of the United Nations partition plan.
Political Geography:: Israel and Palestine

9680. The Flotilla Effect

Author:: Edda Manga
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Reviewed work(s): Midnight on the Mavi Marmara: The Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How It Changed the Course of the Israel/Palestine Conflict, edited by Moustafa Bayoumi. New York: OR Books, 2010. ix + 293 pages. Contributors to p. 299. Credits to p. 301. $16.00 paper.
Political Geography:: New York, Israel, and Palestine

9681. Everday Dreams

Author:: Barbara Harlow
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Reviewed work(s): Touch, by Adania Shibli. Translated by Paula Haydar, Northampton, MA: Clockroot Books, 2010. 72 pages. $13.00 paper.

9682. Refugee Life

Author:: Aseel Sawalha
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Voices from the Camps: A People's History of Palestinian Refugees in Jordan, 2006, by Nabil Marshood. Lanham: University Press of America, 2010. ix + 112. Epilogue to p. 116. Index to p. 122. About the Author to p. 123. $25.00 paper. Reviewed by Aseel Sawalha Nabil Marshood, professor of sociology at Hudson County Community College, New Jersey, has written an accessible work about a complex aspect of the Palestinian experience. Voices from the Camps: A People's History of Palestinian Refugees in Jordan, 2006—as the title suggests—allows curious readers, with or without much knowledge of the lives of Palestinian refugees, to hear the voices of the residents of refugee camps in Jordan. The interviewees (women and men both old and young) narrate their stories of leaving their home villages in Palestine, their arrival to the camps, and the daily challenges they encounter.
Political Geography:: Palestine

9683. Settlers and Zionism

Author:: Cheryl Rubenberg
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: The Settlers: And the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism, by Gadi Taub. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. 167 pages. Appendix to p. 187. Notes to p. 205. Index to p. 207. $32.50 cloth. Reviewed by Cheryl Rubenberg Among quite a number of good books on religious Zionist settlers, Gadi Taub's The Settlers: And the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism stands out for its originality, analytical astuteness, and conceptual focus. On issues not directly related to the religious settler movement, however, there are several serious problems. Taub concentrates on ideas “because settlement has become the issue over which Israel's moral foundations and its identity—its heart and its mind—are contested. . . . It is a struggle over the very meaning of Zionism” (p. 21). The crucial difference between secular Zionism and the messianic settlers, he argues, resides in their obligation toward the Land of Israel, not the State of Israel: their commitment to redemption of land, not the establishment of political independence, sovereignty, and democracy. The book presents the evolution of the ideological struggle to reconcile the settlers' view with mainstream Zionism and argues that despite the different adaptations through which religious ideology underwent, in the end “the two visions . . . could not be reconciled” (p. 21) and the messianic movement was thwarted.
Political Geography:: Palestine

9684. Interfaith Industry

Author:: Magid Shihade
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Reviewed work(s): Muslim Attitudes to Jews and Israel: The Ambivalences of Rejection, Antagonism, Tolerance, and Cooperation, edited by Moshe Ma'oz. Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2010. xi + 302 pages. Contributors to p. 307. Index to p. 326. $65.00 cloth.
Topic:: Islam

9685. Foreign Donors

Author:: Kevin W. Gray
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Reviewed work(s): Palestinian Civil Society: Foreign Donors and the Power to Promote and Exclude, by Benoît Challand. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. vii + 212 pages. Notes to p. 236. Bibliography to p. 256. Index to p. 266. $140 cloth, $39.95 paper.
Political Geography:: Palestine

9686. Arab Views (cartoons from al-Hayat)

Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This section aims to give readers a glimpse of how the Arab world views current events that affect Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict by presenting a selection of cartoons from al-Hayat, the most widely distributed mainstream daily in the Arab world. JPS is grateful to al-Hayat for permission to reprint its material.
Political Geography:: Israel, Palestine, and Arabia

9687. Selections from the Press

Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This section includes articles and news items, mainly from Israeli but also from international press sources, that provide insightful or illuminating perspectives on events, developments, or trends in Israel and the occupied territories not readily available in the mainstream U.S. media.
Topic:: Development
Political Geography:: United States and Israel

9688. Photos From the Quarter

Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This small sample of photos, selected from hundreds viewed by JPS, aims to convey a sense of the situation on the ground in the occupied territories during the quarter.

9689. Quarterly Update on Conflict and Diplomacy

Author:: Michele K. Esposito
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: The Quarterly Update is a summary of bilateral, multilateral, regional, and international events affecting the Palestinians and the future of the peace process. More than 100 print, wire, television, and online sources providing U.S., Israeli, Arab, and international independent and government coverage of unfolding events are surveyed to compile the Quarterly Update. The most relevant sources are cited in JPS's Chronology section, which tracks events day by day. 16 November 2010–15 February 2011
Topic:: Diplomacy and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia

9690. Settlement Monitor

Author:: Geoffrey Aronson
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This section covers items—reprinted articles, statistics, and maps—pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.
Political Geography:: Washington, Middle East, Jerusalem, and Gaza

9691. Documents and Source Material: International

Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: A1. International Coalition of Development, Human Rights, and Peace-Building Organizations, "Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the GAZA Blockade," 30 November 2010 (excerpts).A2. Eu Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah, Recommendations to Reinforce Eu Policy on East Jerusalem, 7 December 2010.A3. Unrwa and the American University in Beirut, Socioeconomic Survey of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon, Executive Summary, Beirut, 31 December 2010.A4. Un Security Council Draft Resolution Condemning Continued Israeli Settlements, New York, 18 February 2011.
Topic:: Security, Development, and Human Rights
Political Geography:: New York, Israel, and Jerusalem

9692. Documents and Source Material: Israel

Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: C. B'Tselem, Report on Arrests and Detentions of Palestinian Minors in East Jerusalem, Jerusalem, December 2010 (excerpts).
Political Geography:: Israel, Palestine, and Jerusalem

9693. Documents and Source Material: United States

Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: D1. Human Rights Watch, "Separate and Unequal: Israel's Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories," Summary Section, New York, 19 December 2010 (excerpts).D2. U.S. AMB. to the un Susan Rice, Explanation of the U.S. Vote on the Unsc Resolution on Condemning Continuing Israeli Settlements, New York, 18 February 2011.
Topic:: Human Rights
Political Geography:: United States, New York, Israel, and Palestine

9694. Chronology

Author:: Michele K. Esposito
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This section is part of a chronology begun in JPS 13, no. 3 (Spring 1984). Chronology dates reflect Eastern Standard Time (EST). For a more comprehensive overview of events related to the al-Aqsa intifada and of regional and international developments related to the peace process, see the Quarterly Update on Conflict and Diplomacy in this issue.
Topic:: Diplomacy and Government
Political Geography:: Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

9695. Bibliography of Periodical Literature

Author:: Norbert Scholz
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This section lists articles and reviews of books relevant to Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Entries are classified under the following headings: Reference and General; History (through 1948) and Geography; Palestinian Politics and Society; Jerusalem; Israeli Politics, Society, and Zionism; Arab and Middle Eastern Politics; International Relations; Law; Military; Economy, Society, and Education; Literature, Arts, and Culture; Book Reviews; and Reports Received.
Topic:: Environment, Politics, and Culture
Political Geography:: Israel, Palestine, and Arabia

9696. International Issues & Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs Contents

Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Issues: Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs
Institution:: Slovak Foreign Policy Association
Abstract:: The decade of 2000–2010 was the warmest decade in recent history. It was also a decade of climate extremes such as the 2003 heat wave in western Europe and 2010 heat wave in Russia, frequent major floods in Europe, Pakistan in 2010 or Australia in early 2011, devastating cyclones, or major cold snaps and snow blizzards as in the US, UK and China. Despite this reality, there persists a deep gap between the scientific evidence about the changing climate of the Earth, and political awareness about the reasons and consequences of global warming. Such a gap between physical reality and political thinking will be extremely costly. Recent scientific evidence suggests that measures considered to tackle global warming are gravely inadequate. It appears that the average global temperature by 2100 will increase by at least 3°C to 4°C. Such increase will have devastating effects on agricultural production and survival of hundreds of millions people. The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of climate change science among policy makers and diplomats.
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia

9697. Striving for Developed Status: Costa Rica and the United States' 21st Century Engagement

Author:: Anne Slaughter Andrew
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: Fifty years ago, Costa Rica, like most of its Latin neighbors, was a developing country struggling for political stability and economic development. Today, we find Latin America as a whole, more stable, prosperous and democratic, with Costa Rica recognized as one of the most stable democracies in the Americas.
Political Geography:: United States and Latin America

9698. Toward a More Perfect Union: Ten Years of the Ohrid Framework Agreement

Author:: Philip T. Reeker
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA), which ended the conflict between the ethnic-Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) and Macedonian security forces. After NLA fighters attacked a police station in the village of Tearce in January 2001, killing a police officer, clashes quickly flared up in other areas across Macedonia. The potential of another Balkan war was averted when US negotiator James Pardew and his EU colleague François Léotard mediated an agreement between the ethnic-Albanian and ethnic-Macedonian sides. The OFA was signed on August 13, 2001.

9699. Burma: A View from Rangoon

Author:: Larry M. Dinger
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: Burma (also known as Myanmar) is a land of contrasts. It is geographically the largest country in Southeast Asia, stretching from tropical beaches to Himalayan peaks. It is rich in resources, including natural gas, timber, and gems. Eighty years ago its people were generally acknowledged to be the best educated in the region, and their prospects for development were expected to be high. Yet today, Burma is the poorest country in Southeast Asia with a per capita GDP of about $625; governmental health and educational expenditures are pitifully small; and Burmese rank near the bottom in most human-development indexes. The ethnic Burman, mostly Buddhist majority lives mostly in the central plains; but more than one hundred other distinct ethnic groups exist, as do notable Christian, Muslim, and Hindu minorities. Visitors universally praise the hospitality of Burmese peoples; yet ethnic-based armed conflicts simmer and sometimes flare in border areas, and Burma receives constant international criticism for major human rights abuses.
Topic:: Development, Education, and Human Rights
Political Geography:: Burma, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar

9700. Religion and Democracy: The Emerging Diplomacy of Pope Benedict XVI

Author:: Francis Rooney
Publication Date:: 04-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: While many Americans only see him as a spiritual leader of Roman Catholics, the Pope exerts an often subtle but undeniable influence in international affairs. The Pope is the final authority of the Holy See, which derives its name from “seat” in Latin and signifies the repository of authority and direction over the organization and affairs of the Church. As an institution and sovereign, the Holy See is the “oldest diplomatic entity in the world.”
Topic:: Sovereignty
Political Geography:: America

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS