Number of results to display per page
Search Results
16932. China Maritime Report No. 9: Organizing to Fight in the Far Seas, The Chinese Navy in an Era of Military Reform
- Author:
- Roderick Lee and Morgan Clemens
- Publication Date:
- 10-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has been laying the organizational groundwork for far seas operations for nearly two decades, developing logistical and command infrastructure to support a “near seas defense and far seas protection” strategy. In the context of such a strategy, the PLAN’s ability to project power into the far seas depends upon its ability to dominate the near seas, effectively constituting a “sword and shield” approach. Along with the rest of the PLA, the PLAN’s peacetime command structure has been brought into line with its wartime command structures, and in terms of near seas defense, those command structures have been streamlined and made joint. By contrast, the command arrangements for far seas operations have not been clearly delineated and no one organ or set of organs has been identified as responsible for them. While this is manageable in the context of China’s current, limited far seas operational presence, any meaningful increase in the size, scope, frequency, and intensity of far seas operations will require further structural reforms at the Central Military Commission and theater command levels in order to lay out clear command responsibilities.
- Topic:
- Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Navy, Maritime, and People's Liberation Army (PLA)
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
16933. China Maritime Report No. 8: Winning Friends and Influencing People: Naval Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics
- Author:
- Timothy R. Heath
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- In recent years, Chinese leaders have called on the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to carry out tasks related to naval diplomacy beyond maritime East Asia, in the “far seas.” Designed to directly support broader strategic and foreign policy objectives, the PLAN participates in a range of overtly political naval diplomatic activities, both ashore and at sea, from senior leader engagements to joint exercises with foreign navies. These activities have involved a catalogue of platforms, from surface combatants to hospital ships, and included Chinese naval personnel of all ranks. To date, these acts of naval diplomacy have been generally peaceful and cooperative in nature, owing primarily to the service’s limited power projection capabilities and China’s focus on more pressing security matters closer to home. However, in the future a more blue-water capable PLAN could serve more overtly coercive functions to defend and advance China’s rapidly growing overseas interests when operating abroad.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Navy, and People's Liberation Army (PLA)
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
16934. China Maritime Report No. 7: Gwadar: China's Potential Strategic Strongpoint in Pakistan
- Author:
- Isaac B. Kardon, Conor M. Kennedy, and Peter A. Dutton
- Publication Date:
- 08-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- This China Maritime Report on Gwadar is the second in a series of case studies on China’s Indian Ocean “strategic strongpoints” (战略支点). People’s Republic of China (PRC) officials, military officers, and civilian analysts use the strategic strongpoint concept to describe certain strategically valuable foreign ports with terminals and commercial zones owned and operated by Chinese firms.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, Port, and Commerce
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, China, and Asia
16935. Unveiling the causes of the lack of antinuclear movements in India during the Cold War
- Author:
- Joao Paulo Nicolini Gabriel and Andre Luiz Cancado Motta
- Publication Date:
- 12-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Institution:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Abstract:
- This article aims to explain the lack of robust antinuclear movements in India during a period that ranges from the 1950s to the 1970s. Such movements arose throughout the world. During the 1960s, people rallied for this agenda in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and even in New Zealand. India, conversely, tested a nuclear device in 1974, at the known Pokhran-I test (or “Smiling Buddha”), but did not face such grassroots uprisings. In this sense, this research design applied a deductive congruence analysis built on a bibliographical review. A cas e study on the Indian context tested previously elaborated the main hypotheses. It was inferred that this phenomenon was causedby four elements: (a) few possibilities to public participation; (b) scant available information on nuclear policy; (c) lack of a political schism between national elites and civil society on this topic; and at last (d) geopolitical dynamics.
- Topic:
- Arms Control and Proliferation, Cold War, Nuclear Weapons, and Social Movement
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and India
16936. “Stranger Things”: the future of Latin American regionalism
- Author:
- Maria Victoria Alvarez
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Institution:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Abstract:
- Latin American attempts at regionalism have been pursued through different waves. The last wave, post-liberal or post-hegemonic regionalism, is fading. Building on contributions from International Political Economy, European Studies and International Relations, the paper aims at answering two main questions: how can we characterize the current paths of regional integration in Latin America considering the trends of the last ten years? What can we expect of Latin American regionalism over the next decade? Grounded on a qualitative content analysis, we address three premises based on the past trajectory of Latin American regionalism in order to grasp some of the present and (possible) futures trends: membership of regional organizations, institutional design of regional organizations and the role of the United States. After contrasting these elements with recent Latin American regionalist developments, the paper engages in a creative exercise of forecasting. The purpose is not to pretend to know the future nor to predict it but to present two imaginable scenarios: a short-term scenario and a longer-term scenario. Maybe we are about to witness some “stranger things” in the future of Latin American regionalism, opening up to different realities, different explanations and alternatives.
- Topic:
- Political Economy, Regional Integration, Regionalism, and Future
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and United States of America
16937. The domestic risk of Chinese partnerships: cross-conditionality and coalition building
- Author:
- Alejandro Angel
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Institution:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Abstract:
- Chinese credits became a viable, and preferred, alternative during the pink tide in part because it lacked traditional conditionality clauses. However, these financial operations, as well as others, often imply the existence of cross-conditionality. In opposition to traditional variants of conditionality, cross-conditionality implies that operations in the realms of trade, finance, or aid for development can be jeopardized as a response to decisions taken by national authorities that change previously agreed conditions in parallel projects. The main objective of this study is to explore the possible consequences of cross-conditionality, particularly the political consequences, in the Brazilian government’s coalition building. The hypothesis is that cross-conditionality represents a similar risk than the one that traditional conditionality represented in terms of national autonomy insofar as national governments would still have their hands tied, although for different reasons. We find that cross-conditionality affects the coalition-building efforts of national governments since it can be used to affect key government partners. In Brazil, agribusiness, a key partner of Bolsonaro’s government, is the sector that could be potentially affected if the Chinese government decides to implement cross-conditionality as a retaliatory measure to hostile policies or declarations of the Brazilian government vis-à-vis Chinese interests.
- Topic:
- Development, Partnerships, Trade, Coalition, and Cross-conditionality
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, Brazil, and South America
16938. The new Latin American neo-patriotic far-right: reactionary internationalism and its challenge to the international liberal order
- Author:
- Jose Antonio Sanahuja
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Institution:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Abstract:
- This work argues that the new far-right, which we characterise as neo-patriotic, emerges through a combination of agency and structural factors amid a crisis of globalisation, understanding it as a crisis in the hegemonic order. The crisis of globalisation opens opportunities for the rise of a new far-right which redefines the popular, the national, and the international based on Schmittian friend-enemy distinctions, as an autonomous categorisation, which gives political meaning to their identity as a political actor. A key element of this identity is a reactionary internationalism based on the defence of tradition against cosmopolitan globalism. Thus, the reinstatement of a traditionalist “Arcadia” gives meaning to the process of re-politization and challenges to the liberal international order, its national, regional, and global dimensions, universalist and globalist discourse, and its teleologies of progress. In sum, these actors do not merely question globalisation as an established order but fight for the construction of an alternative international order of a reactionary type.
- Topic:
- Globalization, Liberal Order, Far Right, International Order, and Reactionary Internationalism
- Political Geography:
- Latin America
16939. Foreign Policy in the real world: the Obama years
- Author:
- Joseph Marques
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Institution:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Abstract:
- This review essay examines three books written by senior former Obama administration members - Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Ben Rhodes. It highlights how the authors manage to present many of the Obama administration's internal debates, as well as reveal the limitations of its foreign policy. RICE, Susan. Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019, 544p., ISBN: 978-1-50118-997-5. POWER, Samantha. The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir. London: Dey Street Books, 2019, 592p., ISBN: 978-0-06282-069-3. RHODES, Ben. The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. New York: Random House, 2018, 428p. ISBN: 978-0-52550-935-6
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Book Review, Memoir, and Barack Obama
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
16940. DIPLOMATIC NARRATIVES ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION: POWER, COOPERATION AND PERSPECTIVES FROM BRAZIL AS A DEVELOPING COUNTRY
- Author:
- Iara Costa Leite, Júlia Mascarello, and Nicole Aguilar Gayard
- Publication Date:
- 04-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Institution:
- Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
- Abstract:
- This article adopts a different stance towards materials on science diplomacy produced by its practitioners, broadly understood here as those individuals or organizations involved in the practice of science diplomacy (including, for instance, scientists and diplomats): it sees such materials as composed by narratives, rather than scientific categories that describe and analyze social phenomena.6 Our focus is on frames and causal perceptions related to STI and international relations as elaborated by diplomats in Brazil, where the authors are based. Together with China, India, Russia and the United States, Brazil has become a central stage for competition between developed countries' science diplomacy initiatives (FLINK; SCHREITERER, 2010). Our aim is to map and systematize narratives on STI authored by Brazilian diplomats and their connections with international relations. We understand narratives broadly, related to how diplomats perceive STI and associate it with power, development, competition and cooperation in multiple geometries (bilateral, multilateral, North-South, South-South) and sectors (nuclear, economic, environmental etc.).
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Science and Technology, Power, and Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and South America