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54322. U.S. Military Assistance to 1460 Report Countries: 1990-2005
- Author:
- Victoria Garcia
- Publication Date:
- 04-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- On Jan. 30, 2003, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted resolution 1460, which reaffirms the council's previous resolutions (1261, 1314, and 1379) on children and armed conflict and calls on all parties to armed conflict to stop using child soldiers. Resolution 1460 also requests that the UN secretary general list the progress made by the 23 parties to conflict on the Security Council's agenda (S/2002/1299), including governmental armed groups that continue to use or recruit child soldiers. In response to Resolution 1460, and in advance of the Security Council's fourth open debate on children in armed conflict, the Coalition to stop the Use of Child Soldiers published a report that lists 17 countries where child soldiers were being used from January 2003 through September 2003. While the report does not cover every situation where children are being deployed, it specifically includes all of the countries covered on the Security Council's agenda, as well as other situations deemed critical by the coalition.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Human Rights, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- United States
54323. A Unified Security Budget for the United States
- Author:
- Miriam Pemberton and Marcus Corbin
- Publication Date:
- 03-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Since September 11, 2001, the question of how to provide for our security has loomed large over our national life. Many of the Bush administration's answers to this question have come under intense challenge—from the doctrine of preventive war to the development of new designs for “usable” nuclear weapons to the choice of war with Iraq as the centerpiece of its war on terrorism. But until recently one aspect of the administration's strategy has gone virtually unchallenged, namely its military budgets and the spending priorities contained within them. From 2000 to 2004, these budgets have increased by more than 50%. Congress has approved each of these budgets, and virtually the entire menu of programs specified in them, with hardly a whisper of debate.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States
54324. The Defense Monitor, Challenging Conventional Threat
- Author:
- Rachel Stohl, Victoria Samson, Marcus Corbin, and Tomas Valasek
- Publication Date:
- 12-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- This issue of The Defense Monitor presents several of the projects currently underway at the Center for Defense Information, and describes how the work of CDI is making a difference, inside and outside of Washington, D.C. Of the many and varied CDI initiatives, highlighted here are projects on several of the hot topics of the day: the arms trade, small arms and light weapons; security cooperation with Europe; missile defense and space weapons; and, the war in Iraq, the size and shape of the military, and the role of Congress in overseeing and ensuring national security. At a time when too often public debate is cut short and poorly informed, in these and other areas CDI continues to supply the independent information. Its well-grounded analysis, and creative solutions are vital to help policy-makers make sound choices, and to support a healthy discourse on important national security issues affecting the nation and the world.
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Europe, and Washington
54325. The Defense Monitor, The Wrong Deterrence: The Threat of Loose Nukes is One of Our Own Making
- Author:
- Colin Robinson, Bruce.G Blair, Nikolai Zlobin, and Alan F. Kay
- Publication Date:
- 10-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Nuclear terrorism, thankfully, is still only a specter, not a reality. But the recent wave of bloodshed in Russia underscores the urgency of the need to prevent terrorists capable of indiscriminate slaughter from acquiring nuclear bombs.
- Topic:
- Security and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- Russia and United States
54326. The Defense Monitor, The Real Problem with Intelligence
- Author:
- Mark Burgess, Lawrence Korb, Winslow T. Wheeler, and Philip E. Coyle
- Publication Date:
- 08-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- The reports of the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence miss the real problem facing the intelligence community. The real problem is not organization or culture, but the Team B concept which began in 1976 and the real villains are those hardliners who refuse to accept the unbiased and balanced judgments of intelligence professionals about the threats facing the country.
- Topic:
- Security and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States
54327. The Defense Monitor, Ten Mistakes History will Record About War in Ira
- Author:
- Rachel Stohl, Anthony Zinni, Steven C. Welsh, Michael Donovan, and Colin Robinson
- Publication Date:
- 06-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- [T]he first mistake that will be recorded in history [is] the belief that containment as a policy doesn't work. It certainly worked against the Soviet Union, has worked with North Korea and others. It's not a pleasant thing to have to administer, it requires troops full-time, there are moments when there ... are periods of violence, but containment is a lot cheaper than the alternative, as we're finding out now.
- Topic:
- Security and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States and North Korea
54328. The Defense Monitor, Keeping Presidents in the Nuclear Dark: The SIOP Option that Wasn't
- Author:
- Rachel Stohl, Winslow Wheeler, Theresa Hitchens, and Bruce.G Blair
- Publication Date:
- 04-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- ONE OF THE MOST RAREFIED experiences of a newly installed president is his receiving of the “nuclear football” conferring the right to order the use of nuclear weapons in defense of the American national interest. Few, if any, presidents have had a firm grip on the “football” however, as all U.S. presidents receive a misleading briefing on their nuclear weapons rights and responsibilities, and options.
- Topic:
- Security and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
54329. The Defense Monitor, Rogue States: Nuclear Red-Herrings
- Author:
- Eric Hagt, Victoria Samson, Thomas R. Pickering, Lawrence J. Korb, Bruce.G Blair, and Yali Chen
- Publication Date:
- 02-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- For all the talk about rogue states acquiring nuclear weapons to threaten the United States, and all the heated debate about the United States developing mini-nukes and bunker busters to keep the rogues at bay, the U.S. nuclear weapons establishment does not pay much attention to the “axis of evil.” The real obsession of the U.S. nuclear enterprise at all levels — from Strategic Command in Omaha to the bomb custodians and designers in New Mexico — is keeping U.S. nuclear forces prepared to fight a large-scale nuclear war at a moment's notice with … Russia.
- Topic:
- Security and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Mexico
54330. Narrating Oneself Through Another: Medieval Christians and Their Images of the Saracen
- Author:
- Paul T. Levin
- Publication Date:
- 11-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- It was Turkish membership in the European Union that the Viennese social worker quoted in the Guardian was against. As the Commission of the European Union has recently delivered a report that suggests the opening up of EU accession negotiations with Turkey, old fears seem to be awakening on the continent; “Turcophobia”, as the Guardian calls it. The liberal Viennese news weekly Profil the same week described the prospect of Turkish membership as “not so much a risk as a danger” in an editorial titled “The Turks at the Gates of Vienna.” But not only Turks are experiencing a resurrection of animosities that many thought were long since buried. In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, anti-Arab sentiments surged along with verbal and physical attacks on Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. Perhaps the secretly held view of too many in Europe and the “West” is that of Britain's Robert Kilroy-Silk. According to his column in the Sunday Express on September 25 of this year, Arabs are no more than "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors". This essay digs deep to find the historical roots of today's images of Turks, Arabs, and Muslims.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Organization, Regional Cooperation, and Religion
- Political Geography:
- Britain, United States, Europe, Turkey, and Arabia
54331. Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge Nuclear Devastation
- Author:
- Lynn Eden
- Publication Date:
- 11-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- Whole World on Fire is about a puzzle that is morbid, arcane, and consequential. Morbid, because it involves the devastation caused by nuclear weapons. Arcane, because it involves secret and obscure calculations by a government bureaucracy tucked away deep within U.S. military intelligence. And consequential, because it involves decisions at the highest level of government about using nuclear weapons.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, International Relations, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- United States
54332. International Trade Law in US Courts
- Author:
- Saadia M. Pekkanen
- Publication Date:
- 10-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- This paper seeks to assess the relationship between international trade law and national courts, a topic that remains surprisingly unexplored by legal scholars let alone other disciplines. Three interrelated questions motivate this study. First, how has international trade law been treated by national courts? Second, what might account for that treatment? Third, what possible predictions and implications can we draw from such an analysis with respect to the diffusion of international trade law in domestic societies?
- Topic:
- Government, International Law, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States and North America
54333. Could Humphrey Have Gone to China? Measuring the Electoral Costs and Benefits of Making Peace
- Author:
- Kenneth Schultz
- Publication Date:
- 04-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- Theoretical arguments for why “it takes a Nixon to go to China” emphasize either the superior credibility that hawks have in advocating peace or the superior political benefits they enjoy in doing so. This paper looks for evidence of these effects in the canonical case: that of U.S. rapprochement with China in the early 1970s. I use counterfactual simulations on data from the 1968 National Election Study to explore the political effects of a proposal to open relations with China, focusing on whether and how those effects would depend on who made the proposal: Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey. I find evidence of both the credibility and electoral security effects hypothesized in the theoretical literature. In particular, there is a very dramatic asymmetry in the political costs and benefits of proposing peace: while such a proposal would have been electorally costly for Humphrey, it could have been an electoral boon for Nixon.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Asia, and North America
54334. Strategic Moral Diplomacy: Mandela, Qaddafi and the Lockerbie Negotiations
- Author:
- Lyn Boyd Judson
- Publication Date:
- 03-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- On October 29, 1997, South African President Nelson Mandela arrived in Libya to award Colonel Muammar Qaddafi the Good Hope Medal. The Medal, also referred to as the Order of Good Hope, is the highest honor that South Africa can bestow upon a citizen of another country--it would be given a year later to US President Bill Clinton. At the time, Colonel Qaddafi was a pariah in the international community. Libya had been under United Nations sanctions since 1992 for its refusal to hand over the two indicted suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Globalization, Government, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, Libya, United Nations, and Scotland
54335. China and State/Space: Scale Relations and the City in an Era of Globalization
- Author:
- Carolyn Cartier
- Publication Date:
- 03-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- Since the onset of reform and opening in the People's Republic of China after 1978, decentralization of state power has arguably been the most consequential transformation of the Chinese political economy, underpinning the dynamics of economic growth and state-society relations. The growth of the number and size of cities and the urban population—urbanization—are the outstanding geographical manifestations of these processes. How should we analyze the relationships between them? This chapter introduces scale relations as a basis for assessing the decentralization of state power and urbanization, and to demonstrate the 'rescaling' of the Chinese state in an era of globalization as spatial processes and their manifestation at the urban scale.
- Topic:
- Globalization and Government
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
54336. Understanding Foreign Policy Debates: Towards a Critical Constructivist Methodology
- Author:
- Lene Hansen
- Publication Date:
- 02-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- Constructivists and poststructuralists argue that identities, ideas, norms, culture and discourses are indispensable for understanding world politics. This seemingly innocuous statement has been at the centre of heated debates within the field of International Relations for the past fifteen years and there is little indication that discussions are ceasing. Great debates throw up a series of fundamental questions: what should be the scope or research questions of International Relations; should one ask questions related to state behavior, or should one ask questions about the processes through which this behavior is conceptualized and legitimated to domestic and international audiences? How should the field's primary unit – the state – be conceptualized; what is, in other words, the ontology of the state, is it a rational utilitarian actor, is it concerned with security, self-preservation and relative gains, or does its utilitarianism translate into economic concern with absolute gains? Or, is the state a politically contested and unstable actor who is constantly in the process of constructing its identity? Are states and international institutions motivated by material interests or are they equally concerned with promoting a particular set of norms and ideas? And, how should these questions be studied? Which epistemology and methodologies should be applied, should one opt for a positivist epistemology, or a “social science approach” and an ensuing use of falsifiable hypotheses and causal analysis? Or, are there non-causal research questions, which warrant an interpretive, constitutive, or discursive epistemology, and what kind of methodologies are appropriate for these non-causal studies?
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, Government, and Politics
54337. The Inefficient Use of Power: Costly Conflict with Complete Information
- Author:
- Robert Powell
- Publication Date:
- 02-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- Recent work across a wide range of issues in political economy as well as in American, comparative, and international politics tries to explain the inefficient use of power — revolutions, civil wars, high levels of public debt, international conflict, and costly policy insulation — in terms of commitment problems. This paper shows that a common mechanism is at work in a number of these diverse studies. This common mechanism provides a more general formulation of a type of commitment problem that can arise in many different substantive settings. The present analysis then formalizes this mechanism as an “inefficiency condition” which ensures that all of the equilibria of a stochastic game are inefficient. This condition has a natural substantive interpretation: Large, rapid changes in the actors' relative power (measured in terms of their minmax payoffs) may cause inefficiency.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Economics, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- America
54338. Counter-Terrorism: A Game Theoretic Analysis
- Author:
- Daniel G. Arce M. and Todd Sandler
- Publication Date:
- 02-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- This paper establishes the prevalence of deterrence over preemption when targeted governments can choose between either policy or employ both. There is a similar proclivity to favor defensive counterterrorist measures over proactive policies. Unfortunately, this predisposition results in an equilibrium with socially inferior payoffs when compared with proactive responses. Proactive policies tend to provide purely public benefits to all potential targets and are usually undersupplied, whereas defensive policies tend to yield a strong share of provider-specific benefits and are often oversupplied. When terrorists direct a disproportionate number of attacks at one government, its reliance on defensive measures can disappear. Ironically, terrorists' can assist governments in addressing coordination dilemmas associated with some antiterrorist policies by targeting some countries more often than others.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Security, Government, and Terrorism
54339. The Meaning of Monetary Power
- Author:
- Benjamin J. Cohen
- Publication Date:
- 02-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- What is the meaning of monetary power? No one doubts that money is inherently political, an integral part of global “high politics.” Yet remarkably few scholars of international relations have attempted to explore the notion of monetary power in formal analytical terms. As Jonathan Kirshner has accurately noted, the topic is “a neglected area of study” (1995:3).
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
54340. An Arendtian Critique of Deliberative Global Sphere Theory: 'Humanitarian' Violence and the Paradox of Founding
- Author:
- Patricia Owens
- Publication Date:
- 01-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- The language of the 'public sphere' is foundational to democratic theory and practice and most of our activity is oriented toward some form of public. As subject and object of democracy, the notion of a 'public' is a discursive weapon second only to the 'people' as the political honorific par excellence. Definitions of the public sphere vary, however, not least because different topographical locations and fields of activity are public in different times and places; publics are constituted through a variety of media (face-to-face, print, and electronic encounters); and there are various modes in which one can participate in public discourse and action (liberal, deliberative, agonistic). Most straightforwardly, 'public spheres' organise relations among strangers. They are the places in which people talk or read about their common affairs.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Democratization, Government, and International Law