Us strategy in the middle east and the 2004 presidential election 9/11: towards a redefinition of america's role in the world

September 11th dramatically changed the geopolitical landscape for the United States. Though President Bush was elected as a domestic policy president, the war against radical Islam has become the central theme of his presidency. In this war, adhering to the analyses of the neoconservatives, the President believes that the region's tyrannies are a breeding ground for Islamic extremism. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein's tyranny and replacing it with a more democratic regime is the start of a long process of liberalization of the Arab world that will have reverberations for years to come. Though Senator John Kerry has based his 2004 presidential campaign on criticizing President Bush's Iraq policy, if Kerry were elected president, his Iraq policies would actually differ little from those of Bush.     

Truth,justice, and education: towards reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia

Key to the success of peacebuilding and social reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia are the attitudes of these young people. Our goal in this paper is to explore young people’s attitudes about the prospects of reconciliation vis-a-vis those with whom their nations were formerly at war. In particular, we examine three sets of factors. First, we contend that the level of contact among people engendered by the segregated educational systems affects the attitudes of the young about the possibility of reconciliation. We suggest that those who are able to interact more frequently with fellow students from other ethnic groups will be more likely to believe in the possibility of reconciliation. Second, we contend that attitudes of young people about which ethnic groups were responsible for the violence in the former Yugoslavia and the efforts of the international community to bring truth and justice will strongly influence attitudes. Finally, we examine other factors such as education and the influence of gender on reconciliation.     

Inside the Karen Insurgency: Explaining Conflict and Conciliation in Myanmar’s Changing Borderlands

Since 2012 Myanmar’s oldest ethnic rebel group, the Karen National Union (KNU), has sought for considerable rapprochement with the government. To many, this seemed to be the direct outcome of wider political transition in Myanmar. This article proposes an alternative explanation. Based on extensive field research and an emerging literature on armed groups, it demonstrates that the group’s rapprochement with the government was driven by leadership struggles between two rival factions within the KNU. At the core of this contestation are shifting internal power relations, which resulted from military pressures and geopolitical transformations in the Myanmar-Thai borderlands. These findings point to significant shortcomings of Myanmar’s peace process. They also contribute to the field of Conflict and Security Studies with much needed primary source data on the internal politics of insurgency, which shows how dynamics of civil war are driven by an interplay between forces on different levels of analysis.     

Using ‘Participatory’ Methods with Young People in Contexts of Violence: Reflections from Guatemala

This article is based on research carried out with young people in Guatemala City, in communities with a high incidence of youth gang violence. The demands of working with a traditionally ‘disempowered’ social group, youth, and in situations of violence, provide a timely opportunity for methodological reflection. The central objective is to discuss the means through which perceptions and experiences of gang violence were reported during the research. It deals in particular with the relative benefits of Participatory Appraisal methods in research with young people in situations of violence. Empirical material from Guatemala is used to reflect on the particular ways in which violence is variously revealed and explained. It also comments on the ways in which violence, in turn, impacted upon the conduct of the research itself.     

日本“国家正常化”与美国的东亚地缘战略

战后,由于美军单独占领日本,美国占领当局直接主导了日本的非法西斯化改革,日本的对外政策也被纳入美国的东亚地缘战略框架内。正因如此,战后日本的"国家正常化"进程与美国的亚洲地缘战略密切联系在一起。冷战时期,日本充当美国在亚洲的"冷战"哨兵,日本在"旧金山体制"下获得"独立"和国际空间。冷战结束后,美国推行全球霸权战略,日本乘机加强与美国的军事同盟关系,扩展自主权。尤其进入21世纪,日本通过参与美国的"反恐"战争,实现了海外派兵。近年来美国实施战略东移和"亚太再平衡",日本借机加快修宪活动和军事"解禁",加速日本"国家正常化"的步伐。     

Translation,Modernity, and Women in China

The end of the cold war witnessed the emergence of a commercial web sprawling from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in western China and extending into Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), Pakistan, and Russia. Running parallel to the state-managed exchange in hydrocarbons, raw materials, technology, and infrastructure, this new Eurasian trade had an informal component as everyday consumer items manufactured in China were imported into neighboring countries, bypassing formal regulatory mechanisms. This inter-Asian trade began as shuttle trading by itinerant merchants for local markets; by the mid 1990s, shuttle trading was overshadowed by largescale export for national markets in neighboring countries without losing its informal character. This informality extending across national boundaries defined the post–cold war commerce in innermost Asia; at the same time, it also signaled a return to pre-cold war trading structures. Moving away from the “retreat of the state” thesis that found traction following the cold war, the author attributes informality in this inter-Asian trade to three factors: (1) a restructuring of state power where informal trade was a new comparative advantage sought in an evolving geopolitical climate; (2) the actors in this inter-Asian trade—party and regional officials in China, along with traders and intermediaries—who found and exercised agency through this exchange; and (3) a chain of inter-locking, commercial macro-regions, which are economically sustainable and which transcended international boundaries. Working in conjunction, these factors constitute a dynamic inter-Asian trade and challenge static state imaginaries of a “New Silk Road” or “Eurasian Continental Bridge.”     

Engaging with the self-captive nation: Albania in the US official documents from 1945 to 1980

This paper aims to analyse US policy towards Albania during the cold war, as a case that illustrates Washington’s approach towards individual Communist countries in Eastern Europe in the light of the grand contest between the antagonist superpowers. This analysis is based almost exclusively on published US archival documents related to Albania from 1945 to 1980. This analysis underlines that in the American perception, the geopolitical importance of each Communist country was intrinsically linked with its position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Albania was no exception, despite the rigid Communist dogma it vigorously pursued.     

Cocaine's Long March North, 1900–2010

This essay charts the entanglements and “blowback” effects of U.S. policy toward Latin American drug exports over the last century as the backdrop to today's cascading drug violence in northern Mexico. The history of cocaine reveals a series of major geopolitical shifts (closely related to U.S. interdictionist drug war policies) that bring drug commodity chains, illicit trafficking centers, and conflicts, over the long run, closer to the United States. It analyzes shifts from initial legal cocaine and small‐time postwar smuggling of the central Andes to the concentrating 1970s–1990s “cartel” epicenter in northern Andean Colombia, to the 1990s political shift north to Mexican transhipment and organizational leadership. Violence around cocaine has intensified at every step, and the present conflict portends another shift in the chain.     

Economic cost of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict

Despite its low income per capita, Sri Lanka has achieved remarkable success in human development, largely due to appropriate government policies on health and education. However, Sri Lanka's economic performance has been below its potential, and the unresolved civil conflict poses one of the greatest obstacles to its long terms growth prospects. This article examines some indirect costs of Sri Lanka's civil war. It argues that the conflict has resulted in lower domestic and foreign investments, disruptions in trade and commerce, and lower revenues from tourism. As a consequence, economic growth has suffered. With no end in sight to the civil war, these costs are likely to mount, with pernicious effects on future living standards.     

论二战时期日本战时军费筹集机制

全面侵华战争爆发后,日本沿用近代以来建立的战时军费筹集体制为侵略战争提供财政支持,形成以临时军事费特别会计为核心的战时军费筹集机制。其主要财源为租税收入、公债收入以及向占领区借款。太平洋战争之前,战时军费筹集主要依靠日本国内金融机构发行公债;太平洋战争爆发后,战时军费筹集的主要财源开始转向对占领区的掠夺。     

“印太战略”背景下的中斯合作

近年来,由于印度洋战略地位的提升以及"印太战略"逐步从构想转变为现实,以美国为首的域外国家和以印度为首的域内国家不断加大对印度洋及其周边国家的政治、外交、经济、军事、安全等投入,使得印度洋的大国博弈日趋激烈。这不仅对印度洋周边国家的内外政策产生了重要影响,而且对我国倡议推动的"一带一路"国际合作也产生了深远影响。尽管斯里兰卡是印度洋上的一个小国,人口不多,经济实力不算强,在"印太战略"中也非核心国家,但其独特的地缘政治经济优势成为各方争夺的对象和大国博弈的一个重点。在此背景下,斯里兰卡的国内外政策与形势出现了许多新变化,国内政局稳定性下降,对外政策出现"摇摆",经济增长率下降,民生改善缓慢,恐怖活动增加,民众意见日益多元化,这值得我们在推进"一带一路"国际合作过程中高度关注。     

South Africa’s civil war, 1985–1995

The end of apartheid in South Africa is typically characterised as ‘peaceful’. However, between 1985 and 1995, South Africa experienced a civil war in which more than 20,000 people died. In this war, the African National Congress (ANC) implemented a strategy of ‘people’s war’ based on Vietnam’s experience while the government pursued a counterinsurgency strategy based on models employed by the United States. In the war’s second phase, the ANC and Inkatha employed unconventional tactics in a campaign to gain political and military control of disputed territory. Owing to its success in the war, the ANC was able to prevent its rivals from significantly limiting its power in the central government after 1994 as well as exclude Inkatha from operating in key areas even in its home province.     

Inbound Tourism Development at the Western Border Region of China

Based on literature review and statistics of National Tourism Administration of China and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Tourism Bureau, this article examines the trends of inbound tourism development in the region. The results show that the inbound tourists in the XUAR are only a tiny portion of the Chinese, and the regional total which mainly is made up of domestic tourism originated from the coastal areas. Among the Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan has become the largest inbound tourism market of the XUAR. The article further suggests that it is worth to investigate whether the inbound tourism development of the region is affected by the geopolitical and geo-economic situations and the national strategic interests of respective neighboring countries.     

中国在朝鲜半岛的地缘战略选择:资源基础、目标构想与主要课题

朝鲜半岛对中国国家安全的特殊性和重要性是不言而喻的。对此,人们惯以"唇亡齿寒""唇齿相依"等词来形容这一特殊的地缘关系。历史证明,朝鲜半岛局势的任何变化,均会对中国国家安全产生直接或是间接的重要影响。朝鲜半岛的地缘形势变化,关涉多重中国核心利益的维护、实现和扩展。对中国而言,在"大周边"战略的基本框架之下,加快制定和实施具有前瞻性、全局性和可持续性的朝鲜半岛战略,与朝鲜半岛国家开展更加灵活、务实和全面的合作关系,对中国在21世纪上半叶更好地保持周边环境的整体和平稳定,进一步把握战略机遇期,努力实现国家跨越式发展的战略目标,具有十分重大的现实意义。     

Old ‘counter-revolution’, new ‘terrorism’: historicizing the framing of violence in Xinjiang by the Chinese state

ABSTRACT

China has declared a war on terrorism in Xinjiang, identifying violence in the region as a top security threat. However, what nowadays is officially constructed as ‘terrorism’ was framed as ‘counter-revolution’ in the past. Informed by the concept of macrosecuritization and the agenda of critical terrorism studies, this article examines the changing nature of Chinese state framing of violence in Xinjiang. Through a comparative analysis of the discursive construction of the Baren (1990) and Maralbeshi (2013) violent incidents, I find that the terror lexicon has replaced old narratives of counter-revolution to legitimize a sustained crackdown under a novel geopolitical context. The construction of violence in Xinjiang as terrorism, I argue, is contingent, limited and unstable. It marginalizes factors other than an extremist or separatist agency in the incubation of the violence, in particular the frictions created by the crackdown with which the Chinese government is trying to placate the unrest.     

Civilian victimization during the Tajik civil war: a typology and strategic assessment

Tajikistan experienced a brutal civil war shortly after independence, in which an estimated 50,000 people died. Yet the scope, patterns and effects of civilian victimization in Tajikistan remain under-examined. This article explores two key questions: (1) What types of civilian victimization were utilized by the war's victor, the Popular Front of Tajikistan (PFT)? (2) What were the strategic effects and outcomes of civilian victimization by the PFT? The aim is to disaggregate civil war violence in Tajikistan and enable new avenues of research into its patterns and effects. The article's key findings are that civilians were victimized primarily through targeted violence and displacement, and that victimization was generally a successful strategy for the PFT.     

Assessing the Debate, Assessing the Damage: Transatlantic Relations after Bush

Transatlantic relations during the Bush administration sank to the lowest point in the post-war period following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This article provides an analysis of both the current state of that relationship and the academic debate which accompanies it. Arguments over the impact of various factors are analysed to determine the extent of transatlantic divergence. Thus, demographic change in America and Europe, divergence of political values between Europe and America, power differences, post-war geopolitical realignments, European integration and American unilateralism and exceptionalism are all analysed and evaluated. While some of these arguments presented are challenged, the article argues that the process of constructing separate European and American identities from within the transatlantic community is the single most significant contemporary challenge to transatlantic relations.     

Historical Everyday Geopolitics on the Chile-Peru Border

Geopolitics is increasingly seen by scholars as occurring in everyday spaces and performed by ordinary people. This paper extends this idea to historical work to examine how citizens themselves (re)produce geopolitics at the time of historical events. It does so through a case study of geopolitical tension on the Chile-Peru border in the 1970s. Through oral histories and newspaper analysis, a historical everyday geopolitics approach reveals how those living in the Chilean border city of Arica played a part in promoting national and border security. This centres the embodied and emotional experiences of those affected by violence and conflict.     

Populism and Peasant Iconography: Turkish painting in the 1930s

The Six Day War is renowned for its impact on the shaping of the Middle East. In the last few decades, much research examining the reasons for the outbreak of the Six Day War, its development and its ramifications has been published. Most of the research has focused on an examination of Israeli government policy before and after the war, on the Egyptian regime's hatred of the ‘Zionist entity’ and on the involvement of the superpowers during and after the war. Some research has also touched on Syria's role in the outbreak of the war. Researchers such as Eyal Zisser and Moshe Maoz have shown Syria's decisive role in initiating the war and suggest that various factors, such as a lack of government stability in Syria, precipitated the conflict. This research continues, to a great extent, in the line of those researchers: indeed, it points to Syria as being the main factor behind the outbreak of war through an examination of the changes that occurred in the character of its government from 1966. However, unlike other research so far, this attempts to show that the unique character of the neo-Ba'ath regime is what brought war to the region and that, had the Ba'ath coup not occurred in 1966, it is doubtful whether Syria would have entered the conflict. This article seeks to emphasize that the Syrian regime went blindly into the war despite military unpreparedness and a lack of political and military cooperation with other Arab countries and with the Soviets. It also exposes, for the first time, the state of the Syrian troops on the front and in the cities, as well as the feelings of the senior officers on the eve of the war, and reveals documents about the military and political cooperation between Syria and Egypt that would eventually force President Nasser to enter a war he did not want to get involved in. Moreover, the research exposes the deep rift – which many believe pushed Syria to take rash independent measures –between the Soviet leadership and the Ba'ath regime before the war. And, finally, the research exposes the atmosphere in Syria following the war, and the administrative and military steps the Syrian regime took immediately after the defeat in order to consolidate its power.     

Russian defense spending after 2010: the interplay of personal,domestic, and foreign policy interests

Since 2010, Russia’s defense spending has seen an average annual real growth of 10%, causing a profound shift in the composition of government expenditure. This article examines the formal and informal processes through which Russia’s level of defense spending is determined and identifies personal, domestic, and foreign policy interests behind the rise in defense expenditures. Drawing on a combination of elite interviews and document and news analyses, I argue that domestic political and socioeconomic factors are at least as important as geopolitical and security ones in explaining Russia’s decision to push defense to the forefront of the political agenda. The findings suggest that high levels of defense spending may be politically sustainable in Russia, at least in the medium term, even though it comes at the cost of other public goods.