Realpolitik or Imperial Hubris: The Latin American Drug War and U.S. Foreign Policy in Iraq

Robert Kaplan has suggested that America employ elsewhere the same “stealth imperialism” tactics as are being used to combat drugs and guerrillas in Colombia. In fact, decades of U.S. efforts there have achieved little. The real lessons to be learned from Colombia are the perils of relying on flawed assumptions about the threat presented; the difficulties of creating and training a military capable of achieving U.S. objectives; and the risk of mistaking symbols, signals, and credibility for core U.S. interests. Moreover, in both regions, policymakers often fail to understand the fundamental sources of the conflict, particularly class, ethnicity, and nationalism. They incorrectly believe that U.S. policy has nothing to do with the continuation of the conflict and presume U.S. omnipotence.     

The Sturdy Child vs. the Sword of Damocles: Nuclear Weapons and the Expected Cost of War

Abstract

Is the world better off with nuclear weapons or without? Nuclear pessimists point to the potentially devastating costs of a nuclear war. Nuclear optimists argue that nuclear weapons reduce the likelihood of war and are thus beneficial. This debate is inconclusive in part because it misses an important conceptual point. We should care both about the cost of war and the likelihood of war, as they combine to form the expected cost of war, which is the product of the two. I discuss five implications of focusing on expected costs. Three support the pessimists: (1) nuclear weapons raise the upper limit on how destructive wars can be; (2) there may be a floor on how low the likelihood of war can go; and (3) risk aversion over damage will raise the expected cost of nuclear war. The remaining two support the optimists: (4) strategic models exhibit a declining expected cost of war; and (5) casualty data show that the expected cost of war is declining over its observed range in the past two hundred years.     

五岭界说及其文化象征意义

五岭 ,自东向西 ,横亘在南中国。在很长的历史时期 ,曾经成为岭南与岭北经济、文化交流的一个障碍 ,使得岭南社会发展的总体水平在明清以前一直落后于中原和江南。但是五岭究竟是否确指五个山岭 ,如果是的话 ,又是哪五岭 ,在古代文献记载中存在着歧异。笔者在广泛搜求资料的基础上 ,对五岭进行了详细的考证 ,并指出在历史上五岭不仅仅是一个天然屏障 ,同时又有着文化藩篱的象征意义。一、五岭界说五岭较早的记载见于《史记》 :“(秦)北有长城之役 ,南有五岭之戍。”①五岭之说 ,诸家不一。汉裴渊《广州记》云 :“大庾、始安、临贺、桂阳、揭…     

The First World War as Catalyst and Epiphany: The Case of Henry P. Davison

The experience of the First World War was central to the emergence of a trans-Atlantic elite committed to close collaboration and an international alliance, either formal or de facto, between Great Britain and the United States. The reactions to the conflict of Henry P. Davison, dominant partner in J. P. Morgan and Company, illustrate the manner in which the First World War was catalytic in the creation of an Atlanticist elite. Davison, moreover, experienced something like a personal epiphany during the war, metamorphosing from a hard-driving businessman into an international philanthropist who developed ambitious schemes to remake the world. For seven years, Davison energetically sought to affect the course, outcome, and consequences of the First World War. Fundamental to Davison's worldview were the desirability and necessity of Anglo-American collaboration, on which all his other plans were predicated. When the war ended, Davison proposed almost visionary schemes, on the one hand to provide massive American governmental and private economic assistance to finance European postwar relief and reconstruction efforts and, on the other, to establish an international Red Cross organization that would mount a massive campaign to eradicate global public health problems. Although abortive in the short term, in the longer run his plans proved prophetic, anticipating the post-Second World War Marshall Plan and World Health Organization.     

The First World War as Catalyst and Epiphany: The Case of Henry P. Davison

The experience of the First World War was central to the emergence of a trans-Atlantic elite committed to close collaboration and an international alliance, either formal or de facto, between Great Britain and the United States. The reactions to the conflict of Henry P. Davison, dominant partner in J. P. Morgan and Company, illustrate the manner in which the First World War was catalytic in the creation of an Atlanticist elite. Davison, moreover, experienced something like a personal epiphany during the war, metamorphosing from a hard-driving businessman into an international philanthropist who developed ambitious schemes to remake the world. For seven years, Davison energetically sought to affect the course, outcome, and consequences of the First World War. Fundamental to Davison's worldview were the desirability and necessity of Anglo–American collaboration, on which all his other plans were predicated. When the war ended, Davison proposed almost visionary schemes, on the one hand to provide massive American governmental and private economic assistance to finance European postwar relief and reconstruction efforts and, on the other, to establish an international Red Cross organization that would mount a massive campaign to eradicate global public health problems. Although abortive in the short term, in the longer run his plans proved prophetic, anticipating the post–Second World War Marshall Plan and World Health Organization.     

The American Way of Going to War: Mexico (1846) to Iraq (2003)

Prior to the Iraq War, there had been a long series of American wars in which U.S. leaders often maneuvered the other side into “firing the first shot.” This strategy of “passive defense” amounts to an American way of going to war, and it dates back at least to the U.S.-Mexican War. The United States thus retained the moral and legal legitimacy, an asset which is especially important in a democratic political system. The Iraq War represents a fundamental departure from this American way. It might be the worst crisis since Vietnam. but that war was just another entry in the U.S. playbook for how to go to war. The Iraq War not only contradicts longstanding practices in American foreign policy, but it has the potential to issue in far greater international disorder than the Vietnam War. This catastrophe may make future presidents more heedful of John Quincy Adams’ prophetic words: go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.     

从河内看当代越南人的宗教信仰

河内———越南的首都 ,越南政治、经济、文化的中心。河内居民的社会生活在一定意义上代表着整个越南 ,或者至少代表着越南大中城市居民的社会生活。从这个视角出发 ,对河内居民宗教信仰的调查对研究越南老百姓的宗教倾向有着较高的参考价值。在引用和分析有关数据时 ,笔者还需要强调以下两点 :第一 ,近代以来的越南是一个政教分离的国家 ,从整体来看宗教在整个国家的作用被政治所制约 ;第二 ,今天的越南是共产党领导的社会主义国家 ,是一个比较“讲政治”的国家 ,共产党的政治思想路线是辩证唯物主义 ,因而决定了在社会生活中宗教不可能超…     

The Social Construction of Identity: Israeli Foreign Policy and the 2006 War in Lebanon

This article uses a constructivist analysis to consider the social construction of identity and the Israeli military action in Lebanon in 2006. Strands of meaning, constructive of a collective sense of self, emerged out of historical continuities, interacted and were made meaningful in relation to each other around the issue of the Hezbollah threat in 2006. They framed, contextualised and constituted that policy issue to form a situated and contingent identity of the possible, within which the policy decisions that produced the second Lebanon War were taken. Whilst a body of work has resulted from engagement with this conflict, and a well established literature discusses Israeli identity, little has been done to bring the two together and consider in detail the role of identity in constructing the 2006 war as possible and desirable for Israel. This is the focus and contribution of this article. Domestically, the institutional context of the 2006 Knesset elections revealed a national identity in which the multi-faceted vulnerability identity and Fighting Jew identity were salient, interacting strands. The narratives of ordeal, existential threat, and self-reliance acted to increase the power of the Fighting Jew identity, predicated on a faith in military solutions to threats. These ideas came up against and were rearticulated in the context of the global “War on Terror” to make the war in 2006 both possible and desirable.     

美国在阿富汗战争中的收获与教训

虽然阿富汗战争使美国在政治、经济等方面都获益,但美依靠武力、以暴制暴的战争手段无法从根本上真正铲除恐怖主义,同时又给自己带来一系列难以消除的负面影响.     

全球市民社会与当代国际关系(下)

三、对全球市民社会国际政治地位的反思　　尽管全球市民社会的兴起已经对国际政治的发展产生了积极影响 ,但由于全球市民社会还仅仅是初见端倪 ,其组织网络的发展 ,无论是在地域分布上还是活动领域上都还极不均衡。因而 ,对于全球市民社会在当前国际关系中所发挥的各种作用 ,我们还必须保持清醒的认识。全球市民社会在国际政治的运作中要真正实现其所宣称的各种价值目标 ,还有待于其自身的不断完善。1.从目前来看 ,全球市民社会对世界政治发展的影响还只是一种趋势 ,其作用的充分发挥还有赖于能力建设的进一步加强。当前 ,全球市民社会发挥…     

全球市民社会与当代国际关系(上)

全球市民社会是 2 0世纪 80年代以来人们在应对日益严重的全球性危机、克服日益突显的全球化弊端以及探寻冷战后世界新秩序的重建过程中迅速兴起的。自产生之日起 ,其在经济与社会、国际和平与安全及环境人权等国际政治领域的活动和网络密度就不断增强。全球市民社会的兴起及其广泛活动对于推动国际关系朝着整体化、民主化、法治化和多中心的方向发展具有重要作用 ,同时 ,它也意味着国际政治中伦理价值的回归。当然 ,目前全球市民社会对国际关系的影响还只是一种趋势 ,其作用的充分发挥有赖于在自身能力建设、民主化建设和管理制度等方面的不断完善。此外 ,发展中国家还要大力推动自身社会力量的发展 ,以防止全球市民社会成为西方的意识形态和霸权工具。     

越南战争时期美国对柬埔寨中立的干涉(1956-1971)

本文重点探讨在20世纪60年代越南战争期间美国如何干涉柬埔寨的独立和中立,直至最后支持朗诺—施里玛达集团推翻西哈努克政权,而西哈努克又如何在国际冷战环境下争取国家的独立和中立的历史过程,由此揭示国际冷战对小国的重大影响,而小国在大国极端对抗中实际上难以置身事外,甚至难以维持独立和中立的地位。     

Re-negotiating the Just War: The Invasion of Iraq and Punitive War

This article examines the arguments pertaining to punitive war presented by President George W Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair and various just war theorists, in order to examine how they relate, first, to the case made for war against Iraq in 2003 and, second, to the classical just war tradition. In highlighting the confluence between contemporary justificatory rhetoric and the classical just war tradition, this article sketches an account of the mode by which the tradition has developed over time. By drawing attention to the homologies linking just war arguments, classical and contemporary, it constructs a basis for a critical perspective: understanding the idea of punishment as it has figured historically in just war tradition past may enable us to gain a degree of critical purchase on how it figures in just war tradition present.     

缅甸蒲甘王朝政权与教权（上座部佛教）的关系

封建时代的缅甸如中世纪的西欧国家一样,政权与教权的关系也有一个消长变化的过程。恩格斯曾经指出:“历史上的伟大转折点有宗教变迁相伴随,只是就迄今存在的三种世界宗教———佛教、基督教和伊斯兰教而言。”①11世纪的缅甸,正处于这样一个转折点上。当时刚建立的蒲甘王朝是缅甸历史上的第一个封建王朝,他们的统治者急需一种强大的、统一的宗教来为自己的统治服务,这种需要与缅甸上座部佛教发展、壮大的需要正好一拍即合。于是蒲甘王朝前期形成了相互依恃、互相合作的政教关系。到了蒲甘王朝后期,由于寺院经济的膨胀,政教关系开始发生变化…