The Grand Strategy of Militant Clients: Iran’s Way of War

This article argues that militant clients should be understood as a pillar of Iran's grand strategy and an extension of its military power. The article examines why Iran has relied on militant clients since the 1979 revolution and the benefits and costs of its client approach. In evaluating these issues, it identifies five main areas where Iran has gained from its client strategy: 1) maintaining independence from the West; 2) successfully exporting its religio-political worldview; 3) extending its military reach and power; 4) reducing political costs of its foreign activities; and 5) establishing needed regional allies. It further identifies five main dangers that Iran faces by continuing its strategic behavior: 1) increased pressure from the United States and a broader US military regional footprint; 2) more unified regional adversaries; 3) the risk of unintended escalation with the United States and regional adversarial states; and 4) enduring regional instability and insecurity     

Beyond the American Century: Walter Lippmann and American Grand Strategy, 1943–1950

As the United States became a world Power, journalist and intellectual Walter Lippmann feared that it would become its own worst enemy. During and after the Second World War, he tried to steer the country towards coherent statecraft, to define the national interest and the limits of power, and give geopolitical expression to the role of the United States as the core of an Atlantic strategic system. But in response to world war, the Truman Doctrine, and the Korean War, he became pessimistic about the country's ability to conduct strategy effectively. In the prophetic tradition, he believed that a fatal symbiosis between America's growing strength and domestic politics led it towards crisis. Though at times ahistorical, Lippmann's concept of strategy deserves attention for its dialogue between power and identity, for its questioning of “ends” as well as means, and for its focus on the danger of self-defeating behaviour.     

The Evolution of China’s Security Challenges and Grand Strategy

This article examines changes in China’s security perceptions since 1949 and sketches the evolution of China’s grand strategy. In tracing the evolution of China’s security perceptions and grand strategy since 1949, it identifies elements of change as well as continuity. The changes reflect dramatic developments in the PRC’s capabilities and the international circumstances it faces, both of which have shaped the grand strategic choices of China’s leaders. During most of the Cold War decades, a relatively weak China’s vulnerability to serious military threats from much more powerful adversaries led the CCP to adopt grand strategies focused on coping with a clearly defined external security challenge. After the Cold War and especially in the 21st century, an increasingly complex array of internal and external security concerns confronts China’s leaders with new challenges. The paper concludes with a discussion of the significance of the recently established National Security Commission and offers brief observations about its potential significance for the CCP’s leadership in their fight against the new domestic and international security challenges it faces. The novelty of China’s security challenges at home and abroad in the 21st century is a consequence of the end of the Cold War international order and perhaps more importantly, a consequence of China’s successful modernization since 1979.     

Can the United States Do Grand Strategy?

Two big issues that scholars and strategists need to address are simply: does grand strategy have to be articulated for it to be said to exist at all; and if not, can grand strategy be said to move a nation even when that nation's fluctuating roster of (often competent) leaders are unsure as to why they do anything? My task here is that of a rapporteur and provocateur raising issues on which we may need to reach some consensus.     

Human Rights and Trade: Beyond the “Spotlight”

Human rights concerns figure prominently on the global economic agenda. Yet little empirical analysis has addressed the prospective impact of human rights for global economic interactions. To gain insight into this linkage, we assess the empirical relationship between human rights and an important facet of the global economy, dyadic trade flows. Traditional arguments posit that respect for human rights and trade are uncomfortable bedfellows at best, and that repression may provide a foundation for increased trade activity. We posit that, alternatively, respect for human rights and trade may be a pragmatic coupling. In addition to the normative value of promoting and protecting human rights, there may be a “business case” as there are ways in which respect for human rights may encourage trade. Using a cross-sectional time-series research design, we test the relationship between human rights and trade for the years 1989–2000. Our results show that human rights conditions have a significant influence on dyadic trade.     

The “Culture Wars” go global: Three cases of religious conflict in foreign policy

Religious identities based on both religious tradition and religious commitment have been increasingly influential in domestic U.S. politics for several decades, but the assumption remains that such identities are mostly unrelated to foreign policy. The authors suggest that domestic political incentives to expand the culture wars have combined with other trends, including the increasing use of unilateral executive power in foreign policy, to create an environment in which policymakers increasingly are tempted to make foreign policy based on domestic political incentives. Three case studies are highlighted: the “Mexico City” policy requiring foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving U.S. aid money to pledge not to provide or educate about abortion, moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and efforts in the Trump administration to ban travel to the United States from majority-Muslim nations.     

Still the One? The Role of Europe in American Defense Strategy

According to the 2015 National Security Strategy, the United States continues to rely on Europe as its most likely, most capable military partner for dealing with the most vexing security challenges. However, the conventional wisdom in Washington holds that European allies are not terribly capable militarily or very willing to use force. So why would the United States rely on such lax partners? In fact, the evidence on European defense spending, capabilities, and willingness is decidedly mixed, with many positive trends among the negative ones. To build on the positive, the United States can bring to the table assets and resources necessary to facilitate the transatlantic partnership before it needs to be exercised.     

The Al Qaeda Brand: The Strategic Use of the “Terrorist” Label

Al Qaeda leaders have consistently praised the Chechen insurgents as an exemplary front of global jihad. Ayman al-Zawahiri recently applauded the steadfastness of the Chechen rebels and indicated that their resolve for jihad is worthy of emulation. Ever since the world found out about a war going on in the Muslim republic in the North Caucasus, Al Qaeda leadership has attempted to represent the Chechen struggle as one of its own battlefields. In turn, the Russian government has tried to justify its policies in the North Caucasus through demonstrating to the world that the Kremlin is fighting nothing less than Osama bin Laden’s agents in Chechnya. The North Caucasus insurgents in turn have embraced some of Al Qaeda’s narratives. While such narratives have proliferated, the factual evidence to show the direct links between the North Caucasus insurgents and Al Qaeda is still lacking. The article examines how terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda use framing for strategic ends. The evidence discussed here suggests that Al Qaeda, the North Caucasus insurgents, and the Russian government have adopted similar narratives. However, the lack of evidence to back up such narratives indicates the differences in reasons driving the convergence of the narratives.     

The Concept of Harmonious World and the Development of China＇s International Strategy

At different stages of historical development in the past 60 years of its foreign relations, China came up with fresh strategic thoughts and concepts of great significance to the international community, such as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the Three Worlds Theory, the New International Economic and Political Order, and the Concept of Harmonious World. In today＇s world, the international balance of power has experienced great changes, the prospect of multi-polar system is increasingly clear,     

A Review of: “Audrey Kurth Cronin and James M. Ludes, (eds.). Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy.”

Because of its dynamic nature, those confronting the al-Qaeda threat must follow its evolution very closely. As demonstrated here, this task is particularly challenging when counterterrorism is carried out under the aegis of international organizations. This article explores the threat identification function of the al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee (also known as the 1267 Committee) charged with supervising the UN sanctions regime against al-Qaeda and its associates. Examination of the role of threat identification in the committee's work, and of the content of the threat analysis presented in the periodic reports of its subsidiary monitoring team, suggests the marginality of strategic threat assessment and underscores the constraints created by bureaucratic and political factors. The article also demonstrates the failure of the Committee and the monitoring team to thoroughly engage in central questions regarding al-Qaeda's nature, objectives, and organizational strategy.     

“The Sore That would Never HeaL”: The Genesis of the Polish Corridor

This paper consists of an examination of the historic and ethnographic origins of the Polish Corridor question and of the various suggestions proposed for its equitable solution in the aftermath of World War One. It outlines the negotiations and memoranda devoted to the issue at the Versailles Conference and, in particular, the role played by the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. It concludes that the result of these deliberations was as much the product of international tensions and a collective failure of vision as of any coherent planning or policy.     

The Latest Transfer in China’s Foreign Strategy:from Military Strategy to Economic Strategy

Historian,Ban Gu,of the East Han Dynasty,used an impressive and lengthy political commentary to close the chapter of theHan-Hun Biography,a text based on ancient Chinese political experience.In this chapter he presented his idea ofModernhistory lessons as a means of debating the strategic guidelines for dealing withbarbarians.Among his rich and deep ideas,there is one that stressed that the guidelines be compound and situational,containing varioushardandsoftcomponents.The grand strategy should be everflexibleandkeeping pace with the times.Similar to the interactive implementation of theStrategic Marriageand theStrategic Force,we are witnessing the synthetic     

Radicalisation in the Philippines: The Cotabato Cell of the “East Asia Wilayah”

ABSTRACT

The backgrounds of seven suspects arrested in connection with a September 2016 bombing in Davao, Philippines provide clues to how extremist ideology and support for ISIS took root in a middle-class urban environment. The seven men, part of the coalition that eventually took over Marawi in 2017, were drawn in by the idea of a caliphate, propaganda videos that became discussion material for charismatic young religious scholars, and the pull of friends and family. They represented overlapping networks of neighbours, business partners, and students. Their interwoven journeys to violent extremism provide a glimpse into how ISIS managed to transcend traditional clan and regional loyalties in the Philippines, but much more research is needed among pro-ISIS detainees to understand the phenomenon and take measures to address it.     

The geography of pre-criminal space: epidemiological imaginations of radicalisation risk in the UK Prevent Strategy, 2007–2017

ABSTRACT

This article explores geographical and epistemological shifts in the deployment of the UK Prevent strategy, 2007–2017. Counter-radicalisation policies of the Labour governments (2006–2010) focused heavily upon resilience-building activities in residential communities. They borrowed from historical models of crime prevention and public health to imagine radicalisation risk as an epidemiological concern in areas showing a 2% or higher demography of Muslims. However, this racialised and localised imagination of pre-criminal space was replaced after the election of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010. Residential communities were then de-emphasised as sites of risk, transmission and pre-criminal intervention. The Prevent Duty now deploys counter-radicalisation through national networks of education and health-care provision. Localised models of crime prevention (and their statistical, crime prevention epistemologies) have been de-emphasised in favour of big data inflected epistemologies of inductive, population-wide “safeguarding”. Through the biopolitical discourse of “safeguarding vulnerable adults”, the Prevent Duty has radically reconstituted the epidemiological imagination of pre-criminal space, imagining that all bodies are potentially vulnerable to infection by radicalisers and thus warrant surveillance.     

Constructing and Conceptualizing“Interdependent Hegemony”in an Era of the Rise of the BRICS and Beyond

The paper aims to provide a framework for understanding the global impactof the rise of the “Second World” (emerging powers, such as BRICS) brought aboutby globalization and the transformation of international relations and internationalpolitical economy. The paper takes the point of departure from one of Gramsci’s keyconceptual categories and analytical apparatus, e.g. “hegemony,” to explore the extentthat the upsurge of the emerging powers has reshaped the terrain and parameters ofsocial, economic and political relations both at the national and global levels, and hasexerted pressure on the existing international order in terms of both opportunities andconstraints. The paper intends to examine the dialectical nexus between the role of theemerging powers as a counter-hegemonic, socio-economic and socio-political forcefor a new world order. The paper’s analytical approach is to combine neo-Gramscianhegemony theories with critical post-hegemony theories. The conclusion of thepaper is to suggest that in an era of globalization and transformational capitalism it isimpossible for the emerging powers to establish an alternative independent hegemony;rather, the world will witness a new era of “interdependent hegemony,” in whichboth the “First World” and the “Second World” are intertwined in a constant processof shaping and reshaping the world order in the nexus of national interest, regionalorientation, common economic and political agendas, security alliance and potentialconfl icts.