奥巴马政府对外战略调整:评估与展望

奥巴马入主白宫一年来,美国对外战略迅速进入调整期。为摆脱布什时期的战略困境而寻求在伊拉克、阿富汗脱身的战略选择;由强硬转为软硬兼施对待"失败国家"和"潜在对手";战略重心东移;缓和美俄因俄格战争导致的紧张关系;加强多边主义在外交与战略行动的运用。美国对外战略调整已经显现出不同于布什时期"美国领导世界"的内涵,在恢复西方社会对美国的好感和信心方面取得一定的成效。随着这种调整的深化,未来伊朗、巴基斯坦局势有可能取代阿富汗成为美国的首要关注。对中国依然实行结构性矛盾的政策,售台武器、西藏问题、贸易保护主义有可能成为中美关系陷入低谷的三大因素。     

Selling perestroika and new thinking to Southeast Asia: Gorbachev at his persuasive best

This article examines the Gorbachev regime's strategies in reorienting Soviet foreign policy toward the nations of Southeast Asia. It reviews and evaluates the tactics of public diplomacy and persuasion which Gorbachev and his advisers utilized extensively in their attempt to construct a new Soviet agenda toward Southeast Asia.     

The UK response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: proposals for a neutral and non-aligned Afghanistan, 1980–1981

Although not unexpected, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was still largely a shock to the West. It was the first time since the Second World War that the Soviets had directly intervened in a country outside the Warsaw Pact. Despite the intervention eventually being seen as Moscow's ‘Vietnam’ the West was initially unsure about what the invasion meant for stability in the region or the future conduct of East–West relations. In response to the crisis the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) proposed that Afghanistan revert to a neutral and non-aligned status in an attempt to create the basis for a viable political settlement, one that would allow the Soviet Union to withdraw troops without losing face. It launched the proposal in early 1980, lobbying other countries to support and champion the idea, culminating in a visit to Moscow by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, in July 1981. In this early phase of Soviet intervention the British proposals were premature but not without merit. They anticipated the strategy the Soviets would eventually adopt in their attempt to achieve an orderly withdrawal.     

Sixty years of Sino-Afghan relations

Afghanistan and the People's Republic of China (PRC) established diplomatic relations in 1955. Since that time, the changing relationship of China with Afghanistan has mirrored those of the PRC with other nation states. What began as an attempt by the PRC to establish international legitimacy for its new government and to offer third-world nations a socialist-communist path other than following the Soviet Union turned into a quest for natural resources. Using a variety of primary sources, including recently declassified intelligence files, secondary sources and open source material, this article traces the development of this changing relationship, demonstrating how it has complemented or complicated the United States' relationship with Afghanistan. It also shows how changing world events have affected the Chinese perception of the role Afghanistan can play in its foreign policy. The article concludes with a presentation of what role China is playing and can play in Afghanistan today, ending with a discussion of the dangers that the PRC faces in its current relations with Afghanistan, especially with regard to its ever-changing relationship with the United States.     

The war in Afghanistan: its background and future prospects

If the West loses in Afghanistan and its region, the most important reason will be that we are pursuing several different goals simultaneously, most of which are in contradiction to the others. Western governments need to choose between these goals, and co-ordinate a strategy in pursuit of the most desirable and achievable ones. The creation of a democratic Afghanistan needs to be recognised as a hopeless fantasy. Instead, the West should imitate the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and concentrate on creating an effective military force that can survive Western withdrawal and continue to fight the Taleban. In the meantime, something to be avoided at all costs is the further destabilisation of Pakistan, since Pakistan in the end constitutes a far greater potential threat to the region, the West and the world than does Afghanistan.     

How to Tame Your Dragon: An Evaluation of India's Foreign Policy Toward China

In the past 60 years, India-China relations have oscillated between friendship, hostility and indifference. In recent times, both countries have started competing for global economic gains and political status. In light of these events, the objective of this article is to analyze various strategies used by China against India, and India's policy response to these strategies. The article evaluates the process of foreign policy decision making in India, and traces the historical evolution of India's foreign policy towards China. It then deconstructs China's foreign policy towards India, and provides the rationale behind its strategies. The article suggests that after initial engagement with India on the question of boundary disputes, Chinese foreign policy has undergone a dramatic shift since 2007. It specifically evaluates the twin Chinese tactics of military incursions and denial of legitimacy to the Indian territories of Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh. Based on an analysis of China's previous boundary disputes resolution record with neighbors, these tactics are identified as an extension of China's new strategy for resolving such disputes. The article concludes by suggesting various policy options available to India to counter China's new strategy on the Sino-Indian border.     

Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is in danger of capsizing in a perfect storm of insurgency that mimics operations and tactics witnessed in Iraq. This article assesses this insurgency and the re-emergent Taliban. The common view of the Taliban as simply a radical Afghan Islamist movement is overly simple, for that organization has been able to build on tribal kinship networks and a charismatic mullah phenomenon to mobilize a critical and dynamic rural base of support. This support, buttressed by Talib reinforcements from Pakistan's border areas, is enough to frustrate the U.S.-led Coalition's counterinsurgency strategy. At the operational level, the Taliban is fighting a classic “war of the flea,” while the Coalition continues to fight the war largely according to the Taliban “game plan.” This is resulting in its losing the war in Afghanistan one Pashtun village at a time.     

How Many Lives Do the Taliban Have?

After having participated in the civil war and later ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, the current Taliban have a third life as insurgents against the Afghan government and its foreign supporters. Their aim is to return to power and establish an Islamic system. Pakistani shelter and support, guerrilla warfare, and terrorist tactics allowed the Neo-Taliban to extend their influence, particularly to the south and east of Afghanistan. They used the weakness of the Hamid Karzai regime to set up shadow governments. Since even the coalition forces have abandoned the aim of defeating them, the Taliban are guaranteed survival after foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan at the end of 2014. Due to the different interests of the main stakeholders—the Afghan government, the Taliban, the United States, and Pakistan—it is unlikely that the conflict will end by negotiations any time soon. Thus, the civil war will continue. When the Taliban try to extend their reach beyond rural areas and into non-Pashtun districts, they will meet tough resistance. Therefore, it is likely that the fragmentation of Afghanistan will persist and that the Taliban will not return as rulers of a united Afghanistan.     

Italy and the community after thirty years of experience

Convincing the Pakistani military to focus its attention on the Afghan Taliban and associated groups has so far proved unsuccessful. The Obama administration's reliance on economic incentives and regional peace initiatives, such as a dialogue with India on Kashmir, has failed to deliver tangible results. Instead, India's footprint within Afghanistan has expanded, leaving Pakistani elites ever more anxious. Balancing Indian and Pakistani interests in South Asia remains a top priority for Western governments, and most importantly the US. In the current milieu this will require shifting Western bureaucratic focus from the age old and seemingly intractable Kashmir dispute to maintaining the peace within Afghanistan. This article outlines why this shift should be considered, and how the India--Pakistan trust deficit might be bridged.     

Al Shabaab's Foreign Threat to Somalia

This article focuses on the threat to Somalia by al Shabaab (The Youth), an extremist organization that controls most of southern and central Somalia. It learned its strategy and tactics from al Qaeda and the Taliban and relies heavily on a relatively small number of foreign fighters, most of whom are Somalis with foreign passports from the large Somali diaspora. The non-Somali contingent probably numbers only about 200 to 300, although it brings battlefield experience from Afghanistan and Iraq and provides al Shabaab with expertise in bomb making, remote-controlled explosions, suicide bombing and assassinations. Some of the foreigners occupy key positions in al Shabaab. The connection between al Shabaab and al Qaeda is growing stronger but has not yet reached the level of operational control by al Qaeda. Al Shabaab's draconian tactics, which are imported from outside and are anathema to most Somalis, and its foreign component may be its undoing.     

美国对中亚的军事安全政策

苏联解体后,美国借助参与哈萨克斯坦无核化进程之机堂而皇之地开启了介入中亚军事安全的大门,并利用阿富汗反恐战争,在短短几个月内迅速确立了在中亚地区的强大军事存在.美国通过大国间反恐合作在中亚获得的超乎寻常的优势地位已经派生成为与中俄两国在中亚竞争的潜在砝码.     

Managing communication surrounding tungiasis stigma in Kenya

ABSTRACT

Tungiasis is a neglected parasitic skin disease widespread in resource-poor communities in sub-Saharan Africa, South America and the Caribbean. Stigmatisation of tungiasis sufferers has been identified as a key reason why tungiasis frequently progresses untreated in many parts of the world, however little research has investigated the specifics of tungiasis stigma or the communication strategies sufferers use to manage stigmatization. This article reports results of focus group and in-depth interviews regarding strategies used to manage tungiasis stigma from the perspective of persons living with tungiasis in Murang'a County, Kenya. Most frequently mentioned were withdrawal tactics. Participants also engaged in refutation strategies to deny responsibility for their condition. Implications for stigma management communication theory are discussed.     

The Istanbul Process: prospects for regional connectivity in the heart of Asia

In 2014, Afghanistan will confront profoundly significant challenges: international troops will withdraw and a pivotal presidential election is scheduled in April. In anticipation, the USA has outlined the ‘New Silk Road’ vision, as part of an attempt to move away from military solutions towards a notion of regional connectivity in South Central Asia. This vision has been the target of extensive criticisms, especially in terms of a perceived gap between rhetoric and reality, yet it is striking that a major segment of the region has begun to take ownership and move in new directions. A key manifestation of this shift is ‘The Istanbul Process on Regional Security for a Secure and Stable Afghanistan’ (IP) launched in 2011. This article evaluates what has been achieved thus far and the obstacles which may undermine a full realisation of the process. The IP’s focus is on ‘connectivity’, engaging the landlocked nation of Afghanistan and safeguarding it from the isolation which fomented extremism and conflict in the past. Expanded connections must also take account of divisions between participating nations, the potency of the insurgency, the weaknesses of the Afghan state and issues without direct linkage with Afghanistan such as the ongoing conflict in Syria. If the process enjoys even a modicum of success, further regional crises might be averted, and new opportunities for sustainable development will be uncovered.     

Buyer and Seller Differences in Business‐to‐Business Negotiations

The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to examine the differences between buyers' and sellers' use of negotiation tactics in face‐to‐face business‐to‐business (B2B) negotiations and second, to explore how negotiators' professed negotiation styles influence buyers' and sellers' use of tactics. The methodology is a multiple case study analysis of eighteen negotiators representing twelve companies in six real‐life buyer–seller negotiations in B2B settings analyzed using qualitative research methods, including both comparative analysis and frequency analysis. We found some difference between buyers' and sellers' use of negotiation tactics, which suggests this question deserves further empirical study. Buyers' and sellers' use of specific tactics differs according to which overall strategy the negotiators chose, and sellers generally use a greater number of negotiation tactics than buyers. The findings challenge previous findings that suggest that B2B negotiations are collaborative and that negotiators communicate in a collaborative manner. The findings also increase our understanding of buyers' and sellers' variable use of tactics in the course of everyday practice as well as the interplay between negotiation tactics and strategies.     

How Grand was Reagan's Strategy, 1976-1984?

This article disputes the assertions of the new Reagan literature. Drawing upon radio broadcasts, speeches, correspondences, and documents from his presidential library, as well as recently published diaries from his White House years, it argues that Ronald Reagan had no grand strategy in the years 1976-1984. Indeed, throughout this period, he possessed two less-than-grand strategies I label “peace through strength” and “a crusade for freedom.” Each of these contained its own respective set of goals and employed its own corresponding set of tactics. Yet there was no grand strategy for ending the Cold War.     

Development and political legitimacy: the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan

Development's policies are based on a set of premises: state‐building, state of law, democratisation, accountability and privatisation. The idea is that the Western concept of democracy could be implemented through the development of a ‘civil society’ of the building from scratch of new institutions. Such a model works when there is political will from the local political authorities and the society to adopt such a model (as was the case in Poland and Hungary after the collapse of the Soviet Union). But in any case a policy of development should be based on political legitimacy. In Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, political legitimacy means abiding with nationalism, Islam and local political culture (often based on clan‐ism and networks). In Iraq, the US policy has deliberately ignored the issue of legitimacy. In Afghanistan, because the US intervention was not part of a great design, it relied more on local constraints and thus has been more effective, or at least, less disruptive. The issue is not opposing a Western model of democracy to a national authoritarian political culture, but to root democracy into the local political culture. If not the policy of strengthening civil society, through political and military pressure as well as NGO's, has a disruptive effect and may lead to a conservative, nationalist and religious backlash.     

The evolution of the European Union’s failed approach to Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

This article provides a genealogical account of European actorness in Afghanistan. It argues that European agreement towards facilitating modernisation and development in Afghanistan was initiated with aid and trade, evolving into humanitarianism in the 1990s, and reconstruction and democratisation in the 2000s. The European Union has had a positive impact on Afghanistan, focusing on humanitarianism, but its multilateral and programme level approach to reconstruction and democratisation has failed to meet the EU’s stated objectives. By promoting the flawed “Bonn Model”, the EU is proportionally culpable for failed international attempts to reconstruct Afghanistan; even though the United States has been the primary international actor. Drawing a series of broader lessons, such as tensions between Atlantic solidarity and European integration, and the limitations of the European crisis management, the article demonstrates how European policy has been shaped by crises inside Afghanistan and the larger geopolitical crises these have generated. These have contemporary importance as history suggests that as the US withdraws its commitment to Afghanistan, the EU will have a very significant role in attempting to fill a humanitarian vacuum.     

海权争霸与俄苏的兴衰及其历史反思

从海权的角度分析俄苏的兴衰是一个尚未有人进行充分探讨的问题。在数百年的争夺中 ,海权的扩张固然构成了俄苏崛起的一个因素 ,但从长远的角度看 ,对海权的过度追求又构成了俄苏走向衰落的根源之一。具体说来 ,从俄苏海权扩张西进、南下和东进 3条线路中 ,西进战略较为成功 ,并促进了俄苏的崛起 ;南下和东进战略虽有所收获 ,但都遭遇挫折 ,尤其是南下的世界扩张战略直接导致了苏联的衰落。从本质上来说 ,地缘政治条件的制约、俄苏海权过渡扩张所导致的一系列矛盾构成了俄苏海权战略失败并导致国力衰微的根源之一。     

Is a Human Security Approach Possible? Compatibility between the Strategies of Protection and Empowerment

This article explores the delivery of strategies for human security,protection and empowerment, using as case study the UN AssistanceMission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) during 2002 and 2003. This UNoperation took place in the context of the international interventionsin Afghanistan and was a direct consequence of the US-led waron terror and the post-conflict state-building process whichensued. It was tasked to address the immediate human insecurity.The analysis of this mission highlights the pertinent issueswhich relate to the development of an effective human securityapproach and which apply to UN operations in general. It isvital, in this respect, to examine the compatibility betweenthe strategies of protection and empowerment, as human securitynow forms a central value of UN operations. This exploration,in turn, questions the distinct role of the UN in dealing withhuman insecurity in post-conflict situations.     

Indian and Chinese foreign policy imperatives and strategies vis-à-vis Afghanistan

In this article, the authors conduct a comparative review of the strategic imperatives driving Sino-Indian policy on Afghanistan in the post-2014 scenario. The article argues that divergent strategic imperatives make cooperation difficult and/or unlikely. This analysis is based on a broader consideration of both contemporary history and geopolitical dynamics shaping the foreign policy considerations of these two countries, and an assessment of the impact of ongoing bi-lateral and regional aspirations. The authors begin by highlighting the salient dynamics that have historically characterized and driven Indian and Chinese foreign policy in general and on Afghanistan. They find that Afghanistan, although not a primary focus of either state’s foreign or security policy, historically, is increasing in importance for both; India and China compete on a range of economic and security issues.