Al-Qaeda and Anarchism: A Historian's Reply to Terrorology: Response to Commentaries

The Lehi, a fringe Jewish paramilitary group created in 1940, conducted a concerted terrorist campaign against the British authorities in Palestine during and after World War II, proclaiming that its activities were undertaken in the name of national liberation. Lehi was founded and led by Avraham Stern, also known as “Yair.” Scholar, intellectual, and poet, Stern developed a fundamental ideology of national and messianic Jewish terrorism, which became the ideological basis not only for the work of the Lehi, but also for later Jewish terrorist activism. The present article examines the intellectual foundations of Lehi terrorism and how its intellectual and ideological principles influenced Lehi's most controversial activities—internal terrorism and the execution of its own members. In conclusion, the author traces the impact of Stern's intellectual legacy on later generations of Jewish terrorists.     

卡尔扎伊访美难弥美阿分歧

今年5月10—13日,卡尔扎伊率高级别代表团访问美国。美国给予阿富汗代表团以隆重礼遇,总统奥巴马、国务卿希拉里、副总统拜登、参谋长联席会议主席马伦、驻阿美军最高指挥官麦克里斯特尔等军政高官集体出动,会见卡尔扎伊及其代表团。     

Negotiation Pedagogy: Learning to Learn

Negotiation Journal -     

China: Converging to What?

Rather than looking at the entire East Asian region, this article studies one of its major economies--that of China--and questions where it is heading. After outlining the history of the Chinese economy over the past two decades, during which it moved toward an increasingly market-based economy, Perkins contends that the Chinese system is still not close enough to the Anglo-American model to comply with international standards as exemplified by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). China is instead closer to the South Korean and Japanese models, where the state plays a greater role in the economy. Yet even this similarity is limited, making China's economy unique among all others in the current international order. While China must continue to move toward an economy in accordance with international norms, the current situation requires an international organisation that will recognise China's advances rather than demand immediate compliance.     

《反弹道导弹条约》的兴废始末

1972年美苏签署的《美苏关于限制反弹道导弹系统条约》(简称反导条约、AMB条约)是当前国际关系中最令人关注并引起诸多争议的问题之一。该约限制美苏双方建立针对弹道导弹的国土导弹防御系统,以维持双方战略核武库力量的大体平衡。依此建立的“相互确保摧毁理论”成为现代核威慑战略的理论基础。随着冷战后美国执意发展国家导弹防御系统,反导条约已成为当前世人关注的热点。     

Central Asian Countries: Learning to Live Next to the Taliban

With the withdrawal of the US and coalition forces from Afghanistan and the rapid takeover by the Taliban, most Central Asian governments recognized the Taliban in a pragmatic decision to peacefully coexist with the neighboring extremist regime that will likely remain in power for the foreseeable future. Tajikistan is, however, denying the Taliban recognition and indirectly supporting the resistance movement in Panjshir. The political and human catastrophe in Afghanistan is threatening to boost autocratic tendencies and further deepen political gaps in Central Asian societies. This article discusses the rationale behind each Central Asian government’s approach to the Talibanized Afghanistan and the looming domestic and external challenges to the region.     

How to solve the many-state problem: a reply to the debate

This article responds to the debate provoked by the author's ‘Does capitalism need the state system?’ (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 20:4 2007, 533–549) and his exchanges with Justin Rosenberg (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 21:1 2008, 77–112). It is divided into three parts. The first restates the issues, situating them in the context of a growing Marxist preoccupation with the international in recent years, and contrasts the ‘high road’—Rosenberg's attempt to use Trotsky's concept of uneven and combined development to provide a transhistorical perspective on intersocietal relations—with Callinicos's own preferred ‘low road’ of more focused analysis centred on the prevailing mode(s) of production. The second addresses the fundamental criticisms addressed to him by Hannes Lacher, Benno Teschke and John M Hobson, all of whom deny that there is a necessary relation between capitalism and the interstate system. The third considers the more specific comments offered by Neil Davidson, Gonso Pozo-Martin, and Jamie Allinson and Alex Anievas, before concluding with an appeal for a move off the terrain of abstract theory to more empirical studies that can test the relative value of rival conceptual constructions.     

Russian Hypersonic Glide Vehicles: What to Know and What to Fear

Recent news of hypersonic tests in both Russia and China stoke fears of a technological gap for the United States. However, a sober analysis of the state of hypersonic technology raises doubts of its capabilities, or usefulness in military operations. Instead, overassessment of hypersonics gives them their strategic value: political leverage. A nuclear-tipped hypersonic might not actually tilt the balance of deterrence at all but would nonetheless require a complex arms control negotiation between the United States, Russia, and China. A conventional hypersonic would have to overcome serious technical barriers to even match current precision weapon systems, but not fulling knowing the system’s capabilities means the United States must treat it as a credible threat. Without a careful measure of the technology, policymakers risk diplomatic missteps, budgetary waste, and an escalatory miscalculation.     

"回归欧洲":历史与现实

政局剧变之后,中东欧国家普遍提出"回归欧洲"作为其首要的政治和外交任务目标.从一般意义上说,"回归欧洲"是剧变后转轨国家政治领导人提出的政治口号,旨在向国内外昭示,它们意欲摆脱苏联的政治、经济和军事控制及影响,迅速发展同西方的政治、经济和军事关系这样一种新的地缘政治趋向,认同西方现行的政治价值取向(建立民主的和多元化的公民社会)和经济制度(建立市场经济).从特定的意义上说,"回归欧洲"也是中东欧部分国家的历史和文化特性所使然,是这些国家的文明属性决定的.     

Swiss Neutrality: From Policy to Doctrine

This article suggests that the modern discourse in Switzerland about neutrality signals a change in nature of the global understanding of neutrality from an apparently unchallengeable generic moral stance to a doctrine that requires individual policy consideration on a case-by-case basis.