Colombia at War: The Search for a Peace Diplomacy

This essay analyzes Colombian foreign policy over the last three decades with specific emphasis on Bogota's peace diplomacy from 1978 up to 2000 in the context of an ongoing and degrading internal war. Initially, it assumes a modified realist perspective that links international relations with domestic structures. Then, the text defines three models of Colombian peaceful diplomacy according to the purposes, the means, and the rationales employed by the administrations that covered the above-mentioned period. After empirically evaluating the governments of Presidents Turbay, Betancur, Barco, Gaviria, and Samper and the first two years of the presidency of Pastrana, the article concludes with an assessment of the country's peace diplomacy and its impact on internal violence and instability. The foreign policies of the six different mandates show that Colombia never developed an overall, consensual state strategy towards peace, that the multiple peaceful diplomacies were partially successful in terms of sustaining the political regime and that, notwithstanding the latter, the successive governments failed to achieve a genuine resolution to domestic war. Finally, the article calls for a serious, active, and simultaneous state foreign policy and citizen's diplomacy in favor of peace.     

From War to Peace: The Nepalese Maoists's Strategic and Ideological Thinking

In February 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) initiated a bloody war to establish a Mao-style “people's republic.” A decade later, however, they signed a peace agreement with the government, joined the mainstream political parties in parliament and in an interim government, and participated in democratic elections. This article provides some insight into the Nepalese Maoists's strategic and ideological thinking. More specifically, this article shows the reason behind the party's change of tactics and goals and describes the process in which these changes materialized.     

美国军事情报机构的“旋转门”现象

自20世纪80年代以来,美国大力推行军事和情报机构私有化改革,在持续缩减军队规模的同时,把大量原来隶属于军队的职能转化为商业合同,外包给私人军事和情报公司。“9·11”事件发生后,这种私有化改革更是发展到史无前例的地步,而且不再局限于军事部门,就连被视为私人禁区的情报部门也实行了大规模的私有化。     

伊拉克战争对美国国际地位及世界军事格局的影响

伊拉克战争表明 ,美军自 2 0世纪 90年代推进的军事革命已经取得了突出的成效 ,通过军事革命特别是最近几年的“军事转型” ,美军已经将其技术优势真正转化成了能力优势和决策优势 ,使其军事能力与以往相比又有了大的跃升 ,不仅具备了打现代信息化战争的能力 ,而且确立了其他任何国家都无法比拟的军事优势。像 2 0世纪 90年代以来爆发的历次局部战争一样 ,伊拉克战争也将极大地促进美军新军事革命的进程 ,加快其军事转型的步伐 ,进一步拉大与世界各国之间的军事能力差距 ,强化其世界军事霸主地位 ,并对世界军事格局和大国军事关系产生深刻的影响