The rise and fall of conservative reform in the United States: George W. Bush and the transformation of the Reagan legacy

Americans often remark that 9/11 changed their nation forever. Conservatives rarely note, however, that the attacks also changed the effort at conservative reform that began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Reagan preached strength in foreign policy but rarely used force to fight the Cold War. On the home front, Reagan pursued neo-liberalism within the limits of political prudence, under the influence of neo-conservative ideology among other factors. Reagan's Republican successor George W. Bush has used force in pursuit of democratic nation-building while expanding the American welfare state at a pace not seen since the 1960s. If elected, Bush's opponent, Senator John Kerry, might face a Republican Congress and thus gridlock on domestic policy. Kerry also favors a more realistic stance for the nation in foreign affairs. Ironically, the revival of the Reagan legacy of conservative reform may hinge on the defeat of the Republican incumbent, a defeat that could open the possibility of reclaiming Reagan's party for the cause of limited government and individual liberty.     

进攻性现实主义与布什政府对朝政策研究现状述评

本文就进攻性现实主义与布什政府对朝政策研究的目的及意义、国内研究现状进行梳理、阐释和评述,认为美国的外交政策是各派的折中产物,都是基于美国的国家利益和对世界局势的综合考虑。进攻性现实主义与美国保守派占上风的布什政府的外交理念相吻合,是“为永葆美国强权开药方”,是布什政府对朝政策的重要理论来源。其研究具有重要的理论和实践价值及自身特点,应在理论与实际“结合”上下工夫。理论与政策实务的结合,理论抑或政策的研究的连续性和整体性以及整体性研究与细节考察等方面是今后进一步研究的空间。     

改变与延续:奥巴马政府的东亚政策与东亚一体化

本文旨在探讨奥巴马政府的东亚政策及其对东亚一体化的影响.作者认为:奥巴马政府的东亚政策可以用"安全"、"繁荣"、"人权"和"环保"四个词来概括,在安全和经贸方面大体会延续前任政府的政策,在环保和人权方面会进行一定的变革,在经贸方面也会和以往有所不同.总体而言,奥巴马的东亚政策对东亚一体化既有积极的一面,但也必须认识到其消极的一面.最后,针对美国的关注与担忧及如何推动东亚一体化,本文提出了一些政策建议.     

GEORGE W. BUSH AND ASIA: IN THE SHADOW OF 11 SEPTEMBER

Traditionally seen as a President consumed by the war on terror, George W. Bush is frequently portrayed as being relatively uninterested in Asia, and unable to outline a vision or a strategy to China, America’s Asian allies and Asian multilateral mechanisms. This article will revisit Bush’s policy on Asia and show a president who guided the United States with a policy that balanced the need to combat global terrorism and locate a focus on Asia. He faced the dilemmas of building cooperative relations with a rising China while trying to foster American alliances and partnerships in Asia, and managing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Utilizing qualitative content analysis as the main research method, the article will demonstrate that the Bush administration had not a lack of focus on Asia and that Bush’s diplomacy to Asia should be recognized as one of the most significant achievements of his presidency.     

After neoliberal globalization

This article traces the “securitization” of U.S. foreign economic policy in the administration of George W. Bush. It does so with reference to U.S. economic policy in East and Southeast Asia. It argues that in the context of U.S. economic and military preponderance in the world order, the United States has been unable to resist the temptation to link foreign economic and security policy. While there was evidence of the securitization of economic globalization in U.S. policy from day one of the Bush administration, it was 9/11 that firmed up this trend. For the key members of the Bush foreign policy team, globalization is now seen not simply in neoliberal economic terms, but also through the lenses of the national security agenda of the United States. Economic globalization is now not only a benefit but also a “security problem.” The attacks on 9/11 offered the opportunity for what we might call the “unilateralist-idealists” in the Bush administration, to set in train their project for a post-sovereign approach to U.S. foreign policy.     

IRAQ AND THE LESSONS OF VIETNAM: Introduction

Abstract

The following is the Introduction from a published collection of articles edited by Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young, Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn from the Past (New York and London: The New Press, 2007. 322pp. 978-1-59558-149-5). The book's Table of Contents appears on p. 486 below.

The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian Peninsula. — George H.W. Bush, 1991     

Regionalism and Domestic Politics: U.S.-Latin American Trade Policy in the Bush Era

With remarkable success, Latin Americans have sought to impose their free trade policy agenda on a very reluctant and internally fractious United States. They have an ally in President George W. Bush, whose senior appointments notably support hemispheric trade integration even as political pressures sometimes have yielded protectionist outcomes. Bush's trade negotiator, Robert Zoellick, pursues a doctrine of competitive liberalization while accepting some linkage between trade and social and political goals. In negotiating the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the administration will have to balance many domestic pressures without alienating Latin America. Ultimately, FTAA ratification will signal a new Western Hemisphere economic-security alliance for the twenty-first century.     

Radical Neglect? The “War on Terror” and Latin America

The rise of leftist governments in the Americas and the adoption of policy initiatives contrary to U.S. interests highlight a disconnect in interamerican relations, which cannot be understood simply as U.S. "neglect" of Latin America. In contrast to arguments that attribute the deteriorating relations to U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East, the article examines whether the "War on Terror" acted as a guiding paradigm for the George W. Bush administration in Latin America. Opposition to this "War on Terror" paradigm was evident following Colombia's 2008 air strike in Ecuador. Justified as a preemptive strike against a terrorist threat, Colombia's action met regional condemnation. The article argues that this Colombia-Latin America division reflects a larger geostrategic disconnect, whereby the "War on Terror" is challenged, causing the increasing marginalization of Washington and resistance to U.S. policy.     

Whatever Happened to the Australian Role in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership?

In 2003, Iraq was invaded, ostensibly to remove a nuclear threat, by a coalition led by George W. Bush. At the same time select allies were invitited to participate in Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership which aimed to limit the spread of nuclear enrichment and reprocessing. This came as climate change gave emphasis to the development of nuclear energy, especially in Asia. With an abundant supply of uranium and strict nuclear safeguards, Australia was well placed to provide a site for the full suite of nuclear services. The recent AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement has underscored its failure to do so. This article makes the case for the adoption of nuclear power as a necessary step in the development of advanced manufacturing; the provision of a domestic capability to fuel nuclear attack submarines and other naval craft; and as a contribution to global nuclear non-proliferation.     

US-Japan Alliance: The Political Dimension

George W. Bush was inaugurated as the new president of the United States on 20 January 2001. How will the change in personnel influence Washington's approach to its relationship with East Asia and, in particular, with Japan? Takashi Oka, a Washington-based consultant to the Liberal Party of Japan who was for many years a correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, considers this question in the following article. Oka argues that the strategic importance of the US-Japan alliance has not lessened with the end of the Cold War,and that in order to confront the security challenges of the twenty-first century, Japan's position within the US-Japan alliance needs to change from that of a protected subordinate to that of an equal partner. For this to be possible, a politician with sufficient vision and power, someone with a clear foreign policy, who is strong enough in domestic politics to carry out that policy, needs to emerge in Japan.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: The “Center of the Universe”: The Geopolitics of Iran , by Graham E. Fuller. American Presidents and the Middle East , by George Lemczowski. Cauldron: America in the Middle East , by Barry Rubin. Twin Pillars in Desert Storm: America's Flawed Vision in the Middle East from Nixon to Bush , by Howard Teicher and Gayle Radley Teicher. Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel , by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi. The New Palestinians: be Emerging Generation of Leaders , by John Wallach and Janet Wallach. Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East , edited by Iliya Harik and Denis J. Sullivan. Imaghing the Middle East , by Thierry Hentsch.     

The "Crusade" Against Evil: Bush's Fundamentalism

This paper deals with some of the religious elements in the responses to the terrorist attacks. It criticises some initial Christian responses (in America) as well as George Bush (Jnr)'s self-asserted Christian credentials. The conjunction between business-friendly forms of religion and the religious cloak over a right-wing political stance is presented as an aspect of Bush's "crusade". The paper surveys the history of the constitutional separation of church and state and the emergence of a republican tradition which had pretensions to displace the "moral haughtiness" and insolence of American religiosity. But the "faith-based" legislation favoured by Bush has prevailed in the general judgementalism of the administration and in the "security measures" and pro-corporate legislation enacted in 2001 and 2002.     

美国“反叛乱”理论的发展及其困境

20世纪中期以后,随着第三世界民族解放运动的勃兴和美国加大在第三世界的政治、军事干涉力度,美国政府日益关注和重视"反叛乱"理论与实践。美国"反叛乱"理论的形成与发展大体经历了三大阶段:肯尼迪时期、里根时期和小布什-奥巴马时期。其中肯尼迪时期强调对所谓"反叛乱"政府的扶持,与苏联争夺对第三世界的政治、军事控制;里根时期的"叛乱"和"反叛乱"被纳入"低强度冲突"理论的框架;小布什时期则是为了应对所谓的伊斯兰圣战主义"全球叛乱"。然而"反叛乱"理论作为美国海外干涉的一种理念依据,总是面临着对外干涉本身所固有的政治、军事和道义困境。     

NATO: The United States, Transformation and the War in Afghanistan

During the Bush years, NATO exhibited in stark form two trends which have long characterised its development: periodic exposure to crisis and division, and a subordination to American leadership. Despite signs of American indifference towards the alliance, talk of the Bush administration levering a break with NATO was always overstated, particularly so during its second term of office. Views of NATO after 2004 were shaped by Afghanistan giving rise, in fact, to a return to the alliance on America's part. NATO remains important to Bush's successor but on terms which are as demanding as those of his predecessors. NATO, in other words, is valued in so far as it accords with current US foreign policy priorities. The safest assumption in this regard is that Obama will continue to favour the trend towards a global NATO pursued by the Bush administration. However, retreat (or defeat) in Afghanistan could hasten a contrary trend towards a consolidating NATO with a renewed concentration on the wider Europe.     

The crisis in U.S.-China policy, 1991: The role of congress

The history of U.S. government decisionmaking on China policy since the June 1989 Tiananmen incident shows several episodes of dramatic confrontation between President Bush and his supporters in the administration and the Congress, and large numbers of congressional members of both parties critical of the administration’s China policy. Up to the present, 1991 clearly marked the highwater mark in the ongoing U.S. policy debate. In general terms, the debate went through three distinct stages in 1991, with the crisis coming during critical votes on conditional MFN legislation in July. At year’s end, all sides in the debate anticipated continued strong congressional criticism of Chinese practices and Bush administration policy, but critics seemed unable to make substantial inroads among those senators who supported the Bush administration’s stance, assuring continued MFN trade treatment for China.     

Mistaken Attribution: The United States and Inter-Korean Relations

The US-South Korea alliance has been one of the most successful relationships to be forged out of the Cold War era. Since the June 2000 inter-Korean summit, however, one area of consistent friction between the two countries has been over North-South relations. In this article, Victor Cha, associate professor of Government and D.S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, argues that a key dynamic at play is one of perception, involving errors of attribution. Allied complaints about the other are heard, but attempts to address these complaints are dismissed by the counterpart as having been determined by the situation rather than by volition--that is, disposition. This results in mutual frustration. Since the "axis of evil" appellation attached to North Korea by US president, George Bush, both sides have interpreted North Korean behavior as confirming their own convictions on how to proceed. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the result has been a dichotomy in the way the two governments approach inter-Korean relations.     

Nagano Shigeo: Business Leadership in the Asia Pacific Region and the Formation of the Pacific Basin Economic Council

The Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC) was established in 1968 through the initiatives taken by the Japanese and Australian business leaders. This article focuses on the ideas and activities of the Japanese and Australian business leaders in the establishment of PBEC, especially those of Nagano Shigeo and W.R.C. Anderson, both of whom devoted themselves to the establishment of PBEC, while cooperating with each other. The central questions posed are: how and why Nagano and Anderson came to consider it desirable to establish an economic institution in the Asia Pacific region in the mid-1960s; how and why those ideas were refined and transformed into the establishment of PBEC; what approaches business leaders in other countries took towards Pacific cooperation and how the Japanese and Australians adjusted different interests of people in other countries in organising PBEC. Finally, the article assesses the role played by PBEC in the development of economic cooperation in Asia and the Pacific and insists that it should help set up foundations for the subsequent organisations of regional economic institutions such as the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967 , by William B. Quandt. Securing Peace in the Middle East: Project on Economic Transition , by the Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East of the John F. The Passionate Attachment: America's Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present , by George W. Ball and Douglas B. Ball. Quagmire: America in the Middle East , by Leon T. Hadar. Sleeping on A Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel , by David Grossman. Translated from the Hebrew by Haim Watzman. Breaking the Ice: Rapprochement Between East and West Germany, the United States and China and Israel and Egypt , by Tony Armstrong. Syria and the United States: Eisenhower's Cold War in the Middle East , by David W. Lesch. The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq , by Kenneth R. Timmerman. After the Storm: The Changing Military Balance in the Middle East , by Anthony H. Cordesman. Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East , by Anthony H. Cordesman. Postmodernism, Reason and Religion by Ernest Gellner.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Australian Dictionary of Biography: Supplement 1580–1980 . Edited by Christopher Cuneen, Jill Roe, Beverley Kingston and Stephen Garton The Europeans in Australia: A History Volume Two: Democracy. By Alan Atkinson Engines of Influence: Newspapers of Country Victoria, 1840–1890. By Elizabeth Morrison Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History. Edited by A. Dirk Moses Mixed Relations: Asian-Aboriginal Contact in North Australia. By Regina Ganter, with contributions by Julia Martinez and Gary Lee Struggle Country: The Rural Ideal in Twentieth Century Australia. Edited by Graeme Davison and Marc Brodie My Dearest Brown Eyes: Letters Between Sir Donald Cleland and Dame Rachel Cleland during World War II. Introduced and edited by Nancy Lutton Dear Dr Janzow: Australia's Lutheran Churches and Refugees from Hitler's Germany. Edited by Peter Monteath An Historian's Life: Max Crawford and the Politics of Academic Freedom. By Fay Anderson B.A. Santamaria. Your Most Obedient Servant. Selected Letters: 1938–1996. Edited by Patrick Morgan Australia's Own Cold War: The Waterfront Under Menzies , By Tom Sheridan Asian Alternatives: Australia's Vietnam Decision and Lessons on Going to War. By Garry Woodard The Life and Death of Harold Holt. By Tom Frame The Long, Slow Death of White Australia. By Gwenda Tavan The Longest Decade. By George Megalogenis Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica. By Tom Griffiths Amassing Treasures for All Times: Sir George Grey, Colonial Bookman and Collector. By Donald Jackson Kerr 142 Strand: A Radical Address in Victorian London. By Rosemary Ashton War Experiences in Rural Germany, 1914–1923. By Benjamin Ziemann, translated by Alex Skinner Confront! Resistance in Nazi Germany. Edited by John J. Michalczyk Writing the Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Representation. By Zoë Vania Waxman Armageddon des Kommunismus — Strategie, Wirtschaft und die DDR 1970–1990: By Bernd F. Schulte Mussolini's Italy: Life under the Dictatorship, 1915–1945. By R.J.B. Bosworth From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War. By Wilson D. Miscamble C.S.C. Missed Opportunities: US Diplomatic Failures and the Arab-Israel Conflict 1947–1967. By Candace Karp Regionalism and Globalization in East Asia: Politics, Security and Economic Development. By Mark Beeson Political Economy from Below: Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism, 1840–1914. By Rob Knowles Plague Ports: The Global Urban Impact of Bubonic Plague, 1894–1901. By Myron Echenberg Darwin's Coat-Tails: Essays on Social Darwinism. By Paul Crook The God Delusion. By Richard Dawkins The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine. By Alister and Joanna McGrath The Philosophy of War and Peace. By Jenny Teichman The Law of Armed Conflict: Constraints on the Contemporary Use of Military Force. Edited by Howard M. Hensel Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective. Co-edited by Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake Ways of Knowing: Competing Methodologies in Social and Political Research. By Jonathon W. Moses and Torbjørn L. Knutsen     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
Charles Bergquist, Ricardo Peñaranda, and G. Gonzalo Sánchez (eds.), Violence in Colombia 1990––2000. Waging War and Negotiating Peace
H. Kline, State Building and Conflict Resolution in Colombia, 1986–1994
N. Richani, Systems of Violence. The Political Economy of War and Peace in Colombia
Maxwell A. Cameron, and Brian W. Tomlin, The Making of NAFTA: How the Deal Was Done
Ben Fallaw, Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán
Aníbal González, Killer Books: Writing, Violence, and Ethics in Modern Spanish American Narrative
Valerie Boyle (ed.), A South American Adventure: Letters from George Reid, 1867–1870
Caroline Salvin, A Pocket Eden. Guatemalan Journals 1873–1874/Un paraíso. Diarios guatemaltecos 1873–1874