Edgy Amity along the Mekong: Thai-Lao Relations in a Transforming Regional Equilibrium

Abstract

In 1994, the opening of the Friendship Bridge commenced an apparent thawing of ties between Thailand and Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR). Out of deep socio-historical antagonisms and Cold War acrimony, the two countries seemed suited now for amity. But amity has continued to be edgy. Meanwhile, other countries in the region—China and Vietnam—vie for influence with Thailand over Lao. Amidst a rapidly integrating Mekong market and changing regional equilibrium, this study seeks answers to the following questions: What are the most significant Thai-Lao state security interests and how do they mesh with human security—especially in relation to economic interests? Why do Thailand and Lao currently appear to be highlighting economic ties to the detriment of military preparedness and human security? How is the shifting equilibrium in the Mekong Region shaping the future of Thai-Lao relations? The study hypothesizes that despite tensions, in an age of enhanced state-market linkages, Thailand and Lao prioritize economic collaboration over military and human security considerations.     

中国周边形势新变化与周边命运共同体构建

2017年以来,中国周边安全和经济形势发生重大变化。在安全上,美国以推动"印太"战略、强化美日和美韩同盟、借议题拉拢东盟等手段将战略布局深度集中到中国的周边地区;法国、英国、德国、欧盟也紧随其后,开始深度介入"印太"地区的经济合作、安全事务和互联互通进程。在经济上,全球化已进入"慢速"阶段且越来越以区域化的方式展开;而机器人、3D打印技术和可再生能源的发展和运用将继续推动区域化进程,周边国家与中国的经济联系对双方来说都更为重要。无论是在安全上还是在经济上,周边地区对中国发展的重要性都在迅速上升。中国应更加重视周边外交在总体外交布局中的地位,要总结历史和当代中国营造良好周边环境的经验;争取处理好中美日、中美韩、中日韩、中俄印等一些大三角关系;将周边地区打造成为中国构建新发展格局的节点和高质量推动"一带一路"建设的引领示范地区;积极提供地区公共产品,推动构建周边命运共同体。     

The changing nature of the transatlantic link: U.S. approaches and implications for Central and Eastern Europe

This article examines the changing security, economic and diplomatic components of the transatlantic link, with a particular focus on Washington's approach and implications for Central and Eastern Europe. The United States continues to play an essential role as security underwriter in the region, but the military dimension of the transatlantic relationship is transforming and will result in greater burdens on Europeans. Economic links between the U.S. and Central Europe are developing more strongly than generally understood, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is likely to drive both political and economic ties. Unconventional gas developments are enhancing U.S. engagement in European energy markets. Finally, the U.S. remains keen to engage its European partners on a broad agenda of global and regional issues and retains its own interests in working particularly with Central and Eastern European countries to lend stability to ‘wider Europe’.     

欧盟在中美之间的艰难选择——基于“蛋糕主义”视角的分析

在中美战略竞争的背景下,美国要求欧盟国家与其联手遏制中国,抵制中国在欧洲的基础设施建设和投资。欧盟陷入两难境地,一边是为欧洲诸国提供安全保障的传统盟友美国,另一边是给欧洲带来经济利益的合作伙伴中国。大多数欧洲国家和欧盟实际上在实施一种“蛋糕主义”的平衡策略,即在中美之间“不选边站队”,保持一种矛盾和摇摆的立场,同时它们也希望能够避免因得罪任何一方而遭受重大利益损失。欧盟国家非常清楚这种策略只是一种权宜之计,只有进一步加强战略自主,从根本上提升欧盟的防务能力和外交自主权,才能拯救欧洲,并在此基础上发展欧洲。中国需要认识到欧盟目前的骑墙状态无法长期持续,因为美国如果加大对欧盟的施压力度或者对欧盟作出更有利的安全承诺,欧盟国家大概率会回归美国的怀抱,进而联手应对中国。对中国来说,应该鼓励欧盟“不选边站队”,因为总体上让欧盟偏向中国是不现实的,欧盟能够保持中立对中国来说在理论上是一种次优选择,在现实中也可能是最优选择。今后的中美欧三边关系存在较大不确定性,欧盟的战略空间可能会缩小,需要在中、美两强之间艰难地维持平衡。     

Exporting the Patriot Act? democracy and the ‘war on terror’ in the Third World

Since 2001 many countries have adopted anti-terrorism laws that limit civil liberties and expand law enforcement powers in the name of national security. Counter-terrorism legislation is promoted through several international channels, most notably the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee, but the USA is clearly seen as the driving force. This article examines the politics surrounding the recent development and implementation of anti-terrorism laws in the Third World and the implications for ongoing processes of democratisation. In some countries the adoption of anti-terrorism laws has provided leaders with the tools they need to silence critics and punish political opponents. In others the introduction of such bills has actually encouraged debate and fostered civil society activism, much of it anti-American in tone. In either setting the Bush administration's twin foreign policy goals of strengthening international security and promoting democracy may be creating more cynics than friends.     

Toward Evaluating the Effectiveness of Regional Partnerships for Economic Development in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

During the past few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of regional partnerships in the United States to enhance economic development across local government jurisdictions. This trend has been mirrored by an increase in regional organizations in Europe, Asia and South America to enhance economic development, usually across national boundaries. While the literature has examined the formation, structure and activities of regional partnerships for economic development in the United States, this is the first study that attempts to measure their effectiveness across a large number of geographical areas using quantitative methods. The findings provide some evidence of their effectiveness in that there is a positive and significant relationship between regional partnerships and employment; the relationship between regional partnerships and income is positive but insignificant. This study may be informative in the further study of regional economic development organizations in other countries as well as regional partnerships and organizations in other policy arenas.     

After Oslo and Utøya: A Shift in the Balance Between Security and Liberty in Norway?

The article addresses the challenges a society faces to when trying to balance security and liberty after a terrorist attack. A main question is to what extent attitudes toward counterterror measures changed in Norway after the massive terror attacks in July 2011. A hypothesis that people will be more in favor of such measures after a terror attack is examined using data from two surveys—one conducted in 2006 and one in August 2011, with additional results from a survey in 2012. The Norwegian response after the 2011 attacks is compared to the response to the same questions in the United States shortly after 11 September 2001. A main finding is that in Norway, in contrast to the United States, levels of support for counterterror measures declined immediately after the attacks. The authors argue that this can be explained partly by the different levels of trust in the two countries, and partly by differences in the political executive's framing of the crisis. In 2012, support of counterterror measures in Norway has risen to pre-2011 levels. This is related to the changed discourse after the publication of the report from the 22 July Commission.     

Central Asia and regional security

This paper aims to analyze the politico-military cooperation among the Central Asian countries viewed as a key factor in ensuring the regional security. Today, the geopolitical tension in the surrounding regions, the worsening situation in Afghanistan, as well as intraregional socio-economic problems directly affect the security situation in Central Asia. In this regard, the question arises as to how well the Central Asian states are able to meet these challenges. The analysis of the situation in the region in the 1990s and at the beginning of the new century shows that attempts have been made to establish a regional security system based on military cooperation among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. However, unregulated interstate relations in Central Asia, the lack of political will to cooperate with leaders of neighboring countries and the combination of external and internal threats have contributed to the creation of a regional security system based on the multilateral structures with the involvement of external actors.     

Levels of Centralisation and Autonomy in Russia’s ‘Party of Power’: Cross-Regional Variations

The institutionalisation and nationalisation of Russia’s party system, which is dominated by United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya—UR), has played a major role in the building of Putin’s ‘power vertical’. Nevertheless, despite the fact that formal relations within UR are highly centralised, informal practices allow for far greater degrees of regional autonomy. Focusing on UR’s candidate selection for the 2011 Duma election this article provides an examination of cross-regional variations in the relations between UR’s Party Centre and its regional branches. As electoral legislation requires the segmentation of party lists into ‘regional groups’, the composition of the regional lists, specifically the share of ‘native candidates’, is considered as an indicator of the level of autonomy of regional branches. Ordinal regression analysis confirms our main theoretical hypotheses. In the more financially autonomous regions, UR’s regional branches will have more leverage and bargaining power in their relations with the Party Centre. A second important factor is heterogeneity: the more a region’s socio-economic indices deviate from the national average (either up or down), the less its UR branch is subordinate to the Party Centre.     

Regional Disparities in Central and Eastern European Countries: Trends,Drivers and Prospects

Growth in Central and East European countries (CEE) is territorially unbalanced, more so than in most other parts of the EU. The benefits of transformation in these countries have been unequally distributed among particular social groups and territories—with the emergence of highly educated and internationally successful professionals and entrepreneurs located mainly in metropolitan areas on the one hand, and structural unemployment, persistent poverty and social exclusion in peripheral regions on the other. These regional imbalances are characterised by a process of metropolisation that has privileged a handful of dynamic urban centres while exacerbating the structural problems of old industrial regions, vast rural areas and regions located on borders, and especially the EU's eastern borders. Different as they are in social, cultural and geographical terms, these declining or stagnating regions share general problems of economic peripherality and many negative effects of structural change, such as rural depopulation, ‘brain drain’, disinvestment and, frequently, below-average levels of socio-economic well-being. This polarised economic and territorial development within CEE poses challenges not only for the respective countries, but also for European cohesion.     

Middle Eastern terrorism in Europe: Trends and prospects

Abstract

Europe has been the preferred operational area for Middle Eastern terrorist groups—some 418 attacks from 1980–1989. Unlike European Marxist revolutionary or separatist terrorist groups, the Middle Eastern groups present Europe with a regional security problem. The most dangerous element in this Middle Eastern terrorist threat is the state‐sponsored activities of Iran, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. These countries provided the fuel for a decade of Middle Eastern terrorist bloodshed in Europe. Given the problems of solving the various political conflicts and feuds in the Middle East and the continuing attractiveness of Europe as a substitute battlefield for Middle Eastern terrorist elements, the threat of Middle Eastern terrorist activity in Europe should continue into the 1990s.     

The Homecomings: What Happens When Arab Foreign Fighters in Iraq and Syria Return?

What threat do foreign Arab jihadists returning from the war in Syria and Iraq pose to their home states and the broader Arab world? Foreign fighters come back as hardened veterans, steady in the face of danger and skilled in the use of weapons and explosives. While in the conflict zone, they will form networks with other radicals, embrace techniques like suicide bombings and beheadings, and establish ties to jihadists around the world. Different countries have different mitigating factors that limit the danger. The presence or absence of strong and focused security services is particularly important. Returnees' ambition, regional focus, lack of discipline, and brutality often mean they create more enemies than they vanquish and anger local populations. Most terrorism will be locally and regionally focused, with international terrorism probably less of a priority. Area regimes can reduce the risk of bleedout by hindering the travel of volunteers and constraining their ability to organize, stressing the internecine nature of the violence in the Sunni Muslim community, and developing effective de-radicalization programs. Regional and international cooperation to monitor and disrupt travel is also valuable. Many regimes, however, are also likely to take advantage of the jihadists' presence to gain more support from the United States, delay democratic reforms, and crackdown on non-jihadist opposition. Improving intelligence sharing and offensive counterintelligence is important, and the United States can play an important facilitating role.     

Draining the Swamp: Democracy Promotion,State Failure,and Terrorism in 19 Middle Eastern Countries

This study empirically evaluates the question of whether or not the promotion of democracy in the Middle East will reduce terrorism, both in terms of terrorist attacks sustained by Middle Eastern countries and in terms of attacks perpetrated by terrorist groups based in Middle Eastern countries. Using a series of pooled, time-series negative binomial statistical regression models on 19 countries from 1972 to 2003 the analysis demonstrates that the more politically liberal Middle Eastern states—measured both in terms of democratic processes and in terms of civil liberties protections—are actually more prone to terrorist activity than are Middle Eastern dictatorships. The study demonstrates, furthermore, that an even more significant predictor of Middle Eastern terrorist attacks is the intensity of state failures, or episodes of severe political instability that limit central government projection of domestic authority, suffered by states in the region. States that are unable to respond to fundamental challenges to political stability posed by internal political strife, ethnic conflict or the phenomenon of “stateless areas,” geographic or political spaces within states that eschew central government authority, are significantly more likely to host or sustain attacks from terrorist groups. The findings have implications for current United States antiterrorism policy toward the Middle East and provide a statistical/empirical foundation to previous studies on the relationship between terrorism and state failure.     

Rethinking the Economic Relationship between Kazakhstan and Russia

According to their governments, economic relations between Kazakhstan and Russia—the two largest post-Soviet countries—have been exceptionally solid and robust. However, statistical data demonstrate that Russian investments in Kazakhstan's economy have been weak, and that Kazakhstan has only recently increased investment in the Russian economy. This raises the question of whether relations between the two countries have been more uneven than has been claimed officially. The article also explores the influence of off-shore investments via third countries and other aspects of the bilateral relationship between Kazakhstan and Russia and the involvement of each country in the other's economy.     

Governance and Hyper-corruption in Resource-rich African Countries

Official corruption is frequently associated with the abundance of valuable extractive resources. This article reviews the worst cases of ‘resource curse’ in Africa—Angola, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Nigeria—in light of the most recent developments. Despite its systematic association with public corruption, however, mineral wealth is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition. Corruption is widespread in resource-poor countries as well—in Africa and elsewhere—and some resource-rich African countries such as Botswana have a record of good economic performance and high public integrity, suggesting specific ways in which transparency and accountability for the use of mineral resources can be encouraged and corruption correspondingly reduced. Because corruption in resource-rich African countries is heavily influenced by external interests, particularly the multinational extractive industries, recent initiatives by the United States and the international community to foster transparency carry a significant potential for reducing corruption and improving governance.     

Trading in Paranoia: Exploring Singapore's Security-Trade Linkages in the Twenty-first Century

Singapore's rude awakening to independence has led to the creation of one of the most important and strategic entrepôts in the Asia-Pacific. The country's limited territorial lands and natural resources, combined with huge per capita income, high population density and sensitive racial mix, make Singapore the quintessential pragmatic trading state of the twenty-first century. This paper examines how Singapore has embedded itself at the centre of regional and global trade systems by exploiting various forms of free trade activities including multilateral, regional and bilateral FTAs that underpin its security and survival. It argues that in order to maintain the city-state's geo-economic and geo-political viability, the Singaporean government has progressively linked its security interests with its multilevel free trade activities. Given the ‘vulnerability fetish’ and siege mentality that confront Singaporean leaders and policymakers, the pursuit of economic development via free trade has become the heart of its national security policy and strategy. The paper concludes by arguing that the enhancement and preservation of Singapore's survival as a sovereign nation-state demands a strategic utilization of FTAs with different trade partners, especially with regional and trans-regional powers such as the United States and China.     

The EU,the United States and Partnership in Development Cooperation: Bridging the Gap?

This paper investigates the degree to which EU and United States development policies reflect partnership, meaning that aid is based on negotiations on an equal basis. It finds that, while the EU has traditionally been more focused on partnership than the United States, in recent years the gap is narrowing. The EU is increasingly providing aid based on a security rationale and has become reluctant to give budget support, while the United States is starting to work more with local actors. Changes in public support for aid, the EU’s growing role as a security provider and institutional changes can explain this trend.     

A Continuum for Responding to the Extreme Right: A Comparison between the United States and Germany

This article compares and contrasts the responses to right-wing extremism in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. Essentially, the approaches of these respective countries represent two polarities on a continuum. Whereas in theory, the United States allows extremist groups much more freedom to espouse unpopular ideas, the Federal Republic of Germany has the legal authority to disband extremist groups and parties that it deigns a threat to the country's constitutional democracy. Despite these seeming differences, both countries have responded resolutely to manifestations of right-wing extremism and have actually cooperated on numerous occasions to stymie American extremist activists that have propagandized in Germany. There are advantages and disadvantages to the approaches these two countries employ in countering extremism.     

上海合作组织扩员后的地区定位与合作格局

作为新地区主义的一种实践形式,上海合作组织成立后不断发展。上海合作组织坚持以“不干涉内政”原则为核心的主权规范,遵循“国家主义”发展路径。扩员之前,在应对安集延事件、吉尔吉斯斯坦政局动荡等地区安全与政治挑战的过程中,上海合作组织确立了以中亚为地缘安全中心的地区定位。在开展各领域合作的进程中,上海合作组织秉持协商一致的原则,其内部形成了“大国引领、中小国家平等参与”的合作格局。扩员之后,上海合作组织继续遵循“国家主义”发展路径,但其地区定位与内部合作格局出现了新变化。印度和巴基斯坦的加入,使中亚的地缘安全中心地位相对下降,以中亚为重心、南亚为重要延伸成为上海合作组织新的地区定位。印度和巴基斯坦两国的加入,还增加了上海合作组织内部合作格局的复杂性,使“大国引领”的合作格局面临深刻转型,“中小国家平等参与”的合作格局也在发生演变。目前,上海合作组织处于发展转型的十字路口,其发展面临的不确定性需要给予更多关注。