The post-cold war predicament: A conclusion

The 1997 Asian economic crisis discredited the international discussion about ‘Asian values’ in Pacific Asia, replacing it with a globalised ‘good governance’ discourse. The financial breakdown undermined claims by Asian autocrats that government should be based on authoritarian ‘Asian values’, not ‘Western democracy’. Yet, seven years later, authoritarian regimes in the region are flourishing while the new democracies flounder. Why have dictatorships, not democracies, prospered politically since the Asian financial crisis? Pacific Asia began as an ‘imagined community’ of developmental dictatorships, making authoritarian development the ‘original position’ against which democratic governance is judged. While the demise of ‘Asian values’ contributed to the fall of the Suharto regime in Indonesia, it did less harm to authoritarian regimes in more economically developed Malaysia and Singapore. The US‐led anti‐terror coalition provided several authoritarian rulers in Pacific Asia with welcome support from the West, while allowing them to weaken internal opposition. The new democracies, by contrast, faced international pressures to combat terrorism, often arousing local protest. Finally, middle class‐based reformist movements have risked destabilising the region's new democracies in the name of good governance.     

Privatising the war on drugs

A defining feature of the ‘9/11 wars’ has been the prominent role played by private military and security companies (pmsc). The growth of this market for military and security services has not gone unnoticed. Yet the role pmsc have played in supporting the US-led war on drugs has largely gone under the radar, both literally and figuratively. The aim of this article is to look at the activities of pmsc funded by the USA in Latin America, and to consider the specific consequences that arise from employing them in the field of counter-narcotics. It is argued that the use of pmsc further entrenches a costly and unsuccessful way of dealing with drugs. There is a need to move from a strict prohibitionist stance and consider alternatives to the war on drugs approach, but the use of pmsc creates another strong vested interest in maintaining an increasingly problematic and costly status quo.     

Stalin and the cold war: A review article

Caroline Kennedy‐Pipe, Stalin's Cold War: Soviet Strategies in Europe, 1943 to 1956. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, 218 pp., £40.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.

R. C. Raack, Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938–1945: The Origins of the Cold War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995, 265 pp., £35.00 h/b.     

从伊拉克战争看舆论战特征

伊拉克战争是人类社会第一场空前程度的言息化作战.美军在战争中使用的信息化武器已达到90%多,而在海湾战争中,仅为8%;从目标选定、信息获取、传输反馈、火力攻击这一过程,过去为48小时,而现在仅为10秒钟.从新闻舆论战的战略和战术层面上看,美军的信息化程度和信息攻击,也达到了前所未有的程度.在战争之前,美军仅向伊拉克境内派出的"影子杀手"就有上万人,他们担负的重要任务就是侦察与策反,暗杀与爆炸等活动.其行动往往出于威慑的目的.在战争之中,美军除在战场投放了81种、3170多万份各类传单外,还建立飞行广播电台,向伊拉克人发放收音机,发送电话、短信息等,美军对伊拉克国家战略情报的获取,轰炸目标选定后现场再判定,以及从对伊拉克高官、共和国卫队和一般武装部队官员,直到普通伊拉克公民的舆论攻心方面,都做了大量的工作.从时间性、空间性和重要性上说,舆论战的作用都非常突出.全面信息威慑是信息化战争的根本属性.从伊拉克战争中可以看出,在信息化战争条件下,舆论战有许多明显的特征.