New Perceptions of the Vietnam War: Essays on the War,the South Vietnamese Experience,the Diaspora and the Continuing Impact

New Perceptions of the Vietnam War: Essays on the War, the South Vietnamese Experience, the Diaspora and the Continuing Impact. Edited by Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2015), pp.vi + 262. £27.69 (pb).     

Restructuring the Empire: The Nixon Doctrine after Vietnam

Abstract

Ever since Richard Nixon announced that the United States would adopt a “low profile” defense posture in Asia, American foreign affairs analysts have sought to construct an accurate model of the new policy. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, who analyzed the Nixon Doctrine in a 1969 report to the Congress, concluded that henceforth “The United States will avoid the creation of situations in which there is such dependence on us that, inevitably, we become enmeshed in what are essentially Asian problems and conflicts.” Lest this conclusion alarm any of our more insecure clients in the area, Vice President Agnew toured Asia in early 1970 to announce that the President had never intended such a sweeping reversal of policy: “Let me make it very clear,” he told newsmen in Canberra, “that despite a great deal of speculation and rumor, we are not withdrawing from Asia and the Pacific…. As a Pacific power, we will remain in the Pacific.” Nixon himself seems to have encouraged this dichotomy: thus the invasion of Cambodia in 1970 and the massive air attacks on Hanoi in 1972 suggested that he was committed to the interventionist stance represented by Agnew; while the cease-fire in Vietnam and the initiation of diplomatic contacts with China suggest that he leans toward the more restrained position of Mansfield.     

Islam,Islamism, and Post‐Islamism: Rediscovering Politics after the War on Terror

Over the past twenty years, an influential body of conservative scholarship has focused on the alleged conflict between Islam and the West. Following widespread criticism of this scholarship, a number of commentators have revived its core assumptions to claim that the real conflict is between liberal democracy within Muslim societies and the political ideology of Islamism. In this article we trace the evolution of this scholarship, and suggest that recent empirical developments in the Muslim world suggest the potential for post‐Islamist parties to successfully adapt to the demands of democratic competition within Muslim societies. In this context, the emerging conflict is not between Islam and the West, or Islamism and the West, but between two very different discursive practices within the Muslim world that invoke Islam for radically different purposes. A traveler enters the world into which he travels, but a tourist brings his own world with him and never sees the one he's in. ¹      

约翰逊政府与美国的越南战争困境(1967-1968)

1964年约翰逊政府通过制造"东京湾事件",把肯尼迪的"特殊战争"升级为以大规模轰炸北越为特点的"有限战争".战争的结果引发了美国国内一系列的政治、经济和社会危机,美国自身的国力也受到极大的削弱,最后民主党人和整个国家都为越南战争付出了沉重的代价.本文拟探讨约翰逊政府在执政的最后两年如何试图摆脱越南战争的困境,并分析其不能根本解决问题的主要原因.     

冷战后美国维和政策的演变及特征

冷战结束以来,美国的维和政策经历了三次大的演变:从有效的国际主义到坚定的多边主义,从有选择的多边主义到美国式的国际主义,最后回归到有效的多边主义。虽然变动不居,但从本质上讲,美国的维和政策基本上遵循着一条主线,即美国对联合国维和行动的支持和参与程度,取决于美国政府对维和行动与美国国家利益的关系的认知,以及国内压力(国会、民众)与这一认知间的复杂互动。