A New Strategy to Defeat Al-Qaeda in Yemen

While unmanned aerial drone strikes in Yemen are a stopgap measure to degrade the operational strength of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), any long-term strategy focused on success must actively enlist local communities in their own defense in order to defeat the terrorist organization. The United States must move beyond a “butcher-and-bolt” approach and adopt a “forward strategy” focused on mobilizing the local population to confront AQAP while providing communities with realistic good governance, development, and reconstruction initiatives.     

Benign Neglect: America's Threat to the Anglo-American Alliance

The United States can ill afford to lose the loyalty of proven allies. Yet it risks currently weakening one of its most important and enduring friendships. British popular support for America has been shaken and elite commitment to the special relationship faces a potentially formidable array of contrary strategic and partisan arguments. Some of these are overstated but there is a further danger that is little mentioned but just as corrosive—American benign neglect. If in the pursuit of new allies and objectives America is not to squander extant assets, then it must do more to nurture the reflexive British Atlanticism that has helped sustain Anglo-American relations through their numerous crises.     

Is Realism Dead? Academic Myths and Asia's International Politics

The author contends that prominent strands in the recent literature on Asia's international relations reflect a lack of appreciation for the actual policy of regional states, which is deeply realist in orientation.     

The Role of the National Security Advisor and the 2006 Iraq Strategy Review

According to the honest broker model, when national security advisors press for specific policy outcomes, they compromise their ability to focus on improving the quality of the decision- making process. That model is tested here in the case of the 2006 Iraq Strategy Review. It found that national security advisor Stephen Hadley was able to act as honest broker, and that this did in fact improve the quality of the decision process. At the same time, he was able to act as a policy entrepreneur, connecting existing problems to alternative policy ideas. Consequently the two roles were not incompatible. Moreover, he was able to do both primarily because he acted as a credible agent of the president. The implication is that the national security advisor must be first and foremost an effective presidential agent, if he or she is to play any constructive role—including that of honest broker.     

China on the Horizon: India's ‘Look East’ Policy Gathers Momentum

While the world has been focusing on China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, Beijing and Delhi are also engaged in a quiet struggle in the contested waters. By putting up for international bidding the same oil block that India had obtained from Vietnam for exploration, China has thrown down a gauntlet.¹ By deciding to stay put in the assigned block, India has indicated it's ready to take up the Chinese challenge. At stake is Chinese opposition to India's claim to be a regional power in the larger Asian strategic setting. India is trying to emerge as a credible regional balancer but it has a long way to go.     

The Rise of Policy Institutes in the United States, 1943-1971

In the period after World War II, an eclectic assortment of scholars, policymakers, and managers presided over the creation of academic centers for the study of war. This article examines the intellectual and administrative assumptions of many of these actors. Made up of academic scholars from the fields of political science, sociology, and economics, they advanced a vision based on what might be called “instrumentalist-positivist social science,” but in appeals to donors they employed basic scientific language.¹