The carcass of dead policies: lessons for Obama in dealing with Iran

The United States has spent 30 years clinging to variations of the same policy towards Iran, to no avail. ‘Doing the right thing’ has proved perplexing, complicated and, ultimately, elusive. In 1979, the United States struggled to come to terms with Iran's transformation from consort to adversary. Washington had difficulty fitting Iran into the hierarchy of regional and international priorities, often viewing it through the prism of its other regional concerns. Administration tensions, varying levels of dysfunction and wider governmental conflict also affected policy formulation and execution by producing different agendas, and, occasionally, a range of different assessments of US policy. Underpinning and exacerbating these problems was the fact that policymakers were doing a jigsaw with missing pieces. Two types of intelligence failures, missing and poor information and flawed interpretation, proved debilitating. A further complication was the fact that the United States and Iran engaged in a dialogue of the duff for nearly 30 years. Besides not hearing each other (and when they did, regularly misunderstanding the message), bad timing and the intervention of events conspired repeatedly to frustrate initiatives and confound a breakthrough. This case-study-based analysis of policymaking and policy explores why successive administrations have failed to ‘park Iran in a better place’ and offers a set of lessons for the Obama administration as it confronts this unique ‘non-relationship’.     

WarViews: Visualizing and Animating Geographic Data on Civil War

In the recent years, the field of conflict research has produced new findings on the relation between conflict and geography. In doing so, new data sets have been created with the help of GIS software. These data sets include variables relevant for the study of conflict with a spatial component. However, the use of geographic data requires specialized software and substantial training and therefore involves high entry costs for researchers and practitioners. This paper introduces the WarViews project whose aim is to create an easy-to-use front end for the exploration of GIS data on conflict. It takes advantage of the recent proliferation of Internet-based geographic software and makes geographic data on conflict available for these tools. With WarViews, geographic data on conflict can be accessed, browsed, and time-animated in a few mouse clicks, using only standard software. As a result, a wider audience can take advantage of the valuable data contained in these databases, for example, as supplementary data for conflict case studies or for classroom demonstrations. We present two versions of WarViews. The static version runs in a web browser and allows the user to switch between different data sets. The dynamic version is based on Google Earth and can time-animate geographic data such that the development over time can be monitored. The WarViews website can be freely accessed at http://www.icr.ethz.ch/research/warviews .     

In the Line of Fire—21st-Century Approach to an Ancient War Injury

Abstract:  Authentic black-powder muzzle-loader weapons or replicas are used today primarily for re-enactments of historic battles. A lay actor playing the role of a Prussian infantryman sustained life-threatening gunshot injuries during a recent re-enactment of a historic battle of the Sixth Coalition. As only blank historic muzzle-loading weaponry was used, the origin of the missile causing the wounding was initially unclear. Further investigation revealed a ramrod that had been propelled out of the barrel of another gunner's smooth-bore gun as cause of injury. The ramrod was hurled on a trajectory of more than 20 m, breaking the victim's shouldered barrel and hitting the victim resulting in severe abdominal, thoracic, and upper limb injuries. The critical incidents while handling muzzle-loading weaponry leading to premature discharge are elucidated. Furthermore, this report demonstrates how actual diagnostics and subsequent surgical treatment enabled this infantryman to survive an injury to which his comrades-in-arms would have succumbed 200 years ago.     

伊拉克战争的国际法思考

本文从国际法角度分析伊拉克战争的法律依据及其引起的法律后果 ,探讨国际法在这场战争中面临的挑战。作者认为 :美英对伊动武没有合法的依据 ,它引起相应的国际法律责任 ;不能因为这场战争而否认禁止使用武力原则的作用 ,而是应进一步加强该原则的实施。     

惩治战争罪的国内军事立法问题研究

研究战争罪国内立法的理论与实践问题,对帮助国家领导者的正确决策,履行国家的国际承诺,震撼潜在的危及和平的争端和情势等方面具有不可低估的作用。惩治战争罪有国际惩治和国内惩治两种模式。适用国内惩治战争罪是我国相当时期内的现实选择。我国目前有关战争罪国内惩治的法律规定尚存在缺陷之处,需要从立法上予以补充和完善。     

禁毒人民战争解读

在国家禁毒委员会的全面部署下,各地、各部门以“参与禁毒斗争,构建和谐社会”为主题,组织开展了全国性的禁毒人民战争。毒品问题的严峻形势得到有效缓解,全民识毒、拒毒、防毒意识普遍提高,禁毒的社会氛围更加浓厚。本文从健全和完善禁毒人民战争的理论体系出发,着力于禁毒斗争的纵深发展。     

人类增强的完美悖论及其伦理旨趣

以"NBIC"会聚(即纳米技术、生物技术、信息技术和认知科学的会聚)为代表的当代科技革命,在人类增强技术的技术功能展现上,揭开了人类改造或人体增强的"无限光明"的道德前景,从而使得人类以技术方式追求完美、制造完美成为可能.然而,人类增强技术所揭示的道德前景,能否获得伦理的支持?这仍然是一个引发激烈争论的话题.人类增强技...     

Coalition Quality and Multinational Dispute Outcomes1

Multinational military coalitions are an increasingly common phenomena in international conflict, presumably because coalitions are more likely to secure their conflict aims than single states. Yet what makes a coalition more or less likely to succeed is poorly understood. We argue that the quality of multinational military coalitions—in terms of the coalition’s skill, coordination, and legitimacy—can provide better strategic decisions, more harmonious relations within the coalition, and thus a greater chance of securing conflict aims. Empirical testing reveals that elements of coalition quality do in fact affect the probability of military success: a history of success, both alone and with the same coalition partners, predicts military success. Moreover, increasing a coalition’s legitimacy via more diverse members has a weak effect, indicating that diversity comes at the expense of coordination and cooperation challenges. Last, we find that elements of coalition quality affect initiating and defending coalitions differently.     

Institutional Similarity and Interstate Conflict

This paper makes two arguments. First, the political and economic institutions of a state affect that state's foreign policy preferences. Second, dyads with similar political and economic institutions are less likely to experience conflict than other types of dyads. After developing the logic of these arguments, I create measures of political and economic institutional similarity and test the hypotheses against the empirical record. The empirical analysis supports the argument that dyadic institutional similarity reduces the likelihood of conflict. The most noteworthy finding is that economic institutional similarity, even when the political institutions in a dyad are dissimilar, reduces the likelihood of militarized conflict.     

From Tremors to Talks: Do Natural Disasters Produce Ripe Moments for Resolving Separatist Conflicts?

This article suggests that natural disasters can produce a ripe moment for conflict resolution because governments faced with the demand for effective disaster relief have incentives to offer concessions to separatist challengers. An analysis of the prevalence of new negotiations, ceasefires, and peace agreements during 12-month periods before and after natural disasters for separatist dyads 1990–2004 reveal some support for this proposition. Natural disasters increase the likelihood that parties will initiate talks or agree to ceasefires but have less effect on the signing of peace agreements. In line with the proposed mechanism, these results are particularly strong in democracies and following more severe disasters where the need to provide relief is most acute.