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312. The Wisdom of Retrenchment: America Must Cut Back to Move Forward
- Author:
- Paul K. MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- The United States can no longer afford a world-spanning foreign policy. Retrenchment -- cutting military spending, redefining foreign priorities, and shifting more of the defense burden to allies -- is the only sensible course. Luckily, that does not have to spell instability abroad. History shows that pausing to recharge national batteries can renew a dominant power's international legitimacy.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, NATO, and Cold War
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Washington
313. Paradox of Power: Sino American Strategic Restraint in an Age of Vulnerability
- Author:
- David C. Gompert and Phillip C. Saunders
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Book
- Abstract:
- The United States and China each have or will soon have the ability to inflict grave harm upon the other by nuclear attack, attacks on satellites, or attacks on computer networks. Paradoxically, despite each country's power, its strategic vulnerability is growing. Particularly since September 11, 2001, Americans have sensed this vulnerability. The extent to which the Chinese sense it is unclear. Vulnerability to nuclear attack is familiar to both countries. But the United States and China are also becoming exposed to damage in space and cyberspace because of their growing reliance on those domains for their prosperity and security, as well as each side's increasing antisatellite (ASAT) and cyber war capabilities. For China, economic integration, production, and commerce-and thus, sustained growth and perhaps political stability-depend vitally on data sharing, making networks and satellites as strategic as they are for the United States. All three strategic domains are "offense dominant"-technologically, economically, and operationally. Defenses against nuclear, ASAT, and cyber weapons are difficult and yield diminishing results against the offensive capabilities of large, advanced, and determined states such as the United States and China. Nuclear weapons are patently offense dominant because a single explosion can destroy a city. Moreover, it is easier and cheaper for China to improve the survivability of its strategic missile launchers, to multiply deliverable weapons, and to penetrate U.S. missile defenses than it is for the United States to maintain a nuclear first-strike capability. Though it has yet to admit it, the United States cannot deny the Chinese the second-strike nuclear deterrent they are determined to have. Satellites are inherently vulnerable: conspicuous, easy to track, and fragile. Destroying them or degrading their performance is easier than protecting them. ASAT interceptors are much cheaper than satellites. Likewise, defending computer networks becomes harder and more expensive as the scale and sophistication of the attacker increase. The woes of the cyber defender are compounded by integrated global markets and supply chains for digital components and equipment-in which U.S. and state-affiliated Chinese corporations are leading competitors-increasing the potential for strategic degradation of network infrastructure and disruption of services. In general, strategic offense dominance gives each country an incentive to invest in offense, which in turn spurs the other to keep pace. Apart from offense dominance, the advance of technology has slashed the costs in lives and treasure of strategic attack, as capabilities have graduated from mass invasion to heavy bombing to nuclear weapons to ASAT and cyber war. If one ignores possible deaths resulting from disruption of public services, ASAT and cyber war might even be considered "nonviolent." As the number of expected casualties from strategic attack options drops, so could international opprobrium and the inhibitions of decisionmakers. Absent deterrence, thresholds for war in space and cyberspace could become perilously low as offenses improve.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Security, Foreign Policy, Communism, Intelligence, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and Asia
314. Saudi Arabia in the New Middle East
- Author:
- F. Gregory Gause III
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- There is arguably no more unlikely U.S. ally than Saudi Arabia: monarchical, deeply conservative socially, promoter of an austere and intolerant version of Islam, birthplace of Osama bin Laden and fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. Consequently, there is no U.S. ally less well understood. Many U.S. policymakers assume that the Saudi regime is fragile, despite its remarkable record of domestic stability in the turbulent Middle East. “It is an unstable country in an unstable region,” one congressional staffer said in July 2011. Yet it is the Arab country least affected in its domestic politics by the Arab upheavals of 2011. Many who think it is unstable domestically also paradoxically attribute enormous power to it, to the extent that they depict it as leading a “counterrevolution” against those upheavals throughout the region. 2 One wonders just how “counterrevolutionary” the Saudis are when they have supported the NATO campaign against Muammar al-Qaddafi, successfully negotiated the transfer of power from Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, and condemned the crackdown on protestors by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and how powerful they are when they could do little to help their ally Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Islam, Oil, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Middle East, Arabia, and Saudi Arabia
315. Attacking Iran: Lessons from the Iran-Iraq War
- Author:
- Annie Tracy Samuel
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- This policy brief seeks to contribute to and inform the debate concerning a possible attack by the United States and/or Israel on Iranian nuclear and military facilities. The presumed aim of such an attack would be to weaken the Islamic Republic, particularly by hindering its ability to build a nuclear weapon. However, the history of the Iraqi invasion of Iran in September 1980 calls into question the contention that an attack will weaken the regime in Tehran. This policy brief examines Iran's reactions to the Iraqi invasion in order to shed light on Iran's possible reactions to a U.S. or Israeli attack. It will assess how the Iranian people responded to the invasion and its effects on Iranian politics and the position of the new regime. It will also explore the nature of the policies adopted by the Islamic Republic in waging the Iran-Iraq War that carried on for eight years after the Iraqi invasion.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Islam, and War
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, Iran, and Middle East
316. And Ye Shall Know Your Story, and Stick to It
- Author:
- Anthony Olcott
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
- Abstract:
- An odd document tiptoed onto the stage in early April 2011, surprisingly unnoticed, considering the radical shifts in U.S. policy for which it was arguing. Called A National Strategic Narrative, the fifteen-page booklet was put out by the Woodrow Wilson Center, and claimed to be authored by “Mr. Y”—although, unlike the mysterious “Mr. X” to whom the “Mr. Y” pseudonym refers (eventually revealed to be George Kennan, author of the famous “Long Telegram” of 1946, which argued for the policy that became known as “containment”), these authors are named in the pamphlet itself—Navy Captain Wayne Porter and Marine Colonel Mark Mykleby, both special strategic assistants to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Globalization
- Political Geography:
- United States
317. China's Soft Power in the Information Age: Think Again
- Author:
- Shanthi Kalathil
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
- Abstract:
- In recent years, many have argued that China has been largely successful at using soft power to bolster its rise to great power status. This essay suggests that the Chinese government—and other authoritarian states—have fundamentally misread the nature of the relationship between soft power and the globally networked, information-rich environment, thus misunderstanding how soft power is accumulated. Because of this, their efforts at deploying soft power over the long term are not likely to be as effective as conventional wisdom would make them out to be.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Development, Diplomacy, Globalization, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and Israel
318. Needing to Be Noticed: Understanding the Market in an Attention Economy
- Author:
- Anthony Olcott
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
- Abstract:
- For this paper, I have decided to step through the proscenium and appeal directly across the “fourth wall” to whatever readers this piece may attract, in the hopes that someone among you will be able to help me figure out the answers to a set of questions with which I have been wrestling for several years. For fun, let's call this paper an exercise in crowd-sourcing.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- United States
319. Low Numbers: A Practical Path to Deep Nuclear Reductions
- Author:
- James M. Acton
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- U.S. policy seeks to create the conditions that would allow for deep reductions in nuclear arsenals. This report offers a practical approach to reducing the U.S. and Russian stockpiles to 500 nuclear warheads each and those of other nuclear armed states to no more than about half that number. This target would require Washington and Moscow to reduce their arsenals by a factor of ten.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Washington, and Moscow
320. US-Japan Relations: Tempering Expectations
- Author:
- Michael J. Green and Nicholas Szechenyi
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Comparative Connections
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Prime Minister Kan Naoto opened the quarter with a speech promising a government that would deliver on domestic and foreign policy, but public opinion polls indicated he was failing on both fronts, damaging his own approval rating and that of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The US and Japanese governments continued a pattern of coordination at senior levels and North Korea‟s bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23 furthered trilateral diplomacy with South Korea and exchanges among the three militaries. President Obama met with Kan on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leader‟s Meeting in Yokohama to take stock of the relationship, though a once-anticipated joint declaration on the alliance did not materialize and the optics of the meeting appeared designed to lower expectations as the Futenma relocation issue remained unresolved. A bilateral public opinion survey on US-Japan relations released at the end of the quarter captured the current dynamic accurately with Futenma contributing to less sanguine views but convergence in threat perception and an appreciation for the role of the alliance in maintaining regional security as encouraging signs for the future.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, North Korea, and Asia-Pacific