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1001. How Should Financial Markets Be Regulated?

Author:
Martin Hutchinson and Kevin Dowd
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Financial regulation is a recurring and central issue in contemporary policy discussions. Typically, leftists want more of it, while proponents of free markets want less, or preferably, none of it. We would suggest, however, that the central issue is not whether markets should be regulated, but by whom—by the market itself, which includes self-regulation by market practitioners, or by the state or one of its agencies. To put it in Coasean terms, what is the most appropriate institutional arrangement by which markets—including financial markets-should be regulated?
Political Geography:
United States

1002. Prospects for Fundamental Monetary Reform

Author:
Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr.
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The intellectual climate has never been more open to a critical analysis of existing monetary institutions both here and abroad. When the Germans agreed to a monetary union, they were promised that they would keep the Bundesbank; only the name would be changed to the European Central Bank. Instead, Germans with whom I have spoken now think they got the Banca d'Italia. In the United States, before the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve was held in high regard by the public. Now, at least in some circles, "the Fed" has become a term of opprobrium, not unlike "the IRS."
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Germany

1003. Why the Fed's Monetary Policy Has Been a Failure

Author:
R. David Ranson
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Passing its 100th birthday, the Federal Reserve is receiving unprecedented scrutiny. We (the public) are living through the consequences of its attempts to bolster the U.S. economy through exceptionally low interest rates and the conversion of great quantities of debt to money. Although these efforts are ongoing, we are disappointed. Even with the help of strenuous actions on the fiscal side, economic and credit-market recovery from the recession of 2008–09 was notoriously slow. It took 15 quarters for U.S. real GDP to pass its pre-recession high in the fourth quarter of 2007, compared to only 7 quarters following the deep recession of 1981–82. On a per capita basis, there was an even starker contrast between the two recoveries. Moreover, the Fed remains a suspect in the genesis of the financial crisis that precipitated the Great Recession. The ultimate test of its role as overseer and regulator of the commercial banking system met with a very poor result.
Political Geography:
United States

1004. Keeping the Peace in the Pacific: The Next Steps in American Policy

Author:
John Lee and Charles Horner
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
U.S. administrations and officials are consistently caught flat-footed by the increasing assertiveness of the People's Republic of China (PRC) over disputed territories in the East China and South China Seas. This assertiveness is strident, yet controlled. Beijing's objectives in the region, with respect to maritime issues in particular, have been apparent for several decades. While the United States is well aware of the PRC's "talk and take" approach—speaking the language of negotiation while extending de facto control over disputed areas—U.S. policy has been tactical and responsive rather than strategic and preemptive, thus allowing China to control the pace and nature of escalation in executing talk and take.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

1005. Questions about the Geopolitics of Climate Engineering

Author:
Lee Lane
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
The U.S. intelligence community and other federal agencies have commissioned the National Academies of Science (NAS) to study climate engineering. The term 'climate engineering' (CE) refers to a family of concepts that might be used to curtail global warming. In 2013, the NAS assembled an expert panel to study the subject. The panel plans to issue a report in the fall of 2014.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Intelligence, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

1006. The Limits and Implications of the Air-Sea Battle Concept: A Japanese Perspective

Author:
Matsahiro Matsumura
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The world has seen the international distribution of power gradually shifting, driven in great part by China's rise and America's relative decline. Almost continuously for two decades, China has kept double-digit growth rates in defense spending and, consequently, made military build-ups that are unprecedented in modern international history. China has also demonstrated a series of increasingly assertive diplomatic and military actions as related to its irredentist claims to Taiwan, the Senkaku Islands, the Spratly Islands, and the Paracel Islands, among others. Although the regional security order of the East Asia and the Western Pacific appears sufficiently stable, the US and its major regional allies together have to deter and, if necessary, defeat possible China's armed aggression against the territorial status quo. Doing so is a challenge even for the hegemonic US, on the grounds that the aftermath of the 2008 Lehman Shock has seriously impaired the health of the US political economy, and that its defense spending is anticipated to undergo one major cut after another, at least, for a decade to come.
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, America, Taiwan, and East Asia

1007. Nowhere May They Roam: Ottoman Area-Denial Operations and Lessons for the Strait of Hormuz

Author:
Timothy Choi
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
On March 18th, 1915, a combined fleet of British and French battleships attempted to force their way through the Dardanelles, the southern half of the Turkish Straits that connected the Mediterranean with the Black Sea. "Attempted" is the key word, for it was a spectacular failure. Two of the greatest navies in the world had failed to enforce their will upon the puny and seemingly obsolete forces of the Ottoman Empire, sparking the infamous and bloody Gallipoli land campaign.
Political Geography:
United States and Turkey

1008. Transitional Fossils of the Atomic Age: Regulus and Sea Master

Author:
Edward Andrew Kaplan
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Revolutions in strategy and military affairs happen one step at a time. "Revolution" implies a sudden shift, with old and worn ideas, and the weapon systems they support, ceding ground to the fresh and modern. The medieval castle gives way to the trace italienne. Panzers rip through slow-moving, "methodical," infantry. Precision munitions guided by definitive intelligence eviscerate a veteran Iraqi Army. In retrospect, these "revolutions" can appear fated, but this paper argues that this is not always the case. The apparent discontinuity between one method of warfare and its so-called revolutionary successor is on closer inspection often filled with short-lived "failed" projects. They do not last long (or even reach active service), but they are essential evolutionary steps for later, more enduring, systems. Their most important contribution is to introduce novel ideas, often taken from outside conventional military circles, and they can be an important way for an organization to change its approach to core functions. When these intermediate systems are forgotten, they make the final step look like a revolutionary leap, as opposed to a steady advance of evolutionary development. This paper restores to visibility two overlooked parts of one such process, the movement from carrier-based seapower to nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines.
Political Geography:
United States

1009. The Past as Future: The US Army's Vision of Warfare in the 21st Century"

Author:
Terry Terriff
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Today the US Army is engaged in the effort to learn the appropriate lessons from the wars it has been engaged in since the autumn of 2001 and to think through what type of force it needs to be, with what kinds of capabilities, in order to prepare for further future conflicts in the 21st Century. Estimating the character of future conflicts, and then preparing one's forces appropriately, is not an easy task. A critical line of argument today is that the vision of future warfare the Army developed in the decade plus following the end of the Cold War left it ill-prepared for the wars it found itself conducting in Afghanistan and Iraq. In an article published in 2007, US Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling very pointedly, and very boldly for a serving officer, contended that, "throughout the 1990s our generals failed to envision the conditions of future combat and prepare their forces accordingly." The US Army's operational experiences in the first decade of this century, particularly in the early years of the long conflict in Iraq, suggest that it marched eyes wide shut through the decade of the 1990s into the 21st Century.
Political Geography:
United States

1010. Irene R. Makaryk and Marissa McHugh, ed. Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

Author:
Deji A. Oguntoyinbo
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
All through the ages, Shakespeare's literary oeuvre has occupied a canonical status in world literature, primarily because of its universal relevance in terms of thematic preoccupation, characterization, and setting amongst several literary components. Though widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre- eminent dramatist, Shakespeare has been translated into every major living language and is performed more often than any other playwright. His dramatic works have been repeatedly adapted and rediscovered by new movements or perspectives in scholarship and performance. Even now, his plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in various social, cultural and political contexts throughout the globe. One of these contexts is the Second World War. Regarded as the longest, bloodiest and deadliest conflict in history, World War II was fought predominantly in Europe and across the Pacific and Eastern Asia, pitting the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Japan against the Allied nations of Great Britain, France, China, United States and the Soviet Union. It is the most widespread war in history with more than one hundred million people serving in military units from over thirty different countries, and death tolls estimated to be between fifty and eighty-five million fatalities. Despite the fact that theatre stands as a “simulacrum of the cultural and historical process itself, seeking to depict the full range of human actions within their physical context, has always provided society with the most tangible records of its attempts to understand its own records” (3), the role of Shakespeare during the Second World War had not yet been given sustained, critical and detailed scholastic documentation. Herein lies the relevance and necessity of Shakespeare and the Second World War – as a writers' quota to fill the scholastic lacuna. Most of the war's belligerents showed affinity with Shakespearean works as a depiction of their society's self-image. Divided into fifteen illuminating, diverse, and yet coherent essays by seasoned and erudite academics, Shakespeare and the Second World War is a small sampling of reviewed and extended essays from “Wartime Shakespeare in a Global Context/Shakespeare au temps de la guerre” – an international bilingual conference that took place at the University of Ottawa in 2009. Within the spatial and temporal context of the war, Shakespeare's oeuvre is recycled, reviewed and reinterpreted in the chapters. In a Manichean manner, these essays cannot be collectively pigeonholed as either pro or anti–war. In fact, there is a sort of ambivalence with vacillating opinions by the writers.
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, Japan, China, France, Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy