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841. Assessing The Surge In Iraq

Author:
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Middle East Review of International Affairs
Institution:
Global Research in International Affairs Center, Interdisciplinary Center
Abstract:
Adopted at the end of 2006--by far Iraq's bloodiest year--the troop "surge" marked a major shift in the George W. Bush administration's Iraq strategy. Indeed, the Iraq Body Count (IBC) project, which prefers to rely on confirmed media reports rather than studies extrapolating death tolls based on relatively small samples, estimates that there were 27,850 civilian deaths in 2006, compared with just 3,576 in 2010.1One analysis by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) concluded that by November 2006, conditions on the ground resembled anarchy and "civil war."2It was around this time that two competing strains of thought on what change of course should be implemented were circulating among U.S. officials.
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

842. Conceptualizing Containment: The Iranian Threat and the Future of Gulf Security

Author:
Zachary K. Goldman and Mira Rapp-Hooper
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
ZACHARY K. GOLDMAN and MIRA RAPP-HOOPER discuss American security interests in the Persian Gulf region and the prospects for effective cooperation among Gulf states to contain Iran. They find that it is unlikely that the United States will be able to establish a containment regime that relies upon the Gulf Cooperation Council and that informal, bilateral ties to states in the region are a preferable policy recourse. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19163#sthash.yMWmTk6Q.dpuf
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States and Iran

843. The European Convention on Human Rights, the EU and the UK: Confronting a Heresy

Author:
Andrew Williams
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The orthodox view of the ECHR and its Court as regime in the context of both the EU and UK has been that it has considerable value albeit with systemic flaws. The purpose of this article is to challenge this orthodoxy. Four inter-related submissions are made: that the ECHR has failed human rights conceptually (1); 'good' or lauded decisions of the ECtHR cannot remedy or sufficiently counter-balance this conceptual failure (2); 'bad' decisions further expose and exacerbate the failure (3); the procedural problems of the ECHR regime may contribute to the underlying failure of concept but their resolution cannot solve it (4). These submissions are to provoke a more intense assessment of value and how such value could be enhanced. It may be too late to see any influence on the accession process but this does not reduce the relevance of the critique for the future of human rights in both the EU and the UK. Ultimately an approach to the ECHR system needs to determine whether it continues to be lauded or its influence resisted (thus seeking reform or replacement - the alternative candidates being the EU Charter and/or a national Bill of Rights) and retained only as an iconic scheme of moral importance.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

844. BRINGING THE UNITED STATES BACK INTO THE MIDDLE EAST

Author:
Shadi Hamid and Peter Mandaville
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
It has been all too common to criticize the Obama administration for a lack of strategic vision in responding to the Arab uprisings. While such criticism may be valid, it is time to move beyond critique and articulate not just a bold vision, but one that policymakers can realistically implement within very real economic and political constraints. During the remainder of its second term, the Obama administration has an opportunity to rethink some of the flawed assumptions that guided its Middle East policy before the Arab Spring—and still guide it today. Chief among these is the idea that the United States can afford to continue turning a blind eye to the internal politics of Arab countries so long as local regimes look out for a narrow set of regional security interests. With so much policy bandwidth focused on putting out fires, the United States has neglected the important task of thinking about its longer term engagement in the region. Crisis management is the most immediate concern for policymakers, but it's not necessarily the most important.
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Libya, Syria, and Egypt

845. BALANCING WITHOUT CONTAINMENT: A U.S. STRATEGY FOR CONFRONTING CHINA'S RISE

Author:
Ashley J. Tellis
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
China's rise constitutes the most serious geopolitical challenge facing the United States today. On current trends, China could–many say will–develop a national economy larger than that of the United States as early as the end of this decade, at least when measured in purchasing power parity terms. China's national ambitions too are clear: at the very least, Beijing seeks to recover the centrality it enjoyed in Asian geopolitics until the coming of colonialism. Its economic renaissance since the 1980s has now positioned it to play a major global role that was simply unimaginable some thirty years ago. With its extraordinary military modernization program, Beijing has also made tremendous strides toward holding at risk the United States' forward deployed and forward operating forces in the western Pacific, thereby raising the costs of implementing U.S. security guarantees to its partners in the region. Its unique characteristics–being a continental sized power, possessing a gigantic and technologically improving economy, having a strategically advantageous location, and rapidly acquiring formidable military capabilities-add up quickly to make China a consequential rival to the United States, even if it differs from previous challengers in character, aims, and ambitions.
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Beijing

846. TIES THAT BIND: STRATEGIC STABILITY IN THE U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP

Author:
Thomas Fingar and Fan Jishe
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Conviction is widespread and increasing in both the United States and China—as well as many other countries—that the U.S.–China relationship is becoming less stable and more dangerous. We do not agree. Relations between Beijing and Washington in 2013 are more extensive, more varied, more interdependent, and more important to one another as well as to the global system than at any time in the past. But suspicion and mutual distrust persist and may have intensified. Yet, despite dramatic changes in the international system and the need to manage fleeting as well as persistent problems, the United States and China have maintained strategic stability for four decades. The relationship is less fragile and volatile than many assert, with strategic stability the result of multiple factors that reinforce one another and limit the deleterious effects of developments threatening specific "pillars" that undergird the relationship. Complacency and failure to address misperceptions and mistrust, however, will have unfortunate consequences for both sides.
Political Geography:
United States, China, Washington, Beijing, and East Asia

847. SIFTING THROUGH INTERDEPENDENCE

Author:
Thomas Wright
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
If there is one idea that has consistently influenced western foreign policy since the Cold War, it is the notion that extending interdependence and tightening economic integration among nations is a positive development that advances peace, stability, and prosperity. As a post-Cold War idea guiding U.S. and European foreign policy, there is much to be said for it. The absorption of Eastern Europe in both the European Union and NATO helped consolidate market democracy. Globalization led to unprecedented growth in western economies, and facilitated the ascent of China and India, among others, taking billions of people out of poverty. Access to the international financial institutions also offered emerging powers the strategic option of exerting influence through existing institutions rather than trying to overturn them. Some policymakers and experts believe that this process holds the key to continuing great power peace and stability.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, and India

848. LOOKING TOWARD 2014

Author:
Charles E. Cook
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
It is inevitable that U.S. presidential elections get considerably more attention domestically and around the world than mid-term elections, but the latter are still extremely important; their results drive in large part the ability of a president to succeed. President Obama will be entering the 2014 midterm election with his party holding a 55-to 45-seat majority in the U.S. Senate and a 17-seat deficit in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Political Geography:
United States

849. Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism

Author:
Laura R. Olson
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
THE UNITED STATES supposedly is premised on “separation of church and state,” which means the American government should be neutral regarding religion. But is that really true? The author, a law professor and committed secularist, has strong opinions on this matter. Particularly since the 2004 presidential election that returned George W. Bush to the U.S. presidency for a second term, Ledewitz has been concerned that American secularism—both as an individual choice and a stance on the part of government—is under threat. Although the proportion of secular Americans has been growing rapidly in the twenty-first century, the successful marriage of religion and conservative politics in the U.S. might be inhibiting secularism from full acceptance as a valid alternative to religious commitment. After completing two earlier books on secularism in the U.S., Ledewitz reached the rather specific conclusion “that American constitutional law stood in the way of any serious engagement of secularism with religion” (p. xiii, emphasis mine). Thus, he sets forth in Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism to accomplish two tasks. First, he aims to detail how and why he feels current interpretation of “church-state separation” by the U.S. Supreme Court is problematic. Second, he endeavors to construct an alternative legal approach that would put religious people on common ground with secularists before the eyes of American law.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States

850. Tobias Endler, How To Be A Superpower: The Public Intellectual Debate on the Global Role of the United States after September 11

Author:
Scott Nicolas Romaniuk
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
From the great rift that has emerged between the United States (US) and much of the international community in a post-9/11 social and political landscape, a disquieting thread of schisms concerning America's political ideologies, democratic deliberation, communication and societal discourse, have seen the academy and public intellectuals seed the conditions for the adoption of the general view that the US is in decline. Establishing an edifying prism through which to engage with these and other problematic issues such as the reformulation of America's global role in the 21st century, Tobias Endler addresses the deep core of the matter by connecting with leading political thinkers and America's luminary intellectuals to consider America in the midst of an intellectual renaissance, and whether this might appropriately be taken as postmortem or rebirth.
Topic:
Communications
Political Geography:
United States