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6111. 'Change we can believe in?' Barack Obama, race and the 2008 US presidential election

Author:
Kevern Verney
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article addresses two questions. It begins by comparing the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest with the 1980s campaigns of Jesse Jackson. It examines the different background and personalities of Obama and Jackson, together with an analysis of what has changed in US political life in the intervening decades, in an attempt to understand why Obama succeeded where the earlier Jackson campaigns failed. The second part of the article analyses the subsequent general election with a view to determining whether Obama's defeat of John McCain should be seen as a result of a unique set of political circumstances, or evidence of the increasing irrelevance of race in US electoral politics. In particular, this discussion assesses the validity of the claims made by some commentators that Obama's victory marks the beginning of a new 'post-racial' era in American political life.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
United States and America

6112. 'War in countries we are not at war with': The 'war on terror' on the periphery from Bush to Obama

Author:
Maria Ryan
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article examines the origins of the 'Global War on Terror' (GWoT) in peripheral locations; in other words, in countries and regions beyond Iraq and beyond Afghanistan. Although those two countries have remained the 'core' regions of the GWoT, the Bush administration also undertook many other military interventions in countries and regions in ostensibly peripheral locations under the auspices of the 'war on terror'; operations which it referred to in its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review as 'war in countries we are not at war with'. These include operations in the Horn of Africa, Georgia and the Caspian region, the Philippines and the countries across the Sahara region including Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania. This article examines these peripheral theatres in the GWoT and argues that, by its second term, the Bush administration had moved beyond a state-based worldview vis-à-vis terrorism and had truly come to understand it as a transnational problem; a protean network that should be tackled through using Special Operations Forces and unconventional warfare to wage 'war in countries we are not at war with'. The article also considers the extent to which these operations on the 'periphery' were expedient in other ways that often transcended the war on terror because they coincided with the existence of long-standing or newly identified US strategic interests. Finally, the article considers the Obama administration's continuation – and in some cases escalation – of many of the Bush administration's operations in peripheral regions, even as Obama looks to wind down the war in Iraq.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, and Georgia

6113. Culture, identity and hegemony: Continuity and (the lack of) change in US counterterrorism policy from Bush to Obama

Author:
Richard Jackson
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article explores the social and political construction of US counterterrorism policy since the onset of the war on terrorism. The first part of the article focuses on the period of the Bush administration. It explores the cultural grammar expressed in the language of the war on terror, as well as administration attempts to 'sell' the policy to the American public. In addition, it explores the ways in which the war on terror has been institutionalised in counterterrorism practices and institutions, and how it has been normalised and embedded in American popular culture and linked by the national identity narratives surrounding '9/11' and the negative ideograph of 'terrorism', to American identity. Section two of the article explores the discourse and practice of the war on terrorism in the initial period of the Obama administration. It questions the extent to which counterterrorism policy can be rewritten, given the degree to which it accords with the deep cultural grammar of American identity and is now a well-established ideograph, the extent to which it has been institutionalised in American political practice and embedded in American culture and the ways in which it is rooted in the political-economic interests of the American polity and empire. Finally, the article briefly reflects on questions of change and identity in the construction of US foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and America

6114. Between freedom and fear: Explaining the consensus on terrorism and democracy in US foreign policy

Author:
Michael J. Boyle
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Why have two successive US administrations concluded that fighting terrorism must involve democracy promotion? This assumption became prevalent in US political discourse following the events of September 11 despite the fact that the empirical evidence linking democracy and terrorism is weak or ambiguous. More strikingly, it has persisted even after the missions to establish democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to increasing violence, including a worldwide increase in terrorist attacks. This article argues that the link between democracy and terrorism was established by the combined effect of three factors: (a) the framing of the September 11 attacks in a way that increased the receptivity to this conceptual opposition between freedom and fear; (b) the ideological influence of the Wilsonian tradition, as manifested today in an unusual consensus between modern neo-conservatives and liberal internationalists on the desirability of democratic reform as a means of changing foreign policy behaviour; and (c) a powerful bipartisan domestic constituency in favour of democracy promotion. Owing to these three factors, the contraposition of democracy and terrorism in American political discourse is effectively over-determined because it mirrors the dominant ideological and political preferences of American elites. This fixed preference for democracy promotion explains why the Obama Administration has remained wedded to the binary distinction between freedom and fear in its public statements despite its efforts to break in style and substance with the policies of its predecessor.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, and America

6115. Editorial

Author:
Terry Terriff, James Keeley, and John Ferris
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The May election brought substantial change to Canada, with both a majority Conservative government and the emergence of the New Democratic Party as the Official Opposition. Whether the Liberals can, over the longer term, recover from their historic defeat remains to be seen. For the time being, however, barring a major misstep from either the Conservatives or the NDP, the Liberals, necessarily focused on rebuilding, will be less of a factor in defence policy.
Political Geography:
Canada

6116. Violent Conflicts as an impediment to the Achievement of Millennium Development Goals in Africa.

Author:
Dickson Ogbonnaya Igwe
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are an international commitment to the reduction of poverty and to promoting human development across the planet. The goals are measurable targets attached to a timeframe for making a difference in the lives of billions of people. In September 2000, over 189 member states at the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the MDGs. The goals are also recognition of the fact that 60 years after the end of World War II, the world remains far from achieving the ideals of peace and prosperity inspired by the end of that global conflict. The MDGs provide a strategic framework for developing, implementing and monitoring poverty-eradication programs at national and international levels.
Topic:
Development and War
Political Geography:
Africa and United Nations

6117. Don't Expect Much from Japan in the Indian Ocean

Author:
Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Japan is an Indian Ocean power of long standing. Ten years ago, in a post-9/11 show of solidarity with the United States and to exercise a more muscular foreign policy, Tokyo committed vessels of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF, or MSDF) to the coalition naval contingent supporting combat operations in Afghanistan. JMSDF tankers resupplied coalition warships, while Aegis destroyers guarded against air and surface threats in the Arabian Sea. Japanese seamen posted impressive statistics for this naval enterprise. The Japan Ministry of Defense reported that JMSDF vessels supplied about 137 million gallons of fuel oil and some 2.8 gallons of water to customers from about a dozen countries, including the United States, Pakistan, France, Britain, and Germany. Tokyo spent over $110 million on the logistics mission in its final two years according to Defense Ministry spokesmen, even as demand for such support dwindled.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Britain, Afghanistan, United States, Japan, India, France, Arabia, Germany, and Tokyo

6118. The Idea of a Strategist's Education

Author:
Steven Anthony Pomeroy
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
This essay adopted from “Ancient Alexandria, Alexander, and History: The Relevance of Humanistic Thought in the Contemporary Strategic Environment,” a talk the author gave on December 28, 2009, Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The comments herein are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Unites States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government. The author wishes to thank the following professors: Colonel (Dr.) Thomas A. Drohan, Dr. James R. Titus, and Dr. John Farquhar of the Military and Strategic Studies Department at the United States Air Force Academy. The comments herein are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government. Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), 406. Contending that nuclear weapons had fundamentally changed the character, if not the nature, of warfare, Brodie emphasized the importance of rigor and a scientific approach to strategic problem solving in the nuclear era.
Topic:
Climate Change, Education, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States and Colorado

6119. A Role for Effects-Based Planning in a National Security Framework

Author:
Brad Gladman and Peter Archambault
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Modern operations, both domestic and expeditionary, share much with those of the past in that they require the application of both civil and military power to shape the operating environment towards the desired end state. Recently, two related concepts have been developed to codify the best practices related to resolving crises and conflicts through the coordinated use of a variety of levers of power. Of course, the extent to which this process should be considered conceptual is open to question, given that it reflects only what competent civilian and military leaders have always sought to accomplish. Nonetheless, there is broad intuitive acceptance that the Comprehensive Approach (CA) or Whole of Government (WoG) approach is a strategic level framework for the coordination of all elements of national or coalition power, with an Effects-Based Approach to Operations (EBAO) being the military contribution to the larger effort.
Topic:
Government and National Security

6120. The Evolving Arctic Operating Environment: Implications for Defence

Author:
Donald A. Neill
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Effective planning for DND/CF activities in the arctic operating environment requires as reliable an understanding as may reasonably be achieved of what that environment is likely to be, and how it is likely to evolve, throughout the planning period in question. This is complicated by the inherently unpredictable nature of climate; as the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acknowledged, ‚in climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.‛
Topic:
Climate Change and Environment
Political Geography:
United Nations