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92. "Expert Knowledge in Intelligence Assessments: Bird Flu and Bioterrorism"
- Author:
- Kathleen M. Vogel
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- In September 2011, scientists in the Netherlands announced new experimental findings that would not only threaten the conduct and publication of influenza research, but would have significant policy and intelligence implications. Ron Fouchier, an influenza virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, declared at the Fourth European Scientific Working Group on Influenza in Malta that his research group had created a modified variant of the H5N1 avian influenza virus (hereafter the H5N1 virus) that was transmissible via aerosol between ferrets. Until that point, the H5N1 virus, which can be lethal to humans, was known to be transmissible only through direct, physical contact with infected animals.
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Netherlands
93. "The Structure of Success: How the Internal Distribution of Power Drives Armed Group Behavior and National Movement Effectiveness"
- Author:
- Peter Krause
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- When do national movements succeed? Specifically, when and why does the use of violence by armed groups within such movements help to achieve their strategic objectives, such as international recognition, territorial control, and the creation of new states? Two recent struggles shed light on the debate among policymakers and scholars.
94. "Strong Armies, Slow Adaptation: Civil-Military Relations and the Diffusion of Military Power"
- Author:
- Burak Kadercan
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Why are some states more willing to adopt military innovations than others? Why, for example, were the great powers of Europe able to successfully reform their military practices to better adapt to and participate in the so-called military revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries while their most important extra- European competitor, the Ottoman Empire, failed to do so? The conventional wisdom suggests that cultural factors, including religious beliefs and a misplaced sense of superiority, blinded Ottoman rulers to the utility of innovations stemming from this military revolution, which involved radical changes in military strategy and tactics. The implication is that these rulers were almost suicidal, resisting military reforms until the early nineteenth century despite suffering continuous defeats for more than two hundred years. Such thinking follows not from a close reading of the historical and sociological literature on the Ottoman Empire, but from an Orientalist view of non-Western political organizations that plagues not only international relations theory but also military history.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
95. Primacy or World Order? The United States and China's Rise-A Review Essay
- Author:
- Yuen Foong Khong
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- One of the early exhibits of the 2010 Shanghai Expo that greeted the visitor was a display of the Chinese living room through time. What made the otherwise prosaic display rise above the ordinary was its point of departure: the year 1978. The 1978 room was dim, dowdy, and equipped with the most basic furniture, reflecting a poor household. The 1988 living room offered visible improvements, while the 1998 living room had many, but not all, of the accoutrements of the middleclass living room. The 2008 living room—whether aspiration or reality—had it all: ambient lighting, leather sofas, and a plasma television screen. The message was clear: China today would prefer not to dwell on the past; the focus needs to be on economic modernization and its payoffs that began with Deng Xiaoping's opening up of China's economy in 1978.
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
96. "Debating China's Assertiveness"
- Author:
- Alastair Iain Johnston, Xiaoyu Pu, and Dingding Chen
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- In "How New and Assertive Is China's New Assertiveness?" Iain Johnston argues that China's recent foreign policy is not as assertive as many scholars and pundits contend. Johnston's study is a welcome addition to the literature on Chinese foreign policy in three respects. First, it is the most comprehensive study by a leading China scholar on China's new assertiveness. Second, it challenges the conventional understanding that this assertiveness is both unprecedented and aggressive by design. Third, it addresses potential problems of overestimating the threat from China.
- Political Geography:
- China
97. "Correspondence: Reevaluating Foreign-Imposed Regime Change"
- Author:
- Alexander B. Downes, Jonathan Monten, and William G. Nomikos
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Alexander Downes and Jonathan Monten's article "Forced to Be Free? Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Rarely Leads to Democratization" offers important contributions to the study of foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC). The authors should be commended for their use of advanced empirical methods to tackle such an important substantive question. According to Downes and Monten, past research on the democratizing effect of foreign-imposed regime change has overemphasized the characteristics of the intervener and underemphasized the existing preconditions for democracy in the state targeted for intervention. Rather than the FIRC itself, it is these preconditions, Downes and Monten suggest, that explain whether a given state will or will not democratize. That is, their argument posits that targets of FIRC that democratize would have done so independently of the foreign intervention.
- Topic:
- Regime Change
98. Assessing Future Water Availability in Arid Regions Using Composition and Salience of Decision Criteria
- Author:
- Laura Diaz Anadon, Afreen Siddiqi, and Farah Ereiqat
- Publication Date:
- 03-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Water resources development options are usually selected on a least-cost basis. While economic considerations are dominant in choosing projects, there are also a mix of other factors including social demands, political expediency, social equity, and environmental considerations that impact final decisions and development of water supply systems. Understanding local priorities in water resource management decisions can allow for forming expectations of future regional water availability. In this research, we propose that future water availability in arid regions may be assessed by considering key projects that have been identified or planned by regional experts. Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis methods as a framework to organize set of decision criteria and their relative salience, the likelihood of selection (and development) of a project can be determined and used to form expectations of future regional water availability. We use this approach in a case study for Jordan, and find that large-scale desalination projects–that have been in the planning books for decades-are now most likely to be pursued and implemented in the country. Finally, we discuss strengths, limitations, and the general applicability of this method for assessing future water availability in other arid regions.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Environment, Natural Resources, and Water
- Political Geography:
- Middle East
99. Advancing Nuclear Security: Evaluating Progress and Setting New Goals
- Author:
- Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, Nickolas Roth, and William H. Tobey
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism has not disappeared, though the world has made important progress in reducing these risks. Urgent new steps are needed to build effective and lasting nuclear security worldwide. The nuclear security effort must now shift from short-term improvements toward a focus on a continued search for excellence, lasting as long as terrorist groups bent on mass destruction and the nuclear and radiological materials they might use both continue to exist.
- Topic:
- Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Border Control
100. Securing China's Nuclear Future
- Author:
- Hui Zhang and Tuosheng Zhang
- Publication Date:
- 03-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the threat of nuclear terrorism has become one of the most significant challenges to international security. China has worked to meet this challenge, but a continuing effort is needed. The 2010 and 2012 Nuclear Security Summits raised the issues of nuclear security to a higher political level and enhanced international consensus on the danger of nuclear terrorism. China actively participated in the first two summits, and President Xi Jinping will participate in the Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands in March 2014. China's commitment to nuclear security is now well established. Former president Hu Jintao emphasized in 2012 that, "the threat of nuclear terrorism cannot be overlooked." Meeting that threat, as President Hu recognized, "is a long and arduous task."
- Topic:
- Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Border Control
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia