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412. Japan-Korea Relations: No Signs of Improvement over the Summer
- Author:
- Jiun Bang and David C. Kang
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Comparative Connections
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- South Korea-Japan relations have been frozen for some time and despite the summer heat, no thaw appears likely anytime soon. Although economic interactions continue to deepen between the two countries, and although there is a clear desire – and even a need – to coordinate policies toward North Korea and China, the two countries appear more focused on other issues as their main foreign policy priorities in the short-term. The two recently elected leaders have yet to meet for a summit, a sign that even a symbolic attempt to repair relations is proving difficult. Japanese Prime Minister Abe has grown stronger with a rousing Liberal Democratic Party victory in Upper House elections, yet a number of rhetorical controversies kept attention focused on Abe's foreign policy, particularly toward Korea and China. To date not much has changed and there is little evidence that either Seoul or Tokyo desires improved relations.
- Topic:
- Human Rights and War
- Political Geography:
- Japan, America, and South Korea
413. Why States Won't Give Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists
- Author:
- Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- For the last two decades, U.S. leaders have focused on the possibility of nuclear terrorism as a serious threat to the United States. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, those fears grew even more acute. In his State of the Union Address four months after the attacks, President George W. Bush warned a worried nation that rogue states “could provide [weapons of mass destruction] to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred.” Both Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice amplified the president's warning in order to justify the war against Iraq. According to Rice, “Terrorists might acquire such weapons from [Saddam Hussein's] regime, to mount a future attack far beyond the scale of 9/11. This terrible prospect could not be ignored or wished away.” Such fears continue to shape policy debates today: in particular, advocates of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities often justify a strike based on the idea that Iran might give nu-clear weapons to terrorist groups. Even President Barack Obama, who as a senator opposed the war against Iraq, declared, “The American people face no greater or more urgent danger than a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon.” For U.S. leaders, the sum of all fears is that an enemy might give nuclear weapons to terrorists. But are those fears well founded?
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, America, and Iran
414. The Politics of Visas
- Author:
- Kristian P. Alexander, Adam Luedke, and Douglas G. Byrd
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
- Abstract:
- In February 2008, the province of Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. In an effort to facilitate Kosovo's independence and influence the January presidential elections in Serbia, pro-Western and EU policymakers frantically attempted to offer “carrots” to the Serbian leadership. One of these carrots was the prospect of visa free travel to the EU. Unlike Americans, Canadians, and citizens of other developed countries, Serbs could not enter the EU without first obtaining a visa at an EU consulate in their home country.
- Political Geography:
- America and Canada
415. Creating Technological Momentum: Lessons from American and Danish Wind Energy Research
- Author:
- Benjamin K. Sovakool and Janet L. Sawin
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
- Abstract:
- Are researchers, public policymakers, and political scientists aware of the factors that lead to the successful diffusion of energy technology? In attempting to address energy and climate challenges, the research process in the United States and other industrialized countries has often been rooted in distinct assumptions concerning science, technology, methodology, scale of implementation, and agents of action. Many researchers, directors, and even scholars have implicitly promoted a linear model of technological development that views government-funded programs as the ideal means of developing new technologies and systems and prioritizes economies of scale and centralization of the research process to achieve ever-larger units. According to this paradigm, the government's role is to eliminate obstacles to energy development and work with large corporations to prepare new technologies for entry into the market.
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
416. The Promise and the Peril: The Social Construction of American Military Technology
- Author:
- Michael Mosser
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
- Institution:
- School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
- Abstract:
- Since at least World War II, dominance in technology has been central to American conceptions of military power and doctrine. While the Sherman tank's chief 'technological' advantage over its German counterparts was its production volume, the B-29's technological advances—such as a pressurized cabin and remote controlled guns—made it particularly well-suited to the Pacific theater bombing campaign. Its technology meant it could fly higher and farther with more payload than earlier American bombers, enabling the US Army Air Forces to hit the Japanese home islands from bases farther out and with fewer losses from anti-aircraft fire or enemy fighter attacks.
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
417. The Civil-Military Challenge to National Security Spending
- Author:
- Anthony H. Cordesman
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Perhaps the worst part of the debate that has led to the shut down of the federal government is its almost total irrelevance. It threaten both the US economy and US national security, but it does even begin to touch upon the forces that shape the rise in entitlements spending or their underlying causes.The Congressional debate does not address the forces that have led to a form of sequestration that focuses on defense as if it were the key cause of the deficit and pressures on the debt ceiling. It does not address the irony that much of defense spending has direct benefits to the US economy and that the spending on foreign wars–the so-called OCO account–dropped from $158.8 billion in FY2011 to some $88.5 billion in FY2013, and is projected to drop to around $37 billion in FY2015. Much of the debate focuses on the Affordable Care Act or "Obama Care"–a program whose balance between federal expenditures and revenues is sufficiently uncertain so the Congressional Budget office can only make limited forecasts, but whose net impact cannot come close to the cost pressures that an aging America and rising national medical costs have put on Federal entitlements in the worst case NDS May actually have a positive impact in the best case.The following briefing provides a range of estimates that addresses the real issues that are shaping the overall pressures that poverty, an aging America, and rising medical costs are putting on the US economy and federal spending. It draws on a range of sources to show how different estimates affect key trends, but focuses on data provide by a neutral arm of the same Congress that has paralyzed the US government and whose action threaten the funding on a viable national security strategy.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Economics, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
418. Elusive Victories: The American Presidency at War
- Author:
- William G. Howell
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- American wars waged by American presidents have come at such great cost. Repeatedly, our commanders - in - chief have failed to deliver on their inflated promises when deploying troops abroad. The events of war regularly have overtaken even the most - meticulous planning, hemming in the military and frustrating civilian commanders. When choosing and then conducting wars, presidents have either ignored or misinterpreted historical precedents. Fixated on the prerequisites of victory, meanwhile, presidents have not planned adequately for the peace, and have then watched the unraveling of their wartime accomplishments acquired with so much blood and treasure.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- America
419. Obama and China's Rise: An Insider's Account of America's Asia Strategy
- Author:
- Peter Trubowitz
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In this crisply written account of U.S. foreign policy toward Asia, Jeffrey Bader gives the reader an insider's view of policymaking in the administration of Barack Obama. Bader served as the senior director for East Asian Affairs on the National Security Council from January 2009 to April 2011. He is well placed to discuss policy deliberations on Asiaâ?Pacific matters, and he ably chronicles many of the challenges that Obama faced during the period from the diplomatic crisis sparked by the North Korean sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan in March 2010, to the tensions between China and its Asian neighbors over maritime rights and territory in the South China Seas, to the Fukushima nuclear meltdown triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami that walloped Japan in March 2011.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- China, America, and Asia
420. U.S. Students in China: Meeting the Goals of the 100,000 Strong Initiative
- Author:
- Raisa Belyavina
- Publication Date:
- 01-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of International Education
- Abstract:
- The 100,000 Strong Initiative, announced in November 2009 by President Obama, aims to increase to 100,000 the cumulative number of Americans studying in China over a four - year period. While the number of American students studying abroad for credit in Chin a has increased nearly fivefold in the last decade, the types of educational experiences undertaken by American students going abroad have changed as well. More than ever before, American students are going abroad on shorter, not - for - credit programs such a s study tours, internships, and volunteering abroad. The 100,000 Strong Initiative encourages all types of educational experiences for students in U.S. high schools, colleges, and universities.
- Topic:
- Education, Foreign Exchange, International Cooperation, and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, America, and Israel