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121. ISIS global strategy: A wargame

Author:
Harleen Gambhir
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for the Study of War
Abstract:
The United States currently faces multiple national security threats in an environment of growing disorder. ISIS is executing a sophisticated global strategy that involves simultaneous efforts in Iraq and Syria, the Middle East and North Africa, and the wider world. Homegrown terrorism is increasing in the U.S. and Europe. Civil wars are intensifying in Ukraine, Yemen, and Libya, while the U.S. attempts to pivot to the Asia-Pacific. In this complex environment, it is difficult for policymakers to discern the consequences of action or inaction even in the near future.
Topic:
International Relations and International Security
Political Geography:
Global Focus

122. American Views of the United Nations

Author:
Dina Smeltz
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Abstract:
The 69‎th session of UN General Assembly is being held against the backdrop of international crises that include the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, ISIS military gains in Iraq and Syria, and continuing negotiations with Iran. According to the recently released 2014 Chicago Council Survey of American opinion on foreign policy, majorities are confident in the UN’s ability to carry out humanitarian efforts and peacekeeping. They are more skeptical, however, of the UN’s effectiveness when it comes to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, resolving international conflicts, and sanctioning countries that violate international law.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

123. The New Challenges to the EuroAmerican Relationship: Russia and the Middle East

Author:
Guido Lenzi
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
We have not reached the “end of history”, but this is one of its crossroads, a hinge, like Westphalia in 1648, Vienna in 1815, Versailles in 1919, San Francisco 1in 1945 (or the soon forgotten Paris in 1990). We are all, in other words, once again „present at the creation‟. Not much further than the square one that Roosevelt and Truman established seventy years ago. The “winds of change” that Harold MacMillan detected in 19561 are blowing anew. International relations have to cope with unprecedented situations, in what is essentially a systemic transition from traditional power-politics to global cooperative endeavors. Having discovered that military might is not decisive anymore, that deterrence cannot apply to non-state troublemakers and terrorists, and that, both regionally and globally, self-protective instincts prevail over international solidarity. While borders do not mean much anymore, state sovereignty makes a comeback. A mixture of inherent contradictions, that only a new international paradigmcan cope with, and that only „the West‟ appears able, if less willing, to provide
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Global Focus

124. Gendering Global Conflict: Toward a Feminist Theory of War

Author:
Laura Sjoberg
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Laura Sjoberg positions gender and gender subordination as key factors in the making and fighting of global conflict. Through the lens of gender, she examines the meaning, causes, practices, and experiences of war, building a more inclusive approach to the analysis of violent conflict between states. Considering war at the international, state, substate, and individual levels, Sjoberg's feminist perspective elevates a number of causal variables in war decision-making. These include structural gender inequality, cycles of gendered violence, state masculine posturing, the often overlooked role of emotion in political interactions, gendered understandings of power, and states' mistaken perception of their own autonomy and unitary nature. Gendering Global Conflict also calls attention to understudied spaces that can be sites of war, such as the workplace, the household, and even the bedroom. Her findings show gender to be a linchpin of even the most tedious and seemingly bland tactical and logistical decisions in violent conflict. Armed with that information, Sjoberg undertakes the task of redefining and reintroducing critical readings of war's political, economic, and humanitarian dimensions, developing the beginnings of a feminist theory of war.
Topic:
International Relations, Gender Issues, War, International Security, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231520003
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

125. “Güvenlik İkilemi”ni Yeniden Düşünmek Güvenlik Çalışmalarında Yeni Bir Perspektif

Author:
Ali Bilgiç
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
Th is article will discuss the concept of “security dilemma”, which was conceptualized sixty years ago, but has been enriched and recently re-thought, in three periods. In the first period, the concept was formulated based on the security understanding dominating the Cold War era. The second period is the one during which the concept was enriched in conjunction with emerging problems in world politics and the broadened security understanding in the discipline of International Relations. In the last period, the concept was completely re-thought and fed by new ideas. Among these new ideas, the concept of “trust” was offered as a way of transcending security dilemmas. The re-generated version of “security dilemma” presents a new perspective to understand, study, and re-think what security and insecurity mean in world politics.
Topic:
International Relations, International Security, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Global Focus

126. Rethinking International Cooperation: The Case of Regulatory Networks in Competition Policy

Author:
Umut Aydin
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
In the last few decades, globalization has led to the emergence of complex international problems and new methods of cooperation to deal with them such as Transnational Regulatory Networks (TRNs). In this article I argue that dominant rationalist theories of International Relations such as neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism have difficulty accounting for the emergence of TRNS and their effects on state behavior. Thus, there is an increasing need to rethink our concepts and theories of international cooperation with the spread of TRNs. 6 e article explores this argument by focusing on cooperation on competition policy in the International Competition Network.
Topic:
International Relations, International Cooperation, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

127. The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory

Author:
Nicolas Guilhot
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
The 1954 conference on theory, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, featured a who’s who of scholars and practitioners debating the foundations of international relations theory. Assembling his own team of experts, all of whom have struggled with this legacy, Nicolas Guilhot revisits a seminal event and its odd rejection of scientific rationalism. Far from being a spontaneous development, these essays argue, the emergence of a “realist” approach to international politics, later codified at the conference, was deliberately triggered by the Rockefeller Foundation. The organization was an early advocate of scholars who opposed the idea of a “science” of politics, pursuing, for the sake of disciplinary autonomy, a vision of politics as a prerational and existential dimension that could not be “solved” by scientific means. As a result, this nascent theory was more a rejection of behavioral social science than the birth of one of its specialized branches. The archived conversations reproduced here, along with unpublished papers by Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Nitze, speak to this defensive stance. International relations theory is critically linked to the context of postwar liberalism, and the contributors explore how these origins have played out in political thought and American foreign policy.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Theory, and History
Political Geography:
Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231526449
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

128. Governance Without a State?: Policies and Politics in Areas of Limited Statehood

Author:
Thomas Risse
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Governance discourse centers on an “ideal type” of modern statehood that exhibits full internal and external sovereignty and a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. Yet modern statehood is an anomaly, both historically and within the contemporary international system, while the condition of “limited statehood,” wherein countries lack the capacity to implement central decisions and monopolize force, is the norm. Limited statehood, argue the authors in this provocative collection, is in fact a fundamental form of governance, immune to the forces of economic and political modernization. Challenging common assumptions about sovereign states and the evolution of modern statehood, particularly the dominant paradigms supported by international relations theorists, development agencies, and international organizations, this volume explores strategies for effective and legitimate governance within a framework of weak and ineffective state institutions. Approaching the problem from the perspectives of political science, history, and law, contributors explore the factors that contribute to successful governance under conditions of limited statehood. These include the involvement of nonstate actors and nonhierarchical modes of political influence. Empirical chapters analyze security governance by nonstate actors, the contribution of publicprivate partnerships to promote the United Nations Millennium Goals, the role of business in environmental governance, and the problems of Western state-building efforts, among other issues. Recognizing these forms of governance as legitimate, the contributors clarify the complexities of a system the developed world must negotiate in the coming century.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Theory, and History
Political Geography:
Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231521871
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

129. American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security

Author:
Richard K. Betts
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
While American national security policy has grown more interventionist since the Cold War, Washington has also hoped to shape the world on the cheap. Misled by the stunning success against Iraq in 1991, administrations of both parties have pursued ambitious aims with limited force, committing the country's military frequently yet often hesitantly, with inconsistent justification. These ventures have produced strategic confusion, unplanned entanglements, and indecisive results. This collection of essays by Richard K. Betts, a leading international politics scholar, investigates the use of American force since the end of the Cold War, suggesting guidelines for making it more selective and successful. Betts brings his extensive knowledge of twentieth century American diplomatic and military history to bear on the full range of theory and practice in national security, surveying the Cold War roots of recent initiatives and arguing that U.S. policy has always been more unilateral than liberal theorists claim. He exposes mistakes made by humanitarian interventions and peace operations; reviews the issues raised by terrorism and the use of modern nuclear, biological, and cyber weapons; evaluates the case for preventive war, which almost always proves wrong; weighs the lessons learned from campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam; assesses the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia; quells concerns about civil-military relations; exposes anomalies within recent defense budgets; and confronts the practical barriers to effective strategy. Betts ultimately argues for greater caution and restraint, while encouraging more decisive action when force is required, and he recommends a more dispassionate assessment of national security interests, even in the face of global instability and unfamiliar threats.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Theory, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231521888
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

130. Security Matters

Author:
Centre for European Security Studies
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for European Security Studies
Abstract:
Central Asia presents a broad spectrum of security challenges. These range from religious terrorism, organised crime and simmering ethnic quarrels to endemic corruption, environmental decline and a disintegrating infrastructure. Besides, the danger of instability is heightened by a lurking receptiveness to religious extremism among returned migrants.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus