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151. China, the Italian Prejudice

Author:
Francesco Sisci
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Italy's political vision of China has been tainted by prejudice. In past decades, before China's rapid development, it was a positive prejudice. People on the right saw China as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, people on the left viewed it as model of socialism. In recent years, the prejudice has changed in nature. Those on the right, defending Italy's small and medium-sized enterprises beleaguered by Chinese competition, accuse Beijing of unfair trade practices, those on the left, fearing that workers might lose their jobs to China, blame Beijing for exploiting workers. In either case, Italy is not interested in discovering the true reality of China, which remains an exotic mystery. This lack of knowledge is the root of Italy's policy problems with China.
Political Geography:
China, Shanghai, Beijing, Soviet Union, and Italy

152. The Russia File

Author:
Robert Legvold
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Reversing the collapse of U.S.-Russian relations is one of the great tests facing the Obama administration. Among the major powers, Russia is the hard case. And the stakes involved in getting U.S.-Russian relations right are high -- much higher than the leadership of either country has acknowledged or perhaps even realized so far. If the Obama administration can guide the relationship onto a more productive path, as it is trying to do, it will not only open the way for progress on the day's critical issues -- from nuclear security and energy security to climate change and peaceful change in the post-Soviet area -- but also be taking on a truly historic task. One of the blessings of the post-Cold War era has been the absence of strategic rivalry among great powers, a core dynamic of the previous 300 years in the history of international relations. Should it return, some combination of tensions between the United States, Russia, and China would likely be at its core. Ensuring that this does not happen constitutes the less noticed but more fateful foreign policy challenge facing this U.S. president and the next.
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, and Soviet Union

153. Turkey and Armenia: Opening Minds, Opening Borders

Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Turkey and Armenia are close to settling a dispute that has long roiled Caucasus politics, isolated Armenia and cast a shadow over Turkey's European Union (EU) ambition. For a decade and a half, relations have been poisoned by disagreement about issues including how to address a common past and compensate for crimes, territorial disputes, distrust bred in Soviet times and Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani land. But recently, progressively intense official engagement, civil society interaction and public opinion change have transformed the relationship, bringing both sides to the brink of an historic agreement to open borders, establish diplomatic ties and begin joint work on reconciliation. They should seize this opportunity to normalise. The politicised debate whether to recognise as genocide the destruction of much of the Ottoman Armenian population and the stalemated Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh should not halt momentum. The U.S., EU, Russia and others should maintain support for reconciliation and avoid harming it with statements about history at a critical and promising time.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Genocide, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Turkey, Caucasus, Asia, Soviet Union, Armenia, and Azerbaijan

154. The United States, India, and Global Governance: Can They Work Together?

Author:
Teresita C. Schaffer
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Two snapshots convey the flavor of India's pursuit of a larger role in global governing councils. The first dates from India's most recent accession for a two-year term to the United Nations Security Council in January 1991, just as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was coming apart and the end of the Cold War was in sight. The first major issue to come before the council was the package of resolutions that would end the first Iraq war. Harried Indian diplomats, faced with draft resolutions being pressed on them with great insistence by their U.S. counterparts, spoke of their need to ''find the non-aligned consensus.'' Whatever decision India made was bound to alienate an international constituency it cared about. For Indian officials, this moment captured both the advantages and drawbacks of participating in the world's decisionmaking. The then—Indian ambassador to the United States, Abid Hussein, expressed considerable frustration in a private conversation with me at the time: ''Do you realize that we will have to do this for two years?''
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, India, and Soviet Union

155. A Profile of the TTP's New Leader: Hakimullah Mehsud

Author:
Mukhtar A. Khan
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
On OCTOBER 17, 2009, Pakistan's military launched a new offensive in South Waziristan Agency, the stronghold of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The offensive comes in the wake of a series of major attacks launched by suspected TTP militants, including an October 5 suicide attack on a United Nations office in Islamabad, and the audacious October 10 assault on the military's General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. In the days before the October 17 offensive, the TTP warned Pakistan's government that any assault on South Waziristan would result in increased attacks on civilian and military targets in Pakistan. On October 28, the TTP seemed to deliver on its threat. The group was blamed for a powerful car bomb that killed more than 100 people in Peshawar just hours after the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Islamabad.
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Soviet Union, and United Nations

156. Losing Controls

Author:
Mitchel B. Wallerstein
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Since the early days of the Cold War, the United States has restricted the export of certain advanced technologies and the sharing of sensitive scientific and technical information with foreign nationals. Initially, these restrictions were justified on the grounds that the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies were engaged -- through fronts, third parties, and outright espionage -- in a systematic effort to buy or steal information, technology, and equipment developed in the West that they could then use in their own military systems. Because Soviet industry could not design or produce certain high-tech products, such as personal computers or sophisticated machine tools, the Soviets were forced to obtain them by other means. By successfully denying technology to the Soviet Union, the United States enabled NATO to maintain a strategic and tactical advantage without having to match the Warsaw Pact nations' troop strength in the field. Yet 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and long after the Soviet Union ceased to exist, the same system of export controls remains in place. It has only become more arcane and ineffective with time. U.S. export controls have survived largely because of outdated "fortress America" thinking -- the view that the United States is the primary source of most militarily useful scientific ideas and products and that it can continue to deny technology to potential adversaries without seriously damaging the global competitiveness of U.S. companies or, in the end, jeopardizing national security. In an earlier era, when the United States was far more economically and technologically dominant, the costs associated with a technology-denial strategy were easier to absorb. But in today's highly competitive world, the business lost due to export controls poses a threat to the well-being of key U.S. industries; estimated losses range as high as $9 billion per year.
Topic:
NATO and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Soviet Union

157. "Can't Buy Me Love": Will the global economic downturn help Russia consolidate its influence in post-Soviet Eurasia?

Author:
Igor Torbakov and Vadim Kononenko
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
As the Kremlin believes that the global economic downturn is increasing the trend towards greater regionalism, the strategic conclusion is to strengthen Russia's position as the centre of its "own region" - post-Soviet Eurasia. In order to enhance its geopolitical posture in the ex-Soviet area, Russia has been pursuing a two- track policy: it is buying up assets from, and giving out loans to, its distressed neighbours on a massive scale. Several forces appear to be working at cross-purposes with the Kremlin's ambitions: 1) the state of Russia's own economic system; 2) the wiliness and cunning maneuvering of Moscow's "allies"; and 3) the growing competition on the part of the other centres of power - the European Union and China. Ultimately, the Kremlin's desperate efforts to turn Russia into a geopolitical leader of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) are likely to be frustrated by Russia's lack of a coherent long-term strategy and by its socio-political system's dearth of appeal.
Topic:
Globalization and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

158. India's Strategic Defense Transformation: Expanding Global Relationships

Author:
Brian K. Hedrick
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Following India's independence in 1947, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru embarked on a foreign policy that was based on principles of socialism and remaining noncommittal to the emerging struggle between the Soviet Union and the countries forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the post-World War II period. Eventually, this policy led to India becoming one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1955. In practical terms, it placed India in a position of securing bilateral international commitments only in situations that were clearly neutral in nature or in cases of lastresort. The basic principles of nonalignment also governed the military relationships of the Indian defense establishment, resulting in limited military-tomilitary contacts, usually through United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions or training at foreign military schools. These practices were generally followed by his successors until the early 1990s when a changing geopolitical structure and an internal economic crisis began to challenge these principles.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
India, Soviet Union, and United Nations

159. David J. Galbreath, Nation-Building and Minority Politics in Post-Socialist States. Interests, Influences, and Identities in Estonia and Latvia

Author:
Gabriella Borgovan
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, former Soviet Republics were facing the challenge of building/rebuilding a nation. Authoritarianism, colonialism and command economy were dropped on behalf of democracy, de-colonization and market economy. This affected not only the newly nationalizing states, including the case studies presented in this book, Estonia and Latvia, but also the “25 million Russophones living outside Russia”. The nation-building process was a result of historical grievances from the part of the titular communities, which lead to nationalist movements and to a growing importance of ethnicity in politics.
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, Estonia, and Latvia

160. Russia Reborn

Author:
Dmitri V. Trenin
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Two decades after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and nearly 20 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has shed communism and lost its historical empire. But it has not yet found a new role. Instead, it sits uncomfortably on the periphery of both Europe and Asia while apprehensively rubbing shoulders with the Muslim world. Throughout the 1990s, Moscow attempted to integrate into, and then with, the West. These efforts failed, both because the West lacked the will to adopt Russia as one of its own and because Russian elites chose to embrace a corporatist and conservative policy agenda at home and abroad. As a result, in the second presidential term of Vladimir Putin, Russia abandoned its goal of joining the West and returned to its default option of behaving as an independent great power. It redefined its objectives: soft dominance in its immediate neighborhood; equality with the world's principal power centers, China, the European Union, and the United States; and membership in a global multipolar order. Half a decade later, this policy course has revealed its failures and flaws. Most are rooted in the Russian government's inability and unwillingness to reform the country's energy-dependent economy, the noncompetitive nature of Russian politics, and a trend toward nationalism and isolationism. In terms of foreign policy, Russia's leaders have failed to close the book on the lost Soviet empire. It is as if they exited the twentieth century through two doors at the same time: one leading to the globalized market of the twenty-first century and the other opening onto the Great Game of the nineteenth century. As the current global economic crisis has demonstrated, the model that Russia's contemporary leaders have chosen -- growth without development, capitalism without democracy, and great-power policies without international appeal -- cannot hold forever. Not only will Russia fail to achieve its principal foreign policy objectives, it will fall further behind in a world increasingly defined by instant communication and open borders, leading to dangers not merely to its status but also to its existence. Russia's foreign policy needs more than a reset: it requires a new strategy and new policy instruments and mechanisms to implement it.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, United States, and Soviet Union